Built in flash

I am always reluctant to use the built in flash on the camera. The reason I hate using that flash is because it always gives a very harsh image. The objects just got lightened up unevenly. And one thing I cannot understand, since the camera manufacturers are making DSLR to have pop up flash, why can't they just make it pointing upward, instead of pointing directly to the objects...

Anyway, this photo was taken with the built in flash. Wedding dinner will always have low lighting and I have no choice to use the flash. At that time, I did not have an external flash and I was using kit lens to shoot. I boosted the ISO to 1600, f stop to 3.5 (biggest aperture that kit lens is capable of), and managed to get 1/50 sec shutter speed. To make the photo less harsh (or so I think), I stepped backward and tried to keep as far away as I could from the objects.


The harsh effect on this photo was not that bad (I guess keeping a certain distance from the object does help). I have to use 18mm focal length to achieve f3.5 (kit lens). Therefore, the photo I took actually covered much bigger space than this photo. I cropped the photo to remove the unwanted space.

Album: http://picasaweb.google.com/kcshashin/WeddingShots21Feb2009