Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 for Canon 1300D - Notice a half oval shape shadow (small) with flash click

[jeet]

I recently purchased Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 lens for my 1300D Cannon SLR. I notice a half oval shape shadow (small) in the bottom line of the picture is coming when I click any photo with flash. I have tried click without lens hood but it is still coming. The clear photo is only coming if I click photo without flash. If I zoom the lens till 16mm and click with flash then a tiny shadow appears. Without flash, it is working perfectly fine. One of my friend experience the same issue with canon 70-300mm lens. 

Can anyone help me how to fix this shadow issue? Is this a flash problem or will I need to check my camera to service centre? Or is this a manufacture issue with EOS 1300D? Please help.

[kvbarkley]

Can you post an example. It sounds like the flash is being blocked by the lens. The only solution is to get a flash bracket that can physically move the flash off the camera.

[jeet]

Sure. Here are the photos which I have clicked with flash and without flash. You can easily find a ovel shape shadow coming to the bottom section of the image when i clicked with flash.

Is flash bracket help me to remove this shadow? If so, then where I can get this? My 1300D has inbuilt flash, so external flash will help me to remove this shadow? 

This image clicked with Flash

=========

This is without Flash: 

[jrhoffman75]

Yes, its the shadow of the lens.

[RobertTheFat]

The good news is that using an external speedlite usually puts enough distance between the lens and the flash head to cure that problem. As lenses get larger and larger, built-in flashes become less and less useful.

[jeet]

I got your point, thanks. So, if anyone go with Canon SLR instead of Nikon, then extra money will be gone from his/her pocket to buying a speedlight / external flash to resolve this issue? Can you tell me which canon SLR model dose not have this kind of inbuilt defects.

[Ray-uk]

You will get this problem with all DSLRs that have a built in flash, it is not an inbuilt defect and it is not just Canon cameras, every camera make will give the same effect.

The inbuilt flash is designed to work with the standard lens, if you fit a physically larger lens then it will cause this problem. The inbuilt flash is really meant to provide you with a useable light source for basic photography, if you are going to upgrade to other lenses then you need to upgrade to an external flash as well.

[TCampbell]

It's not a defect - camera brand has nothing to do with it (you'd have the same issue with a Nikon).  Nikon has their built-in flash in precisely the same spot as Canon.

You're using a very wide lens and your'e at the 11mm focal length in the flash shot.  That's so very wide that shadows are going to show up.  If you were using, say, the standard 18-55m kit zoom, you probably wouldn't see the issue because the area where the shadow is showing up probably wouldn't be in the frame.  This same shadow issue also sometimes happens when people have particularly large lenses that stick out a bit more than most.

LIghting makes a big difference in the quality of a photo... but oddly it's not so much the "light" that matters... it's more the "shadows" that photographers are going for.  You can't have good light without good shadow.  Photographers typically want the light to originate from some off-axis location (not straight on) and also usually want the light to originate from a physically large (broad) source ... not a pin-point source.   A pin-point light source will create shadows will a strongly defined light/shadow edge.  A broad light source will create light that has a gentle transition from light to shadow.  It's that gentle transition that the photographers want.  So they use off-camera lighting, set a bit over to the sides, and shoot through a broad source such as a soft-box or maybe even a shoot-through umbrella.

The built-in flash is a good "fill" flash (I'd use it in daytime to decrease the strength of shadows created when shooting people in sunlight).  But keep in mind the subject should be reasonably close ... it's not a "big" flash and it doesn't pump out a lot of light (subjects should ideally be maybe 10' away... or closer.)

The built-in pop-up flash has some situations where it's useful, but it isn't nearly as versatile as an external flash (and it isn't meant to be).   

[RobertTheFat]

Note that Canon doesn't even bother to provide a built-in flash on their professional DSLRs (i.e., anything from a 5D on up). They know that pros wouldn't use it, so they take the position that the space can be better utilized in some other way. A pro camera already weighs enough, and costs enough, that anything that isn't particularly useful might as well be left off.

EDIT:  Come to think of it, the 7D Mark II, which qualifies as a professional camera, does have a built-in flash, for whatever difference it makes. I don't believe my wife has ever used the built-in flash on her 7D2.

[kvbarkley]

I think the key is that the 7D flash can be an on board Optical Master, which can be very convenient.

And does the 7D use a prism or mirrors for the viewfinder. Could be that pro cameras with prisms don't have room for a cobra flash.