One of the photography skills I want to work on is learning to use fill flash. My Fujifilm camera has a setting in which it shoots two sequential images, one without the flash and one with the flash. I recently decided to play around with it while shooting some cactus plants in bright sunlight; in some cases, I couldn’t see any difference with the flash and without. But some of the images looked much better with the flash.

No flash — the bright colors are emphasized

With flash — I notice more detail, like the white spots

Without flash

With flash; I think this one has more texture and color

Most of my favorite shots were the ones where the flash fired, deepening the colors and emphasizing the small details.

But not all of my images needed the flash to look good, like these last three.