Flashes and Shadows

Another story about never stop asking your qns.... :))

This is not about the shot below, but the shadows in it:

Lipika asked why the shadows are on the right side of the guy on left but on the left side of the guy on right - well, I initially dismissed the qn thinking thats the way it is, i never moved the camera or flash between shots!

Somewhere mid way thru the day, it struck me why...tried out a couple other shots and looks like i got a valid theory :)

This is how the camera lens and flash looks:

Basically, the flash is smaller than the width of the lens. So when doing wider angle shots, the right edge of the lens which focuses on the left end of the frame is way outside the point where the flash is triggered. If we draw that out, you can see that the shadow will always appear towards the inside of the subject on either side of the center of the frame...

Here is what i drew out of the initial shot setting:

as you can see, the camera sees both me and the shadow towards the center side of the frame...same for another subject on the opposite side....