If you're a sports fan, you've probably noticed that each big play at a night game ignites a thousand camera flashes in the grandstand. Professional photographers joke about the phenomenon, because they know most of those photos won't come out. They know that there's just no way such a small flash can light a stadium.

Alas, your point-and-shoot has no way of knowing that the subject is too far away to light. It just sees the lack of adequate illumination and flashes blithely away. It pumps out every particle of light it can muster, but just overexposes the heads of the people in front of you, turning them into hairless wonders. Distant sports action ends up darker than the mood of a losing quarterback.

What to do? Just turn the flash off! Don't be shy. Press the flash mode button until the LCD panel shows a lightning bolt slashed through by the universal "no" symbol — a circle around a diagonal line. On some models the canceled bolt may also be accompanied by a moon or start symbol. Whatever the icon, the idea is that you're turning the flash off in dim light — oddly enough, in light that would otherwise cause it to fire automatically.

Here are some other times and places when and where you should also consider setting the flash-off mode:

• When you're shooting far-away subjects that would otherwise automatically trigger the flash — a landscape at dusk, for example.
• When the quality of light is an essential part of the picture that you want to create.
• When you're shooting through a window.