Tangents

favorite recent images – portraits of a bride

July 25, 2010

I frequently post a favorite image from the past weekend. This time, I’d like to post a few images. All are portraits of the bride, Denise, on her wedding day. This might show some of my approach and style in wedding portraits …

portraits of a bride

This first photo was an impromptu photo of Denise as we were going down in the elevator. I turned my flash around and bounced it into the elevator above and behind me. I asked her to lean back into the corner of the elevator. The composition was purposely diagonal to make use of the strong lines in the frame.

camera settings: 1/160 @ f4.5 @ 1000 ISO; TTL bounce flash
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 … at 26mm

A more formal portrait from earlier the day in her bedroom. I aimed for a classically elegant pose. The lighting – daylight from camera left through the window; TTL flash bounced to my right and slightly towards the bride. The flash was flagged with the black foamie thing.

camera settings: 1/160 @ f4 @ 800 ISO; TTL bounce flash
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 … at 50mm

A similar pose – again aiming for the classically elegant – but in an entirely different setting and with different light. To counter-act the bright sunlight as much as I could with a mere speedlight that I am bouncing into the large room, I went to 1/250th immediately, and set my flash to full power. Doing both those things meant I had the most output from my flashgun, and using at best efficiency.

1/250 @ f4.5 @ 200 ISO; manual on-camera bounce flash at full power
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 … at 24mm

A portrait of Denise just before she entered the church. She requested this photograph, and walked towards the door and turned around to the camera.

I used flash as the merest touch of fill-flash, at -4EV FEC.

The post-processing is via a few of the actions in the Totally Rad action set, layered at different opacities. The ‘Beer Goggles’ action gave the selective softness, controlled by a Layer Mask.

You can order the Totally Rad action sets, or other goodies offered, via this affiliate link:

camera settings: 1/250 @ f4 @ 200 ISO;
TTL flash, straight-on, with FEC set to effective -4EV
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 … at 24mm

Equipment used for these images:
Nikon D3; Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 AF-S (B&H); Nikon SB-900 (B&H)

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36 Comments »

Simply amazing.

Comment by Robert Gordon — July 26, 2010 @ 12:03 am
Superb set of portraits, Neil.
I really like your use of diagonals and very tight composition.

Comment by pasquier — July 26, 2010 @ 4:06 am
I do like when you show straight out of the camera files too, I’d like to see her face at 100%(3rd or 4th photo), just to see what it compares to some of my shots with a similar setup at 100% and a little higher iso.

Comment by Mark — July 26, 2010 @ 6:24 am
Great shots! I always love the classsic poses.
Thanks for sharing the set.

Comment by Randall — July 26, 2010 @ 8:03 am
Who’s the Man? “Awesome” wedding photographs and Thank you for sharing your wisdom and creativity with us. Let your Light shine, Gregory

Comment by Gregory — July 26, 2010 @ 9:24 am
Nice set Neil, you are so good a finding the best lighting in tricky situations. What is the name of the material the black foamie thing? It looks velvetyish…

Comment by Dave in Boston — July 26, 2010 @ 9:27 am
It is called ‘art foam’ and is available at Michaels or most art supply stores.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 26, 2010 @ 9:47 am
All great shots but I just LOVE the last one!! Everything about is wonderful and the tones are amazing!!

Comment by Kathy Marciante Photograhy — July 26, 2010 @ 9:52 am
The elevator shot is great example of always keeping on the lookout for an opportunity, love the texture and geometry. Regarding the window shot, I’m curious if you considered simply letting the windows blow out to simplify the composition?

Comment by Tay — July 26, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
Tay … thanks. If I had let the light blow out, I’d have no control over how the light shaped around her. In using flash like that, I could bring some balance back and have even light on her, while retaining the texture and form of her dress.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 26, 2010 @ 4:14 pm
Excellent shots, coupled with a beautiful bride.

I’ve only recently discovered your website and it’s such a wealth of flash knowledge! I’m very grateful!

Comment by Colin — July 26, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
Great photographs as always! How do you use the flash for fill flash outdoors? Is it still flagged with the BFT, is it pointed straight at the bride, or at an elevated angle?

Comment by Peter Jack — July 26, 2010 @ 6:11 pm
It wouldn’t make sense to flag the flash outside, unless you are bouncing it off a reflector or similar. Therefore, if the flash is merely the slightest touch of fill light, then I shoot with direct flash.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 26, 2010 @ 9:06 pm
An amazing set, my favorite of yours for a while, amazing work.

Comment by Matt Heath — July 27, 2010 @ 2:18 am
“To counter-act the bright sunlight as much as I could with a mere speedlight that I am bouncing into the large room, I went to 1/250th immediately, and set my flash to full power. Doing both those things meant I had the most output from my flashgun, and using at best efficiency.” — Neil v N

After I read “at best efficiency”, I had to backtrack to find a mention of “TTL” somewhere. Neil, what did you mean by “at best efficiency” above?

Comment by parv — July 27, 2010 @ 5:23 am
Parv .. I didn’t mention TTL flash anywhere for that photo? It was manual flash.

Back to my comment about best efficiency.

I used full power manual flash there, since I wanted the most juice from the flashgun. Everything it could give out. That is at full power.

Now, I could be shooting at: 1/60 @ f9 .. or .. 1/125 @ f6.3 .. OR .. 1/250 @ f4.5

However, I wouldn’t get proper exposure for my flash at either f9 or f6.3
At those smaller apertures, the flash would be more of a fill flash than being a light source that helps expose correctly for my subject, the bride.

Therefore, my choice of shutter speed directly affects my choice of aperture … and this influences my flash exposure, and my flash range. And at maximum flash sync speed, I have my widest possible aperture while staying outside of High Speed Flash Sync. In HSS mode, the flash range drops by more than half.

I hope this makes more sense now.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 27, 2010 @ 10:44 am
“I didn’t mention TTL flash anywhere for that photo? It was manual flash. … Back to my comment about best efficiency.”

Neil, I was thinking that TTL use might have not caused flash to dump at full power while still giving you desired exposure. Thus the efficiency. It did not occur to me that you were comparing HSS with regular maximum sync speed (not manual or TTL settings).

I get your other point too about flash not providing proper exposure at smaller aperture.

Thank you for the explanation.

Comment by parv — July 27, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
Thank you for sharing these. I enjoy everything you post, but since I like to focus on wedding photography… this glimpse into some of your wedding stuff is great.

Comment by Sheri Johnson — July 27, 2010 @ 3:20 pm
Greetings Neil,
I have been avidly perusing your blog for the past 8 months now. I can’t begin to tell you how much the information you put up here has helped in improving my photography.
I just finished reading your book on On-Camera Flash Techniques. I was wondering if you have plans in the near future of making a video that will detail the whole gamut of your shooting techniques(composition and lighting) and of course the thought processes that informs the decisions you make as you shoot. That will be a valuable tool for all of us that are learning so much from you.
Thanks

Comment by Tony — July 27, 2010 @ 10:01 pm
Tony, that is the next logical phase. I’m busy discussing this with a group of people who can help get DVD / video clips going. So I’ll keep everyone up to date when this pans out.

thanks

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 27, 2010 @ 11:09 pm
Hi Neil,

With the shot of the bride in front of the window, I get why you chose 1/250 and a wide aperture to get the most power out of the flash, but do you meter for the ambient light first to get a rough idea of exposure. eg How did you ‘know’ the window light wouldn’t totally blow out at those settings?

Thanks David

Comment by David — July 28, 2010 @ 9:07 am
David .. I didn’t know whether the frame would blow out completely or not.

I did want to expose properly for her where she was sitting in front of the window. The most power and efficiency I could get out of my speedlight, while bouncing it like I chose to do … was at max sync speed, and at full manual power.

Then the rest of the tones in the scene fall where they do. I can’t control that, without substantially changing the lighting that I’m adding.

So the thought process here was along the lines of …
whoops! Strong backlighting.
I want to add flash to help balance that.
I still want soft light from my flash, so I am going to bounce it into the ceiling and walls behind and to the side of me.
Max juice from my speedlight = max sync speed; and full manual power.
I take the shot, and check the back of the camera and …. I’m happy.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2010 @ 2:29 pm
Hey Neil

I was just curious…. how many weddings do you shoot a year?

Comment by Nayeem Vohra — July 28, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
Nayeem .. usually around 40 or more a year. But 2009 was difficult for most photographers in the USA due to the dip in the world economy and the knock-on effect. My bookings for 2010 have picked up considerably again.

I also occasionally 2nd-shoot for photographer friends. (And they for me)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 28, 2010 @ 4:32 pm
Hi Neil,

Can you tell the opacity of Grandma’s Top Shoes layer in your last photo ?

Thanks.

Comment by Rokas — July 29, 2010 @ 10:16 am
It really is an ‘adjust to taste’ thing. But here are the settings for that image:

Grandma’s Tap shoes … 20% opacity
Bullet Tooth ……………… 8%
Orange You Glad I didn’t say Banana …. 27% (to reduce some of the orange tones)
Beer Goggles …… 100% (but selectively masked to leave bride sharp)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 29, 2010 @ 12:40 pm
Hi Neil,
Did you gel your flash for these shots? I imagine the elevator lights were florescent but the colour balance looks good.

Thanks

Comment by PK — July 30, 2010 @ 12:42 pm
PK .. I knew the gel plus the red interior would give a very warm color cast. So I flipped the gel off the flash. So it was un-gelled flash for that shot. At the settings I used, the elevator lights didn’t register.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 30, 2010 @ 3:29 pm
Great shots. Love the first three. For the second one (with the window), would a ND filter help counter the incoming sunlight, or would that unbalance the colors of the room?

Donald R

Comment by Donald Rodriguez — July 30, 2010 @ 7:02 pm
Hi there Donald ..

A neutral density filter would only have helped in controlling the depth-of-field. That isn’t an issue in that photo though. The balance between flash and strong available light is a problem though.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 30, 2010 @ 7:12 pm
“I used flash as the merest touch of fill-flash, at -4EV FEC”

??? My Nikon 800 & 900 flash only do -3. I was wondering in the past how to get lower – could you explain please? THANKS!

Comment by Frank A. — July 30, 2010 @ 9:08 pm
More subtle fill-flash from your Nikon speedlight. The article is true for the D3 in how much FEC I need and would like. However, I haven’t tested whether the D700 etc need a similar reduction in FEC.

The way of doing it works for other Nikon DSLRs, but it would appear that the different models might act differently in the brightness of the TTL flash exposure.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — July 30, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
Thanks for a a really interesting set of articles. I see that the lovely portraits above are all with the 24-70 lens. I use this for wedding and other work (on D700/300) as its the obvious workhorse. I do find that at the wide apertures necessary to get subject isolation and use available light (in church especially) that it is easy to get less than perfect sharpness, either because the lens is softer away from centre or there is marked field curvature away from centre. I see that in all your portraits above the subject is quite central in the frame. Are you framing thus to hit the sweet spot of this lens? Sometimes its nice to get the subject off-centre, but I find the hit rate less than ideal, whether using the centre focus point and reframing or moving the cursor to where I want it within the frame in single point AF mode. I much prefer the 50 F1.4G in this regard but obviously want some variability in focal length too. How do you find the 24-70 and what do you do to achieve best focus for off-centre subjects? Regards, Cliff

Comment by Cliff Beard — August 15, 2010 @ 4:44 pm
Cliff .. your observations are the same as mine. You might notice that most of my compositions, especially when with the 24-70 lens, is fairly central in the frame. It’s partly my preference, but also partly motivated by wanting to make sure the images are sharply focused.

For off-center subjects when I have time to do so, I will double-check the image for sharpness by zooming in on the camera preview. I usually focus-and-recompose with the 70-200, but with the 24-70, I quite often move the camera’s focusing sensors … but rarely too far from center. I still find the central focusing sensors to be more consistently accurate on the D3 than the outer sensors. It’s just one of those things to be aware of and adapt to.

Setting the D700 controls so that the Multi-Selector Center Button zooms in to medium zoom, helps a lot. It’s more helpful than the thumbnails option.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — August 18, 2010 @ 5:34 am
Hi Neil

I read that the window shot (bride on purple seat) was in fact manual flash. Taking this away, you indicate “I did want to expose properly for her where she was sitting in front of the window”. Is it safe to say that you still exposed for the correct tone (dress or skin) and then added manual flash. If so, it looks like the dress is cream and not white. So im curious to see if exposing correctly for this tone (dress or skin) did make the dress white, or is the dress just cream to start with. Hope you understand what I mean.
.
Also in this shot, would exposing for the outside ambient light and then using flash as a predominant source, would give a pleasing result. Or did you decide that fill flash was all the shot needed.

Cheers

Angelo (Australia).

Comment by Angelo — August 19, 2010 @ 4:09 am
Hi there Angelo …

Is it safe to say that you still exposed for the correct tone (dress or skin) and then added manual flash.

The flash isn’t merely fill-flash in that example. So I wouldn’t have determined correct ambient exposure for her dress. The flash is what provides correct exposure.

That the dress is cream instead of white doesn’t affect anything in terms of the metering and use of flash.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — August 22, 2010 @ 5:38 am