If there’s nothing to bounce your flash off, then you have to improvise.

Neil vN

I played the technique in this post in the 10 W x 15 L x 10 H room, and the result turned out the same as the sample pictures are.

I know that you are (probably) extremely busy, but I would be nice to hear what your opinions and suggestions are.

Thank you in advance,
Ups

Yes. But this of course only works while we under-expose the ambient exposure for our subject.

However, we try and keep all this a secret so that flash photography appears difficult and arcane.

Neil vN

Think of it as 2 exposures: flash + ambient. While your ambient light might be under-exposed, TTL flash will pick up the slack and give you correct exposure.

Neil vN

This is definitely the most informative website on photography I’ve come across. I like how you simplify things for the mass to understand. Please keep up the great work and I must say the incorporated example pictures tell a thousand words. I am still relatively new to flash photography but I am starting to get bits and bits the more I go through your website.

Just a very quick and basic question on the technical part of bounce flash: When I use bounce flash in a room that’s relatively dark (as in the flash will act as the main light source), I notice that the camera meter mostly always shows that the eventual picture will be grossly underexposed. What confuses me is that the outcome isn’t as underexposed as what the meter suggested. Dialing in some positive FEC lightened the picture up even more, but with the camera metering still showing mass underexposure. At least I am getting the result I want with bounce flash, but I can’t seem to work my way around why the meter shows what it shows, that is, underexposure. When I balance the meter to what the camera considers to be “good exposure,” through aperture, shutter, and ISO, the pictures come out overexposed. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated!

My gears: D3s + 24-70 F2.8 + SB-900
Modes: Camera Manual Exposure, Flash TTL, Manual ISO

Regards,
Charles

Alvin, it has to do with a few things:

- how close you are to your subject. For example, if you shoot at 200mm in a large room, then it is tougher getting a close / tight angle with the bounce flash’s direction in relation to your subject.

- you’ll notice that I nearly always pose my subject *into* the direction of the light. Usually for short lighting of my subject. This does help in giving more dynamic shadows.

Also look at this recent post where I bounced my flash off the wall to my side.

I think the black foamie thing might just be the trick that you’re looking for here.

Neil vN

One common scenario I have encountered is that the head table is frequently placed against a wall. While the bounce flash provides nice lighting to the subjects sitting at the table, the back wall often reflects much of the light back, and this creates a fairly flat looking photo. In some cases, it looks like there is no separation between the subject and the wall.

While there are obvious ways to light with off-camera lighting etc, have you come across a way to bounce in a more confined manner? I have played with the idea of using a snoot so that it would be a tighter beam on the ceiling, and hopefully a tighter, more confined bounce light. I realize this is terribly inefficient, but just wondering what your thoughts are and if you’ve found an easy solution. I have yet to try the bounced snoot.

Thanks

Alvin

Thanks again for a great article and some very convincing images. I have been experimenting with a hige bounce card (the size of a ping pong bat) and its been working really well.

Thanks again, keep up the good work :)