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Bounce flash photography – be bold!

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Bounce flash photography – be bold!

With on-camera bounce flash photography, there is the initial idea that you need a white wall or ceiling to bounce off. With these examples from an engagement photo session of DaWeon and Toban, I want to show that it is entirely possible to really enhance the available light on location, with some unexpected bounce flash.

For those who are just joining us now, here is a tutorial on bounce flash. We’re just expanding here on that article. The essential idea from that tutorial – you bounce flash into the direction you want the light to come from. That is key. Another important idea is that with high ISO settings, bounce flash is quite feasible as a single on-camera light source: wedding reception lighting with one flash.

Both of those ideas – directional bounce flash & the use of high ISO settings – came to play during this engagement photo session in Philadelphia. Outdoors I mostly used the Profoto B1 flash (affiliate), as an off-camera flash. But there was one venue that the couple wanted to visit, where the people at the concierge desk nixed the idea of such intrusive lighting equipment – yet, they were okay with an on-camera speedlight. So that had to suffice.

The photos turned out remarkably well for the challenge of bouncing flash indoors into huge areas, without a distinct surface, and especially not a white surface anywhere around.

The comparison photo to the one at the top – this is just the available light. At the camera settings of 1/80 @ f/3.2 @ 1600 ISO, there isn’t much upward wiggle room left for an available-light photo that would be flattering. Especially with the dark shadows under their eyes. This really needed flash.

Straight-on flash would’ve been unflattering. But directional bounce flash made all the difference.

Where did I bounce my flash? Into the direction I wanted the light to come from … even if this didn’t make sense because of the size of the place and the wood panelling. Yet, it worked because I chose a higher ISO and wider aperture to let enough of the flash in. Here I used manual flash at full power, to ensure I did get proper exposure. Even then, I had to push the exposure up by a 1/2 stop in processing the RAW file.

  • camera settings:  1/60  @  f/3.2  @  1600 ISO … on-camera flash in manual.

The battery pack becomes very useful in keeping recycling times short.

 

On-Camera Flash Photography

On-Camera Flash Photography – revised edition

This book is explains a cohesive and thorough approach to getting the best from your on-camera speedlight.

Particular care was taken to present it all with a logical flow that will help any photographer attain a better understanding of flash photography.

You can either purchase a copy via Amazon USA and Amazon UK, or can be ordered through Barnes & Nobles and other bookstores. The book is also available on the Apple iBook Store, as well as Amazon Kindle. Also check out the Amazon Kindle store.

Learn more about how the cover image was shot.

 

Moving further up the steps, I noticed these receding lines of the wood panelling – perfect for a dynamic composition. Again, I used bounce flash off the wood panelling. With the wider shots, I noticed that I was getting direct spill light from my flash – these blue-tinted hot spots looked odd. The best way to block my light from hitting the wood paneling in the framed composition – yes,  indeed, the BFT (black foamie thing).

Again, the area that I bounced off, is the wood panelling. It unexpectedly did work quite well. And that is the gist of this article – be bold when bouncing flash. You’d be surprised – it might just work.

While the most specific use I have for the BFT is short lighting with bounce flash, it comes in handy to flag my on-camera flash as I need during a photo shoot or a wedding. Dead simple – I slide the BFT up so that enough of a lip of the black material blocks the flash from hitting something in the photographed scene. With a BFT on the flash to flag the light, the wider compositions have a more natural look again, with just clean light on the couple.

  • camera settings:  1/80  @  f/2.8  @  1600 ISO … on-camera bounce flash in manual

Again, the available light comparison to show how much difference the bounce flash made.

 

On-camera flash modifier – the black foamie thing

I use the black foamie thing (BFT) as a truly inexpensive flash modifier to flag my on-camera flash to give me lighting indoors that truly look nothing like on-camera flash.The piece of foam (Amazon), can be ordered via this link. I cut the sheet into smaller pieces.

The BFT is held in position by two hair bands (Amazon), and the BFT is usually placed on the under-side of the flash-head.

The linked articles will give clearer instruction, especially the video clip on using the black foamie thing.

 

Night time photos of the couple in the city center of Philadelphia, worked best with the Profoto B1 flash and a softbox. But we had just come out of the other building, and I still had my speedlight mounted in my camera’s hotshoe. So for the one sequence of photos, I quickly posed them against this railing, and then just bounced my flash off the building facade. It worked as a quick & dirty way of lighting – on-camera bounce flash against a nearby exterior wall. Again, an unexpected way of using bounce flash perhaps … but it worked right then.

  • camera settings:  1/60  @  f/3.2  @  1600 ISO;  TTL flash on camera

 

For one sequence, I thought it might be cute to play with the “Singing In The Rain” visual, with Toban swinging around one of the street lights as he danced with DeWeon.

There wasn’t anything to bounce on-camera flash against. I’m bold with bounce flash from a speedlight, but some things just aren’t possible. To flood the place with light, I had my assistant point the bare Profoto B1 (affiliate) against the side of the building. This behind-the-scenes shot will show just how this was lit. Again, a quick ‘n dirty way of lighting while on location – and it worked. The one thing I didn’t have with me – a gel large enough to cover the face of the Profoto B1, to help balance the flash against the much warmer tones of the lights shining on the street. Still, as a quick sequence that offers variety during this photo session,

  • 1/100  @  f/3.2  @ 2000 ISO

 

 

A little bit of homework

With such a high-powered flash (even if bounced off the side of the building), why was the ISO setting high?

 

Summary

Try the unexpected – it might just work. The measure of success is whether the light you achieve, is flattering.

 

Related articles

And if you’re curious about how I would handle the change in WB – this is covered in previous articles:

 

17 Comments, Add Your Own

  1. Hi Neil, I want to thank you profusely for all of your work describing how you bounce flash, and in the beautiful examples you give to demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach. Even for those of us with limited budgets, who mostly document friends and family, it greatly improves my photos on crop cameras and used gear. And it really is surprisingly easy, a few test shots to balance exposure, and I only had two shots out of a hundred that might have exposed better with TTL than my manual settings the other week at my wife’s awards dinner. I probably looked funny up front with my 40mm pancake lens and a big flash pointed up and behind me, but everyone loved the shots.

    Thanks again!

    Mark

    Reply

  2. Neil,

    Thanks for another great article, showing us just what can be achieved with an on camera speedlite, just lovely pictures. I especially like what you’ve achieved in the wider shot of the wood panelling, the spread of light worked perfectly. Here I assume you flashed slightly forward seeing as you flagged your flash with the BFT.

    Re the profoto B1 even though much more powerful than a speedlite, the relative distance you’re bouncing back to (hence effective light source) and subject distance is quite large, so I would say you’re using relatively high iso but well within the limits of the camera.
    Initial thoughts were that you could pro rata the iso down by the stop difference in power between the B1 and speedlite, maybe in a studio but in this scenario its just a bigger scale of what you do when bouncing a speedlite.

    Tony

    Reply

    • Think ambient exposure (capturing the city lights, the buildings/surroundings, and just perhaps a taste of the twilight sky), an active pose, and no particular desire to see a black cut-out around the couple – it’s a cool effect sometimes, but it’s not often what you actually want. 1/100 isn’t super-fast, but it covers a multitude of possible sins in this situation, and the only way to get there is to take the ISO up.

      Reply

  3. Neil, I’ve been using your bounce flash techniques to shoot bands in dark bars with inadequate stage lighting. Can’t tell you how many shoots you’ve saved. I’ve bounced off wine barrels, black walls, glass-framed posters–you name it. Tight headshots work great; with a wide-angle I often end up with too wide a spread of light for the mood I’m trying to show, but that’s easily rectified with vignetting or grad filters in Lightroom. And I’d rather have too much light than not enough.

    I’ve tried some of the outdoor street shots, like your homework example. Wouldn’t dropping the ISO turn your background much darker? Expose for the background, then add light for the subject. . .that’s what you taught us.

    Reply

  4. Great article as always, Neil. I’ve been surprised in my own work how surfaces that I wouldn’t think would work to reflect light actually do–and quite well.

    I think using a high ISO in that situation would allow (among other things) you to more easily expose the entire range of your two subjects–sort of “cheating” the inverse square law. A lower ISO might have resulted in an uneven exposure across the width of their two bodies.

    Reply

    • Distance is the only cure for fall-off, assuming that feathering the light isn’t an option. From that angle you can get down to less than 1/6 of a stop difference across the couple’s whole span at about 15-16 feet (4.5 metres or so) – pretty much the bounce distance from the pillar/gatepost. The bounce from the restaurant wall, at about 10-12 feet (3.5 metres) at its closest point, is pulling up the contrast a little bit and creating a little more sideways bias, but the fall-off would still be less than a third of a stop across the couple given the distance and angle of the light sources (the wall and the pillar/post) – regardless of the ISO.

      Reply

  5. tried the black thing and never got one good shot using it. it was a smaller room with lots to bounce off of and every agnle, every setting, different lenses etc not one good shot. any chance maybe giving samples of the whole set up from what you are bouncing the flash off of……..

    Reply

  6. Rethinking the homework question, I think since you knew your background/ambient settings for the previous set-up, f3.2,1/60,1600 ISO, and knew you’d want a faster shutter and the same aperture, all that was available to do was boost the ISO to match the boost in shutter speed. Since the flash has no effect on the background scene, using a speedlight or the powerful B-1 made no difference in having to boost the ISO.

    Reply

  7. Hi Neil

    Ok, here goes with the homework.

    You wanted to expose for the background (ambient light) to capture the scene, street lighting, buildings etc. you also wanted an aperture that a wasn’t too wide so as to blur the background too much and loose the detail. So you choose f3.2 – just enough to assist with the low lighting levels but not too wide to loose the background detail. Now you had to pick a shutter speed for the lighting that was within its sync speed and not too slow to allow you to freeze the jumping couple and also not to blur the background with people walking up the street. So you choose 1/100. Now the only thing left for you to alter to properly expose all of this is to use a high ISO setting due to the low light, and poor reflective quality of bouncing flash of a rough stone surface. Hence Iso 2000.

    Reply

  8. Neil, does it ever occur to you how many photographers around the globe you’ve helped dramatically improve their images with this one concept alone, i.e. bouncing flash behind you, even when logical bounce surfaces are not readily apparent? You can certainly count me as one of those people. Thank you.

    Reply

  9. Haven’t read all the responses…. My thought process – in comparing the pull back with the actual image, it’s apparent that it’s fairly dark. To achieve some dramatic coloring in what appears to be featureless sky as well as capturing a nice balance with bldg wall – drag the shutter a bit to enable more ambient to register, recognizing that sufficient SS must be maintained to avoid motion blur. Desired DOF dictates f/stop. ISO then selected to achieve “correct” or desired overall exposure.

    Hearing the same message, often with slight variation in technique, never gets old. Thank you for sharing so willingly.

    Reply

  10. I bet color correcting those indoor ones was a pain – getting all that brownish red color casts. Right or wrong. Would have been a nightmare for me.

    Reply

  11. Awesome article and pictures Neil . Would love to see a video series of lessons on your blog one day as well. Also a BTS shot showing you and the camera and the BFT positioned. is the face of the BFT facing the subjects? or the floor? depending on how you positioned your camera and flash. thanks

    Reply

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