Various scenarios: Balancing flash with ambient light
Adding flash to ambient light - its's a topic that can appear to be confusing. With advice that ranges from under-exposing the ambient light by a stop or two ... or dialing FEC down for fill-flash, or advice that you should be metering for the background ... it all appears confusing and contradictory.
What we do, and the thought-process we step through, depends on the (lighting) situation we find ourselves in. There isn't one blanket do-all method. No single piece of instruction that will fit every occasion.
So let's try to Read more inside...
Bounce flash vs. Available light vs. Using the videographer's light
The expressive trumpet player in the band at a wedding - a simple portrait of this musician, sweetened with some bounce flash. The light on his face, is by now perhaps predictably, on-camera bounce flash with the black foamie thing. Looking at the light pattern on his face, you'll see there was no direct flash of any kind.
camera settings: 1/60 @ f2.8 @ 2000 ISO // TTL flash
Nikon D3; Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR II; Nikon SB-910 Speedlight
In comparison, here are a few other images. One with no flash, Read more inside...
Bounce flash - Adjusting the black foamie thing to be a snoot
During the day, as I photograph a wedding, I am continually mixing up the lighting, adapting and adjusting. It's part of the process of giving my clients as much variety as possible, and also just being flexible in adapting to the demands of the various locations. It's therefore a varied approach in using all kinds of light sources: off-camera flash, on-camera flash, video light and available light. It's part of the fun, and part of the challenge of being a wedding photographer - thinking on your feet. Of course there's Read more inside...
Wedding photography: Bounce flash "indoors" … in the limo
This is a reminder that when you have a high-contrast situation such as when photographing the bride and groom inside the limo - then using on-camera bounce flash is your easiest way to control the lighting. Simply bounce your flash behind you into the limo. Even with the dark interior and fittings inside a limo, enough light should spill back to lift the shadow detail.
The trick here of course is to expose correctly for the ambient light, if possible. With the camera settings then dictated by the ambient light coming Read more inside...
Flagging your back-lighting flash with the black foamie thing
My favorite on-camera light modifier, the black foamie thing, is of course, nothing more than a very affordable (and flexible) way to flag your flash. This helps control how the light from your on-camera flash spills. (It's not a flash diffuser!) I also keep one on hand when I use off-camera flash, to flag any direct flash - whether to control it from flaring the lens, or from spilling onto my subject.
When I did the photo session for the review of the Canon 600EX-RT, I had to flag the one speedlight so it didn't spill Read more inside...
Macro photography for wedding detail shots is one of those areas where you need a smaller aperture. I know it's been suggested by some high-profile photographer(s) that you shoot macro at f/2.8 but this is tough advice to follow. If you even breathe, your plane of focus changes for that close distance you're working at.
That smaller aperture (and I regularly work at f/11 or there-abouts), implies you will need a lot of light. A lot of daylight or lots of flash. When you're shooting indoors, this means flash, Read more inside...
Simple lighting setup to photograph kids indoors - Bounce flash!
Meet Jack. He's 1 year old. We kinda photographed him just over a year ago with the maternity photo session with his mom and dad. But this is him now, for real. When Amy and Nick asked me to do a portrait session with him, we started off at their house. I wanted to grab a few candid photos of Jack happily playing before we set off to a nearby park.
Since kids scoot around all over the place, for me, it made most sense to just use on-camera bounce flash. Minimal gear - just the speedlight on my camera. And of course, Read more inside...
Bounce flash comparison: With & without the black foamie thing
One of the presentations that I gave at the After Dark event in St Louis, was (perhaps inevitably by now), about bounce flash photography. Part of this was a sequence explaining how the direction that you bounce your flash into, will define the light pattern on your subject. The black foamie thing helps in directing the light from your flash, especially if you want short lighting on your subject.
And here is the comparison - with the black foamie thing, and without. Without flagging the flash, there is direct Read more inside...
This photograph from a recent wedding got a few comments and questions in the album on Facebook. The questions really hinged around "where did all that light come from?" or whether I had used off-camera flash.
The purple and blue light in the back-ground is from the up-lighting from the entertainment / DJ company. The light on the couple entering the reception room ... is all one on-camera bounce flash. Read more inside...
WPPI 2012 took place during the past week - as always, a crazy-hectic and exciting event. I once again presented a Master Class at WPPI. But I also took time to present a private mini-workshop to the first 3 people that signed up. We went over a condensed version of my full-day workshop, covering most of the material in the 4-hr long mini-workshop. Like last year, I called on my favorite model in Las Vegas, Shawna. Actually, she has since moved to L.A. but she was quite happy to make the trip back to Las Vegas to be our model.
The Read more inside...
