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Search Results for: bouncing flash behind me

Bounce flash photography & The Inverse Square Law

December 8, 2021 Neil vN 13 Comments

Bounce flash photography & The Inverse Square Law

If you find the title of this article a touch intimidating, please stick around and watch the video. It is important to understand how The Inverse Square Law affects bounce flash photography, and creates a specific result where the background appears brighter when the flash is bounced properly without on-camera flash modifiers. I know that is counter-intuitive, but that is what happens when you bounce your bare flash behind you instead of using a light modifier on your flash. The accompanying video, linked to below, explains this  Read more inside...

Photographing corporate events – flash or no flash?

June 17, 2021 Neil vN 8 Comments

Photographing corporate events - flash or no flash?

Mirrorless cameras offering an electronic shutter which is truly silent, is one of the best advantages to using mirrorless cameras over DSLRs. With these types of events, I really do prefer using a silent shutter, so I can take enough photos where the speaker doesn't have odd expressions and weird mouth shapes. You really have to over-shoot to be sure you have enough usable images which you can give to your client. With flash and the shutter sound, at quieter events, I am sure it can be distracting to the speaker to have every  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography with wooden ceilings

February 5, 2021 Neil vN 2 Comments

Bounce flash photography with wooden ceilings

When photographing wedding receptions, I would ideally like to get away with just one on-camera flash that I bounce off surfaces behind me. A venue with (close to) white ceilings and walls are just perfect. Super easy. Even with really high ceilings, I try to make it work. Here for example, I used a single bare on-camera flash to light up the entire place -- Wedding reception lighting with one flash. No diffuser cup or white bounce card. Bare flash with the Black Foamie Thing. But occasionally I reach the dead-end of a venue with black  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography – when to use maximum flash power

May 9, 2019 Neil vN 18 Comments

Bounce flash photography - when to use maximum flash power

This photo is straightforward enough - the event coordinator here asked that I take a few photos of the models in body paint. No time to fumble or look unsure. Again, there are simple recipes to get us to ideal settings. The reception area around the indoor pool is really large with a super-high ceiling at this casino. There's enough light to see, but it is all tainted with this strong purple and blue uplighting. Therefore flash becomes a necessity. I need cleaner light - more neutral light - on my subjects. Skin tones  Read more inside...

Flash brackets vs Bounce Flash

August 4, 2017 Neil vN 10 Comments

Flash brackets vs Bounce Flash

A flash bracket, such as the the Custom Brackets Pro-M rotating flash bracket (affiliate), is useful in keeping the flash's orientation above the camera & lens axis, regardless of how the camera is rotated. You can see in the photo that the camera, whether horizontal or vertical, has the flash above the camera. The two photos below show the difference in results. On the left - if you just hold the camera vertically, with the flash in the hot-shoe, you get that sideways shadow. It is distracting. With a flash bracket, the flash shadow  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography – be bold!

August 10, 2015 Neil vN 17 Comments

bounce flash photography

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.  Read more inside...

Flash photography: How far can you bounce your flash?

January 3, 2015 Neil vN 36 Comments

flash photography: how far can you bounce your flash?

Flash photography: How far can you bounce your flash?

The question regularly comes up: how far can you bounce your flash? The answer is quite straight-forward: It depends on the power of your flash, the bounce distance (and surfaces), ISO and aperture. Power, distance, aperture and ISO - the four things that control flash exposure. Yup, we can't really escape this. So how far can you bounce your flash? It depends on how far (and reflective) the surfaces are that you are bouncing your flash off; as well as how high you're willing to take your ISO and how wide you can take your  Read more inside...

Wedding reception lighting with one flash

November 22, 2014 Neil vN 33 Comments

Wedding reception lighting with one flash

The last wedding of the year just behind me, I want to use one of my favorite images to touch again on the recent topic of high-ISO bounce flash with on-camera speedlight. I want to show that the results aren't a fluke - but that with a consistent approach to bounce flash photography, you can get consistent results. However, since we shoot under various scenario changes, we have to adapt a bit. The venue was this hotel reception room with massively high ceilings ... but with the walls closer by. Easy enough to bounce on-camera flash off.  Read more inside...

High-ISO bounce flash photography

November 11, 2014 Neil vN 37 Comments

High-ISO bounce flash photography

One of the misconceptions about bounce flash photography that many photographers cling to, is that you absolutely need a white wall or ceiling near you. While it does help, this shouldn't stop you from trying to be a little adventurous with on-camera bounce flash to see if it gets you the results you want. There have been several articles on the topic of bouncing off various other surfaces, or, not any particular surface nearby: Bounce flash photography at wedding receptions  (bride: Juana) Wedding reception lighting with one flash  (groom:  Read more inside...

Using the Profoto B1 portable flash at a wedding

September 30, 2014 Neil vN 54 Comments

Using the Profoto B1 portable flash at a wedding

With wedding photography, there are nearly inevitably time-constraints. It is therefore imperative that you, as the wedding photographer, are able to keep everything running as smoothly as possible on your side. Which implies that it is important that you (and your equipment) are adaptable. And it is also hugely important that your gear is easy to set up, and very reliable. Karissa and Rory's wedding was the first where I pulled out the Profoto B1 battery powered flash (B&H / Amazon). I'm even more impressed with it  Read more inside...

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