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Search Results for: bouncing flash behind me

Bounce flash: Adjusting the black foamie thing as a snoot

March 17, 2014 Neil vN 15 Comments

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

December 11, 2013 Neil vN 9 Comments

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 flash to control back-lighting

November 10, 2013 Neil vN 11 Comments

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...

Wedding photography – Detail shots, bounce flash & macro lenses

August 5, 2013 Neil vN 16 Comments

Wedding photography - Detail shots, bounce flash & macro lenses

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...

How do you meter for TTL flash & ambient light?

April 11, 2013 Neil vN 26 Comments

How do you meter for TTL flash & ambient light?

In taking these kinds of candid images, I set the camera so that there is enough light recorded on the test shots without flash. No real metering technique, but I judge by the LCD to see that there will be enough detail in the background. It is kinda the dragging the shutter technique, but not as specific perhaps. I just want some ambient light to register. Then I simply use TTL flash to expose correctly for any subject which is turned away from the main source of ambient light - the window. Without flash, these kids' features  Read more inside...

What if bounce flash isn’t strong enough?

March 26, 2013 Neil vN 16 Comments

What if bounce flash isn't strong enough?

Because I so often use on-camera bounce flash, one of the questions I'm regularly asked is, what if there is nothing to bounce your flash off? There is also the variant - what if there isn't enough light from the bounced flash? In both cases, the answer is the same - you improvise! Not only that, but you need to be prepared to improvise. The photograph above is from a recent Bat Mitzvah, showing the big group shot of the kids. If you've photographed Bar / Bat Mitzvahs before, you know this is coming up, and you have to be prepared for  Read more inside...

Flash photography – bouncing your flash behind you

January 9, 2013 Neil vN 17 Comments

Bouncing your on-camera flash behind you

A comment posted to the article, directional light from your on-camera flash, asked a lot of questions about bounce flash photography. While most of these have been answered over time in various articles, it might be a good thing to pull it all together in directly answering those questions here. This uncomplicated portrait of Anelisa that shows specific elements in how I bounce flash: catchlights in the eyes directional light which can be observed here as that gradient of light across her cheek no hard shadows from direct  Read more inside...

Manual on-camera bounce flash

November 18, 2012 Neil vN 15 Comments

Manual on-camera bounce flash

With the response to the article on bounce flash photography at wedding receptions, it might be good to continue the topic. While I prefer TTL flash when I use bounce flash, there are times when I do use my on-camera flash in manual exposure mode when I bounce it. Julie & Kenny's wedding, at the Laurita Winery, NJ, proved to be a bit of a challenge with the reception. The reception area was in the winery which had a beautiful interior ... but it wasn't white. Bounce flash was a touch more difficult than usual here.  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography at wedding receptions

November 12, 2012 Neil vN 42 Comments

Bounce flash photography at wedding receptions

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...

Tutorial: Bounce flash photography

September 25, 2012 Neil vN 16 Comments

Tutorial: Bounce flash photography

An photo of a jazz trumpet player during a session in a club, lit by on-camera bounce flash. Since it's a perfect example of how I use on-camera bounce flash so that it looks nothing like on-camera flash, I'd like to use it to illustrate this summary of on-camera bounce flash technique: The light in this image is nearly all from my flash. The red hue in the background, and spilling onto part of the trumpet and his skin, is from the strong red lights in the night-club. To eliminate this, I under-exposed the ambient light, by choosing my camera  Read more inside...

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