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Search Results for: bouncing flash behind me

Wedding photography: Using high ISO and flash at the reception

August 15, 2012 Neil vN 36 Comments

Wedding photography: Using high ISO and flash at the reception

Chatting with other photographers at the recent WPS convention in Chapel Hill, NC, I was again struck by how there are so many different ways of approaching lighting. In this case, lighting at the wedding reception. The one photographer I was chatting to, set up multiple speedlights around the reception room, and then controls which are fired, from his on-camera Master speedlight.  Very impressive. In recent years, the wedding reception venues where I've shot on the East Coast of the USA, have moved away from being the  Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography & The Inverse Square Law

February 1, 2012 Neil vN 48 Comments

Bounce flash photography & The Inverse Square Law

After you're done noticing the decorated candles that the bride is holding while dancing with the groom (a tradition in Palestinian weddings), you may well notice how evenly lit this photograph is - from foreground to background. The people visible in the background seen there between the bride and the groom, are nearly as well lit as the bride and groom. Because this was on-camera bounce flash, the background will be brighter than may have been anticipated. If I had used direct flash, or flash with a diffuser cup or bounce  Read more inside...

Back-lighting with flash for silhouetted wedding portraits

December 12, 2011 Neil vN 11 Comments

Back-lighting with flash for silhouetted wedding portraits

One of the easiest ways to create dramatic light for a silhouette when photographing the wedding portraits, is to add a flash behind the couple. The beauty of this is that there is a fair amount of leeway as to what would work. We need not be all that exact, but there are some a few things we should check ...  Read more inside...

Practical tutorial: Controls for manual flash exposure

October 3, 2011 Neil vN 52 Comments

Practical tutorial: Manual flash - distance, power, ISO & aperture

The photo above is of Hannah, one of our models at the workshops in Dublin, Ireland. The lighting is off-camera flash via a softbox to camera left, held up on a monopod. In this instance we used TTL flash with Radio Poppers. TTL flash makes it easy to get to great (or close to great) flash exposure immediately. But for consistency, manual flash is usually the best option. There are 4 things controlling flash exposure: - distance from your light source to your subject - power of your flash (including diffusion  Read more inside...

Bouncing flash forward without that direct flash look

September 7, 2011 Neil vN 26 Comments

Bouncing flash forward without getting that direct flash look

When bouncing my on-camera flash, I rarely point the flash straight-up. Most often the flash is pointed behind me or to the side to a certain extent. This way I get directional light. I want that off-camera soft-box effect. However there are those times when it just isn't that practical. With this recent wedding, the indoor ceremony was held in this large room. As you can see here in this test shot, the ceiling isn't white, but is a light brown, with wooden beams. The thick cross-beams have the effect of blocking flash  Read more inside...

Bounce flash for bridal portraits

July 14, 2011 Neil vN 25 Comments

Bounce flash for portraits of a bride

Deep into the busy part of the wedding season, the articles posted recently will be more wedding-centric than usual. But, as I've mentioned before, many of the techniques translate to other fields of photography. This photograph of a bride, Christine, received some very favorable comments when I posted it on Facebook. So I thought it might make a good topic here, as well as being a good recap of some essential bounce flash techniques. The portrait is quite straightforward in execution - the lighting was quite simple, but effective. It was also  Read more inside...

Using flash with incandescent / tungsten light

June 14, 2011 Neil vN 23 Comments

Using flash with incandescent / tungsten light

I have used this photograph several times in the past to illustrate various aspects of flash photography in low light, so it might be time to discuss this image more thoroughly. We'll also pull together a few other topics and see how it all comes together at this one point: Dragging the shutter Gelling your flash Bounce flash technique Direction of light The advantage of using TTL flash Working alongside a videographer    Read more inside...

wedding portraits: finding something to bounce your flash off

April 15, 2011 Neil vN 22 Comments

wedding portraits: finding something to bounce your flash off

One of the frequent questions that come up, is what to do when there is nothing to bounce your flash off.  When working indoors and there are bounce-able surfaces around me, my first instinct is to use on-camera bounce flash. It is easy to use, and the results can look surprisingly good, especially if you consider the minimal effort that went into it. No extra gear to carry around and set up. But when there is nothing to bounce flash off, you have to adapt your technique ...  Read more inside...

Flash photography basics

April 12, 2011 Neil vN 27 Comments

Flash photography basics

In teaching workshops on flash photography, I frequently encounter newer photographers who are overwhelmed by flash photography. Overwhelmed to the extent that they fear their flash, and would rather not deal with flash photography at all. Instead, they adopt the idea that they will only specialize in available light photography. Now, that kind of thinking is an artistic dead-end. As a photographer that aspires to truly being creative, you need to understand light, regardless of how it is supplied to us. I do feel that flash photography is one of those  Read more inside...

why use such high ISO settings with flash?

December 27, 2010 Neil vN 38 Comments

why should you use a higher ISO?

The advice for optimal camera settings for best image quality are usually: - use the lowest possible ISO: - at an aperture about 3 stops down from maximum (the widest) aperture; - at a shutter speed fast enough to avoid camera shake and unintentional subject movement. Taking this general advice at face value, means using the camera at its base ISO, which would either be 100 ISO or 200 ISO. However, while this advice is sound in theory, in practice this doesn't have direct consequence on my decision about my camera settings. In terms of  Read more inside...

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