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Search Results for: bouncing flash behind me

Wedding photography: posing and lighting – a consistent style

February 9, 2015 Neil vN 10 Comments

wedding photography: posing and lighting – aiming for a consistent style

Wedding photography: posing and lighting - aiming for a consistent style

The two images were taken about half an hour apart, with entire different lighting setups - yet there is a consistent look. The photo on the left was shot using video light with an Incandescent white balance. A video light is a small light source, so the lighting is usually quite contrasty - so you need to take care with the posing to have your main subject posing into the light. With a bridal couple, I will nearly always favor the bride for the more flattering light. Hence, I will invariably pose the bride  Read more inside...

A wedding in Central Park, New York

August 8, 2012 Neil vN 31 Comments

A wedding in Central Park, New York

A groom holding up the softbox for me ... as you may well guess, there's a story here. Alvin and Lucia are from the UK, but decided to get married in Central Park. Of course, there's a story here too.  Read more inside...

review: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT

May 1, 2012 Neil vN 32 Comments

review: Canon Speedlite 600EX-RT

Summary: Right off the bat, let me say it - this speedlite, the Canon 600EX-RT (B&H / Amazon), is going to change the industry. Nothing is going to be the same again. A speedlite that has radio transmitters built in, has been anticipated for quite some time now. It just makes sense.  So it was just a matter of time before one of the big camera manufacturers did this ... and Canon is the first. And they didn't drop the ball on the rest of the speedlite's features, or with the functionality of this piece of gear. It's easy to use, with  Read more inside...

Romantic wedding portraits with video light

September 22, 2011 Neil vN 18 Comments

Romantic wedding portraits with video light

By now it should be clear that I'm quite a fan of video lights for the romantic portrait session with a couple. The Incandescent WB of the video light usually matches the existing light fairly well. Because video light has a rapid fall-off in light intensity to the edges of the beam, it doesn't "flatten" out the light like bounce flash would. In addition, the video light can seem quite natural in context of the existing light, and not even look like additional lighting. Somehow the light just appears to be great right there. Here are two  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Developing a personal style

August 18, 2011 Neil vN 38 Comments

Wedding photography - Developing a personal style

I've been mulling a while now over a question someone asked me about how long I think it took to develop a personal style in photography. "What does it take, and how many years do you think it generally takes a photographer to develop their own personal style, meaning, you can look at a photograph and know who took it. Not everyone would know, but some people could tell it's your style. I think very few photographers actually have their own style and I'm curious what you think it took to get there." How long do I think it takes?  Read more inside...

Cherryl & Jim – their wedding day – stills and video fusion clip

April 1, 2011 Neil vN 21 Comments

wedding photography, The Grove, New Jersey

overview: Cherryl & Jim's wedding at The Grove, NJ A little bit of info about the video and stills photography ...  Read more inside...

a maternity photo session – creating that connection

March 21, 2011 Neil vN 19 Comments

high-key lighting with maternity photo session

Part of what makes wedding photography so rewarding, is keeping contact with clients over the years as life continues past the wedding date. Maternity photo sessions .. babies .. kiddos .. it's all part of how couples' lives unfold. If we're fortunate as photographers, we remain part of it. So it was with great pleasure that I had a maternity photo session with Renee and David. As usual with a photo session, I like to mix things up in terms of the lighting ... all with the intent of getting more diversity in the selection of images:  Read more inside...

review: Custom Brackets Digital Pro-M rotating bracket kit

January 30, 2011 Neil vN 26 Comments

review: Custom Brackets Digital Pro-M rotating bracket kit

The makers of the Custom Brackets flash brackets, recently sent me a copy of their latest and best rotating flash bracket, the Pro-M rotating flash bracket (affiliate), for review. Of the various makes of flash brackets I had tried out when I first started doing wedding photography full-time, the Custom Brackets was the one I settled on out of all of them. As far as I was concerned theirs was the flagship of the flash brackets. So I was curious to see what the updated model could offer ...  

the reason  Read more inside...

using a small softbox for lighting an intimate photo session

January 22, 2011 Neil vN 37 Comments

using a small softbox for lighting an intimate / boudoir photo session

With intimate photo sessions, I use a number ways of lighting my subject. This helps to bring some variety to the images. It helps mixing things up a bit by not using just one specific way to light the session. While I sometimes use a softbox, the medium sized softboxes (or the 24" x 24" softboxes) are just a little too big to swing around in a small room. With a recent on-location photo session in New York, I used the Lastolite 8.6" Ezybox (B&H) a few times. I took it along on that photo session because it  Read more inside...

Depth-of-field and aperture change

January 11, 2011 Neil vN 26 Comments

Depth-of-field and aperture change

A valid question on how much the change in aperture affects depth-of-field, is whether an 70-200mm f/4 zoom would give you the same kind of look that an f/2.8 zoom would. For me, a fast f/2.8 aperture is essential on a zoom lens, especially the telephoto zooms. For the same scenario, it gives me a higher shutter speed than the f/4 zoom. Or I can use a lower ISO. More importantly, since I often bounce flash in large areas, the f/2.8 aperture gives me more chance of successfully bouncing my flash than an f/4 aperture would.  

But what  Read more inside...

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