![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bounce\/trumpet-player-227-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
An photo of a jazz trumpet player during a session in a club, lit by on-camera bounce flash<\/strong>. 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<\/a>:<\/p>\n 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 settings accordingly. \u00a0(See the comparison photo below.)<\/p>\n By under-exposing the ambient light, the flash<\/strong> becomes the main source of light … and this allowed me to control the quality of light.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The available light levels in the club was very low. As comparison to the image at the top where I used flash, here is an out-of-camera image shot at 1\/160 @ f1.8 @ 1600 ISO Without flash, the image is underexposed even at those settings.\u00a0When I changed the white balance of the RAW file to 2500K, the color was still overly red.\u00a0 So this situation really did<\/strong> need\u00a0flash to give a color image.<\/p>\n Regarding the shutter speed in the top image (where I used flash), I was at the camera’s maximum flash sync speed<\/a> for a specific reason. Max flash sync speed is that sweet spot when you try to overpower strong available light with flash.<\/p>\n I specifically did not go into high-speed flash sync<\/a>\u00a0(HSS) territory, since this would’ve cut my flash power too much. To re-iterate: you can’t “kill the available light” with high-speed flash sync. Shutter speeds higher than max sync speed drop your flash output faster than the ambient light exposure is affected by that same change in shutter speed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When there are surfaces to bounce flash off, this bounce flash technique is repeatable and can give remarkably good results. Results that look nothing like on-camera flash.<\/p>\n The next step? Practice and compare for yourself.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This book is explains a cohesive and thorough approach to getting the best from your on-camera speedlight.<\/p>\n Particular care was taken to present it all with a logical flow that will help any photographer attain a better understanding of flash photography.<\/p>\n You can either purchase a copy via\u00a0Amazon USA<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Amazon UK<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0or can be ordered through Barnes & Nobles and other bookstores. The book\u00a0is also available on the Apple iBook Store, as well as Amazon Kindle.\nAlso check out the Amazon Kindle store.<\/p>\n Learn more about\u00a0how\u00a0the cover image<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was shot.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since I’ve been taken to task by another photographer \/\u00a0musician for\u00a0the photo shown at the top of this article,\u00a0I feel I need to add this explanation:<\/p>\n I was there by\u00a0invitation of the saxophonist of the band to take a few promotional photos of the band members while playing a small gig. I didn’t intrude – I was specifically asked to take a series of photos.\u00a0It was a daytime gig in Harlem, with few people there in the pub \/ restaurant. I doubt the\u00a0people in the pub\u00a0even really noticed me taking photographs, since it wasn’t a concert as such. So, that photo (and others) were intentional, and not intrusive to the player or the audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8212,111,15],"tags":[881,54,56,847],"yst_prominent_words":[1265,1393,1845,1844,1842,1850,1854,1199,1857,1855,1847,1856,8244,1858,1884,1851,1852,3817,1878,1853],"class_list":{"0":"post-11694","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-book-lighting-design","8":"category-bounce-flash-photography","9":"category-flash-photography","10":"tag-bounce-flash-photography","11":"tag-flash-photography-technique","12":"tag-flash-photography-tips","13":"tag-tutorial-bounce-flash-photography","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11694"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51692,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11694\/revisions\/51692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11694"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bounce\/trumpet-player-191-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe camera settings for the image at the top where I used bounce flash:
\n1\/250th @ f4 @ 800 ISO,\u00a0 flash exposure compensation at +1 EV
\nCanon 1D mark IIn; Canon 70-200mm f\/2.8 IS; Canon 580EX speedlite<\/p>\nAchieving quality light with on-camera flash …<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\nit helps to use something like the\u00a0black foamie thing<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
\n
\n
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"On-Camera](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/books\/NvN\/5-oncameraflash-ed2-250.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\tOn-Camera Flash Photography – revised edition<\/h2>\n
<\/div><\/p>\n
\nMaterials for the flash modifier used – the black foamie thing<\/h2>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bft\/bft_sq.jpg\")
<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\tI use the black foamie thing (BFT) as a truly inexpensive flash modifier to flag my on-camera flash to give me lighting indoors that truly look nothing like on-camera flash.The piece of foam<\/strong><\/a> (Amazon<\/em>), can be ordered via this link. I cut the sheet into smaller pieces.
The BFT is held in position by two hair bands<\/strong><\/a> (Amazon<\/em>), and the BFT is usually placed on the under-side<\/strong> of the flash-head.
The linked articles will give clearer instruction, especially the video clip on using the black foamie thing<\/a>.\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div><\/p>\nRelated articles on bounce flash photography<\/h2>\n
\n
\n
Clarification<\/h2>\n