![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/julie-kenny\/Julie-Kenny-4392-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With the response to the article on\u00a0bounce flash photography at wedding receptions<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n Julie & Kenny’s wedding, at the Laurita Winery, NJ<\/a>,\u00a0proved 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.<\/p>\n Manual flash<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on the other hand, has that \u00a0power \/ distance \/ aperture \/ ISO<\/em><\/a>\u00a0thing going for it, which gives a constant output. Ideally, when we use manual flash, we should use a light-meter … but this is tougher when using bounce flash and you’re on your own and don’t have an assistant running around taking light-meter readings. This wouldn’t be practical at an event like a wedding really. Therefore, we have to be guided by our camera’s preview, and adjust accordingly.<\/p>\n When I did a few test shots in this area before the guests entered, I found that somehow my TTL flash exposures weren’t as consistent as I was used to. I was bouncing off that wooden interior with the canopies and other decorations. No white surfaces. I suspect this somehow threw off the TTL flash exposure metering since I was working at a high ISO and wide apertures: 3200 ISO and \u00a0a range of apertures of f\/2.8 to f\/4<\/p>\n I therefore decided to switch over the manual flash.<\/p>\n Just to confirm again – the light you’re seeing in that top image is from one on-camera speedlight only. I bounced it behind me, over my shoulder, at an appropriate angle.<\/p>\n For those who’d want to know what angle I bounced it at – my approach with bounce flash photography is to consider where I would’ve placed that hypothetical softbox, had I been shooting in a studio. In other words, a 30 – 45 degree angle is usually a safe start. It gives a clean open light on my subjects’ face.<\/p>\n Since the flash is in manual output, I had to figure out a few set ranges with which I’d get good results. No under-exposure! Since I was shooting at such a high ISO, under-exposure would’ve been a problem.<\/p>\n I therefore figured out which areas I could successfully bounce my flash off – three of the walls of the reception room. One side was wide open to a second level. So I limited my movement.<\/p>\n I also did a few tests to see what the typical apertures would be, depending on how “deep” someone was standing in the room \/ dance-floor.<\/p>\n A few things worked for me here. The distance<\/strong>\u00a0that my light traveled didn’t change too much. Bouncing my flash behind me, the wall that I am bouncing the flash off, becomes my light source. So my exposures were fairly consistent for some movement “in and out” towards the dance-floor from where I was standing at any point. ie, closer to me, or further from me didn’t matter as much, compared to if I had my flash on my camera as a direct light.<\/p>\n Of course, as mentioned in the companion article on bounce flash photography<\/a>\u00a0at wedding receptions, the\u00a0inverse square law helps us when we bounce flash behind us<\/a>.<\/p>\n All this then combined to give me fairly consistent exposures for a fair amount of movement, whether myself, or my subjects.<\/p>\n Two more examples from that same wedding: camera settings: 1\/60 @ f\/4 @ 3200 ISO … manual on-camera bounce flash. camera settings: 1\/60 @ f\/3.5 @ 3200 ISO … manual on-camera bounce flash.<\/p>\n For the image at the top, (repeated here), I had to pull the exposure down by 0.6 EV in post-processing of the RAW file. I should’ve anticipated the slight over-exposure at the time, because she moved closer to me. ie, the distance<\/strong> changed.<\/p>\n camera settings: 1\/60 @ f\/3.5 @ 3200 ISO … manual on-camera bounce flash.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Generally, this is the lighting that I am after at a reception – clean open light – and as much of the ambience retained as is practical. I prefer simple. I prefer predictable.\u00a0(I have a high success rate shooting like this.)<\/p>\n I tend to fix my flash’s zoom head to the longest focal length. Two reasons: As for specific control of the flash’s zoom setting – I am sure there are situations where it is an advantage to zoom to either the widest or the longest zoom setting on the flash – but I don’t have examples that I can off-hand remember.<\/p>\n For this wedding reception, I didn’t use a gel on my flash. The light from my flash was picking up color casts from the wood and decorations, and there wasn’t much Incandescent light sources to consider anyway.<\/p>\n With the non-white surfaces, the key here is to shoot in RAW format<\/a>\u00a0for more control over the white balance. JPG is not an option here. With this continuation of the topic of bounce flash photography at wedding receptions, I wanted to show the results from a consistent technique.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manual on-camera bounce flash With the response to the article on\u00a0bounce 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 Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29882,"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":[111,15,45],"tags":[246,879,876,85],"yst_prominent_words":[10161,10145,10126,10141,10123,10162,1842,1850,10095,8890,10154,10163,1199,10134,10096,10149,10129,10131,10136,10159],"class_list":{"0":"post-11925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bounce-flash-photography","8":"category-flash-photography","9":"category-wedding-photography","10":"tag-lighting-for-wedding-photography","11":"tag-wedding-photographers-in-new-jersey","12":"tag-wedding-photography","13":"tag-wedding-photography-techniques","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11925"}],"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=11925"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48990,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11925\/revisions\/48990"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11925"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWith\u00a0TTL flash<\/strong>, the flash exposure calculation is done for you by the camera – and your only controls are:
\n– judging the subject & scene before-hand, and dialing in\u00a0flash exposure compensation<\/a>\u00a0(FEC), depending on whether the subject & scene is brighter or darker than “average”,
\nand \/ or<\/em>
\n– going by the preview on the camera’s LCD display, and adjusting the FEC then if necessary.<\/p>\n
\n(Again, just with one on-camera flash, bounced behind me.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/julie-kenny\/Julie-Kenny-4395-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n(Yes, that bridesmaid actually ducked so that she wouldn’t catch the bouquet.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/weddings\/julie-kenny\/Julie-Kenny-4541-900.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\nCamera settings\u00a0& photo gear\u00a0used (or\u00a0equivalents)<\/h2>\n
\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>\nA\u00a0few further observations<\/h2>\n
\n– I hate the flash going whizz-whizz-whizz as I zoom my lens. It’s annoying.
\n–\u00a0Also, I work my speedlights hard<\/a>. Most of them show the little fresnel lens has started to melt a little at some point. At the wider zoom settings, the discharge lamp moves much closer to the fresnel lens, and it can melt the fresnel more easily.<\/p>\n
\n–\u00a0bounce flash photography & white balance settings<\/a>
\n– bouncing flash off non-white surfaces such as brickwork<\/a><\/p>\nRelated articles<\/h2>\n
\n