{"id":30854,"date":"2015-08-10T02:04:19","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T06:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=30854"},"modified":"2020-06-12T22:48:19","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T02:48:19","slug":"bounce-flash-photography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/bounce-flash-photography\/","title":{"rendered":"Bounce flash photography – be bold!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Bounce flash photography – be bold!<\/h1>\n

With on-camera bounce flash photography, there is the initial idea that you need a white wall or ceiling to bounce off. With these examples from an\u00a0engagement photo session<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0DaWeon and Toban,\u00a0I want to show that it is entirely possible to really enhance the available light on location, with some unexpected bounce flash.<\/p>\n

For those who are just joining us now, here is a\u00a0tutorial on bounce flash<\/a>. We’re just expanding here on that article. The essential idea from that tutorial – you bounce flash into the direction you want the light to come from. That is key. Another important idea is that with high ISO settings, bounce flash is quite feasible as a single on-camera light source: wedding reception lighting with one flash<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both of those ideas – directional bounce flash & the use of high ISO settings – came to play during this engagement photo session\u00a0in\u00a0Philadelphia<\/a>.\u00a0Outdoors\u00a0I mostly used the Profoto B1 flash<\/a>\u00a0(affiliate<\/em>), as an off-camera flash. But there was one venue that the couple wanted to visit, where the people at the concierge desk nixed the idea of such intrusive lighting equipment – yet, they were okay with an on-camera speedlight. So that had to suffice.<\/p>\n

The photos turned out remarkably well for the challenge of bouncing flash indoors into huge areas, without a distinct surface, and especially not a white surface anywhere around.<\/p>\n

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The comparison photo to the one at the top – this is just the available light. At the camera settings of 1\/80 @ f\/3.2 @ 1600 ISO, there isn’t much upward wiggle room left for an available-light photo that would be flattering. Especially with the dark shadows under their eyes. This really needed flash.<\/p>\n

Straight-on flash would’ve been unflattering. But directional bounce flash made all the difference.<\/p>\n

Where did I bounce my flash? Into the direction I wanted the light to come from … even if this didn’t make sense because of the size of the place and the wood panelling. Yet, it worked because I chose a higher ISO and wider aperture to let enough of the flash in. Here I used manual flash at full power, to ensure I did get proper exposure. Even then, I had to push the exposure up by a 1\/2 stop in processing the RAW file.<\/p>\n