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There are occasions where you really\u00a0need to work fast with flash – time might be tight, or it might just be too cold outside to linger.\u00a0After photographing John’s surprise\u00a050th birthday party<\/a>, John and Stacie and I went outside to Columbus Circle for portraits of the two of them.\u00a0After the high of the party, I wanted to keep the momentum as well\u00a0by working fast.\u00a0And since it was mid-November in New York, it was nearly certain that the late night air would be nippy.<\/p>\n I didn’t want to use direct on-camera flash\u00a0– I wanted that diffused off-camera flash look.\u00a0However,\u00a0single-handedly using off-camera flash with a softbox on a light stand, might slow the shoot down.\u00a0So I made the decision here to use on-camera flash, but to bounce it into a hand-held reflector – the\u00a0Lastolite 30″ \/ 75cm Trigrip reflector<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0(B&H<\/a><\/em>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n Holding the reflector up in my outstretched left hand, and then bouncing on-cameras flash into it, gave me the look I wanted. Using the new stabilized Nikon 24-70mm f\/2.8E\u00a0VR<\/a>\u00a0(B&H<\/a> \/ Amazon<\/a><\/em>), gave me more confidence that my one-hand grip on the camera would still give me sharp photos at slower shutter speeds.<\/p>\n Well, doing this gave me the look I wanted to the actual photos\u00a0… but\u00a0I’m not sure if doing this made me<\/strong> look super-cool or just dorky.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n John snagged this for me with my iPhone, so that I can show how I held the reflector. The wide stance was so that I could shoot from a little lower. Also, it made me look … yeah, I’m still not sure if I look\u00a0all that cool there. But the photos work!\u00a0Oh, there\u00a0is a\u00a0larger 48″ version<\/a>\u00a0of that reflector as well.<\/p>\n Here is the comparison photo to show the effect of the flash in the main photo at the top.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I had a 1\/2 CTS gel on my flash, to bring the city lights to a more neutral rendering. I also used TTL flash, because the way the reflector moved in my unsteady hand, I couldn’t rely on manual flash. It had to be TTL flash.<\/p>\n Dragging the shutter<\/a>\u00a0to allow more ambient light in, gave the 2nd image a brighter, more airy feel. No right or wrong here – both versions work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n To get the streaking movement of the taxis going around Columbus Circle, I pulled the shutter speed down to 1\/13 of a second. Even though the\u00a0flash helped freeze any of my camera shake<\/a>\u00a0here, the stabilized lens gave me even more confidence when holding the heavy camera + lens with just one hand.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Even though shooting this way gave me some mobility, I lost a number of frames due to under-exposure when the reflector swung in my hand. Not ideal. Still, I think this is a work-able solution in a pinch, or when needing to shoot with less constraint, but still wanting good quality light from a speedlite.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part 2:\u00a0Bounce flash off a dark ceiling<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n There will be some skepticism about the use of\u00a0\u00a0stabilization on a wide-ish lens like this – the\u00a0\u00a0Nikon 24-70mm f\/2.8E\u00a0VR<\/a>\u00a0(B&H<\/a>\u00a0\/\u00a0Amazon<\/a><\/em>). But the vibration reduction\u00a0came in useful several times. With this portrait of John, I wanted to use the reflection of the city lights and car lights off this metallic surface.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For detail shots of the party at\u00a0the\u00a0Robert Restaurant, NYC<\/a>, I used the available light, retaining all the atmosphere. I’m not a fan of using a tripod – it’s extra weight to schlep around, and cumbersome to set up for a variety of photos when time is tight. Usually with this I would shoot with a wider aperture on a prime lens, or machine-gun images to make sure I have a few that are adequately sharp.<\/p>\n Here I used shutter speeds around 1\/20th and with this lens, had razor sharp images, hand-held.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part 2:\u00a0Bounce flash off a dark ceiling<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bounce flash outdoors with a reflector There are occasions where you really\u00a0need to work fast with flash – time might be tight, or it might just be too cold outside to linger.\u00a0After photographing John’s surprise\u00a050th birthday party, John and Stacie and I went outside to Columbus Circle for portraits of the two of them.\u00a0After the Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[111,485,15],"tags":[881,510],"yst_prominent_words":[10050,8103,1499,10046,8100,10052,8105,1021,1509,8114,8097,1113,1107,1908,3156,1909,1910,10055,8107,1498],"class_list":{"0":"post-33612","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bounce-flash-photography","8":"category-event-photography","9":"category-flash-photography","10":"tag-bounce-flash-photography","11":"tag-bounce-flash-photography-tips","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33612"}],"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=33612"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48929,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33612\/revisions\/48929"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33612"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=33612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bounce\/john-portraits\/IMG_6977.jpg\")
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Summary<\/h2>\n
About the Nikon 24-70mm f\/2.8E VR<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bounce\/john-portraits\/JC-portraits_0612.jpg\")
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/flash\/bounce\/john-portraits\/JC-details_0118-0157.jpg\")
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