{"id":5230,"date":"2010-11-29T14:57:52","date_gmt":"2010-11-29T18:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/?p=5230"},"modified":"2021-02-23T07:31:58","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T11:31:58","slug":"lighting-ideas-romantic-portraits-of-bride-and-groom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/lighting-ideas-romantic-portraits-of-bride-and-groom\/","title":{"rendered":"lighting ideas for romantic wedding portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"

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lighting the romantic portraits of the bride & groom<\/h1>\n

Scouting around the location during dinner time, I peered over the edge of this spiraling staircase and thought it would be a good idea to get some light on the couple, seated on the couch. I posed Melissa so that \u00a0she lounged back with her head on Dennis’ lap. There is no way to get light on them from my position with on-camera bounce flash, and definitely not if my intention is to get light only on them. It needed off-camera flash.<\/p>\n

To add some variety, \u00a0I also thought of a few other things to try with the lighting, using the same set-up and pose.
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First there was the setup as shown in the photo above, with the intent of having the couple within the geometric shape of the staircase. I bounced flash off a wall. The speedlight was set to full manual power, and tripped with a PocketWizard<\/a>. The flash had to be in manual output since these older style pocketwizards don’t allow for TTL capability. No problem however. I just used the flash as a manual flash. Metering was done by making sure there were no blinking highlights on the bride’s dress. Since that is the brightest relevant tone, and I didn’t want to lose detail there, I checked that I wasn’t getting an over-exposure warning on her dress.<\/p>\n

camera settings: 1\/80 @ f3.5 @ 800 ISO
\nAnticipating an extreme wide angle for the top image, I used the\u00a0Nikon 14-24mm f2.8G ED AF-S<\/a> (B&H), but ended up using it at 24mm.<\/p>\n

Here is a shot of the flash on the ground, held up with the foot that comes with the speedlight.<\/p>\n

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Next I wanted a more straight-forward photograph of the couple, but still leggy and sexy.<\/p>\n

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In the first of these two images, I still fired the off-camera speedlight via the Pocketwizard, but I also bounced flash behind me, flooding the place with even light. \u00a0It looks good … but looks a little flat in terms of the lighting. My FEC was set to 0 EV. \u00a0(Actually, -0.7EV on the Nikon D3 & Sb-900 combination, which is my ‘zero’ FEC for this combo.)<\/p>\n

Camera settings for image above: \u00a01\/80 @ f4.5 @ 640 ISO<\/p>\n

I wanted less of my camera’s bounce flash, so needed to dial it down. I ended up at -2EV … but I also knew this would now mean the image is under-exposed. So I opened up a little bit to allow more of the manual flash in and had my settings at 1\/80 @ f4 @ 800 ISO … which is just 1\/3rd stop away from the image right at the top which was lit by only the off-camera manual flash. So now the TTL bounce flash just lifted the shadows a bit, with the off-camera flash giving the majority of light. \u00a0And since it is off-camera, it has directional and more interesting here.<\/p>\n

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Finally, I oped for video light<\/strong><\/a> for a more intimate and dramatic look. \u00a0If the bounce flash completely ‘opened up’ the image, video light goes the opposite way – giving a spot-light effect.<\/p>\n

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different lighting ideas for the romantic wedding portraits<\/h1>\n

Normally I would tone down the brighter spot next to the groom, so it doesn’t distract … but I wanted the images here to be faithful in terms of what can be achieved with the specific lighting. \u00a0So no dodging and burning or local corrections.<\/p>\n

Camera settings: \u00a01\/60 @ f4 @ 1600 ISO
\nvideo light: Litepanels MicroPro LED video light<\/a> (B&H),<\/p>\n

Here is the pull-back shot to show my assistant holding up the video light.<\/p>\n

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Within these different ways of lighting the same set-up, there are of course other angles and compositions – all of which allows for a variety of images within a very short space of time. \u00a0And that is how it usually is with wedding photography – pressure to get great images within tight time constraints.<\/p>\n

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