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Thursday, August 4, 2011

Wedding Photography Tips - How to Maintain Ambient Background Light: Bouncing Your Flash

By Kevin Heslin


Beautiful items and scenery are found at almost all weddings. These items and scenery are carefully planned out previous to the wedding day. It is for this reason that these things should be visible in our final images. This means we do not want our images to just be pictures with the bride and groom exposed correctly, but everything behind them in dark shadows. We also don't want to have to shoot the whole wedding with very high ASA and no flash. This can be an excellent technique for some photos, but when used too much, the grain makes your photos look like they have been cropped from a larger picture.

Furthermore, there are times when actions happen so quickly and we need to be sure our subject's faces are in focus. What we need is a technique to properly expose our subjects in dim light, but still keep our backgrounds visible. Moreover we want sharp focus on our subject's face but not harsh shadows. The technique that will let us do all this is called bouncing on/off camera flash. Remember the rule, the larger the light source the softer the shadows? For example if you shoot a external flash through an umbrella you will notice the umbrella softens the shadows. This is because this big umbrella is now your light source.

Examples of these may be the big Tupperware looking things you see, or else a large bounce card. But wouldn't the shadows be even softer with a bigger light source? How about one the size of a wall or ceiling? This is what bouncing your flash is: turning the head of your flash so that the light first bounces off a wall, ceiling, people, etc., before hitting your subjects. This increases the size of your light source.

You may find that one of the best places to bounce your flash is the corner where a ceiling meets a wall. This directional light is very easy to visualize, and makes it easy to put your subjects where they need to be. If you prefer to use a lighting assistant, it is your assistants job to bounce the light. When I work with my assistant as I am setting up a shot, I just point exactly where I want my assistant to bounce the light. Remember, if you are using Canon or Nikon 's wireless system, be sure that your external flashes have line of site. If you are using a wireless sync or a long cord, you should not have any problem.

Now bouncing your flash to work in low light situations you do need to have your ISO bumped up to 1600. This is a big difference from 3200 and higher, and with cameras nowadays, the grain in 1600 isn't too noticeable. Also, you need to shoot 2.8 to get the ambient light. This is the big bonus of bouncing your flash, besides having softer shadows, is that the background exposed based on your ambient light. Adjust your camera settings so that you are underexposing the ambient light 2-3 stops for good results. This way, the flash properly exposes your subjects as they are the dominant element of the photo, and the background is also exposed, but a little bit dimmer and not competing for attention.

Another thing to notice is that you don't need to be worried by having a shutter speed slower than 60. This is because the action will be frozen by the flash. Imagine your wedding couple dancing fast. If you have a slow shutter speed the flash will freeze their faces, but the people behind them who are exposed by the ambient light may have a bit of motion blur. This is great since the motion blur in the background gives a sense of action, but the wedding couple is in sharp focus. I have found myself on the dance floor with my settings at ISO 1600. 2.8, and my shutter at 10-20 (but using good camera technique of course.) Remember that shooting at 2.8 you may need to recompose your images so that everything you want in focus is indeed in focus.




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