Using Flash With Weddings Indoors

[Papou]

Okay gang need a bit of advice n help here:)..Shot some Pics at the Sons Wedding coupla weeks ago and some came out okay and some not so okay especially indoors ones mainly at the reception..
Used a Sigma 530 ST flash set on TTL and Priority Mode on Camera..
Will upload acouple of Picces a bit later when i set up the laptop(Place of storage:)...
What i need mostly is what settings others use with their Flash units..
Indoor shots during the Grooms Dressing Ceremony i mostly bounced the flash off the ceiling but at the reception it seemed as if i needed more light than the flash was giving???...
Okay will go set up the lappy....
Cheers

[Papou]

Hokeydokes here's a couple to start with:)..Cheers and thanking you in advance..

[Papou]

couple more:)...

[Smorter]

1. is nice but if you wanted it brighter you have to up the ISO or crank open the aperture. I use ISO 1600 as a default to get the background in. This is rarely enough though and for a venue like this you'd mostly like need f/2.0, 1/15, ISO 1600 or thereabouts to expose it properly

2 is really messy... sorry, it looks like you've blurred the background in photoshop and looks really fake. I'm guessing you did a gaussian blur layer mask

4,5 look like direct flash or a 45 degree bounce. Try bouncing reverse 45 degrees (angled behind you at 45) for these situations)

6. You shouldn't have bounced up onto the ceiling here, you should have bounced over your right shoulder (135 to the right from head on, 45 up) otherwise you get blown out subjects close to you like the woman's arm and guy's head

A tip, if you get your subjects so that they are mostly backlit and have little light hitting them from the front, then you can drag your shutter like crazy and still have them sharp because the flash will freeze motion. This will allow all your ambient to bleed in. This will only work if the background is brighter and there is little ambient light hitting them from the front though. (e.g. you would have to be to the right of the couple on 1.)

When indoors and using flash use Manual mode, unless you plan to shutter drag in which case AV may be doable but only in the conditions I mentioned above

[Papou]

Thanks for taking the time to viewe and reply on the Pics smorter:), apprecited..
1600 ISO!!??, thought of it but afraid to go that high due to noise though i should have tried some that high maybe??ey..lens used was the Sigma 17-70 f2.8..
Yes i did a gausion blur on the second, and yes to blur the background mainly to just focus on the subjects:)...
Backlight was a tad impossible as well as getting priority over the subjects as i had to try take a Pic somewhere between the main Photographer and other familly memebers trying to capture the moment lol..
Mate your advice is greatly appreciated and will experiment somewhat as to prepare me for next time(Dughters Wedding comming up soon:))..

[Papou]

Smorter, mate you mentioned dragging the shutter to get the lighting/exposure somewhat beter for indoors eg; like the reception area as in the Photos..
Did get the camera out last night and had a play around regarding your advice:)..
Now, had no probs getting the exposure correct but darned if i could get any sort of sharpness to my images at such a low shutter speed even with the ISO dialed up somewhat!!??..
Going back over your advice i did spy you mentioned for this to work out well the subject must have backlight?? is the correct??. because my trials were just in the loungeroom of the house with the lights dimmed down somewhat...
Secondly how would this work with subjects moving around a dancehall as in the photo??..
Again with such low shutter speed....
I thank you for advice..
Cheers

[Smorter]

Hi Papou

(I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but hopefully it helps, let me know if it doesn't)

Sorry I should have said it better. What happened when you dragged your shutter was you likely got streaks and ghosting causing the image to look blurry. Your subjects likely would have had orange-ish blur around them. What's happening is your flash freezes motion and you get a sharp image, but then because the shutter is open for such a long time, all the ambient light is also exposing properly, and because the shutter is open for such a long time though, it's exposing all over the place because of both your motion and the subject motion.

There are two ways to overcome or mitigate this. The first one is to deliberately underexpose the subject using M or AV (M is more consistent, set your settings once and let it be) so that it is 1 stop or so underexposed. This will increase your shutter speeds by a stop and you get less blur. It usually won't be to the detriment of the image because the flash helps fill in a bit of the background if you bounce it.

The other method to use is what I said about the backlighting. The reason you get the blur on the subjects is because the ambient light is hitting the subject too in addition to the flash light which freezes motion. If you have light in the background but hardly any light hitting your subject from the foreground, then when you drag the shutter you'll get nice ambient exposure and the only substantial light hitting your subject from the front will be from your flash, so you get a nice sharp person too despite a low shutter speed

Here's an example of what I mean. This room was pitch black, so I positioned myself to the end of the room where the bar's lights were in the background. Notice the foreground people are nice and sharp despite my shutter speed being very slow.
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v5/p195025189-4.jpg

This shot was at 1/6 shutter speed, ISO 1600, f/4. Normally it would be a blurry mess, and you can see that the background where there is other light being exposed is blurry in this 100% crop detail of the bar area:
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p108882841.jpg

But if you look at the people where flash is hitting them (100% Crop of the main photo below):
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v6/p439579528.jpg

You notice that it is sharp because the flash freezes the motion. You will get a sharp shot in this situation because they do not have much ambient light hitting them messing up the sharpness because the light is behind them, rather than hitting them from the front. So the only light hitting the subjects is largely your flash light, and because that is ultra fast burst, you get a sharpish photo.

It doesn't always work for all situations, so for a wedding, perhaps get the safe shots first doing what you already do, then try to get some shots using some other methods. As you say, at a wedding its like crazy fast paced, so often your photography will be dictated by the situation you are in and what can reasonably do given the limitations dealt by the situations
Good luck!

Here's a useful site too: http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/
It's a regular blog with some FAQ too on the right hand side of the page

[Papou]

Smorter, i really appreciate the effort yourve gone to in order to assist me with this ..
Will ask a coupla questions:)..
(1) You did take these shots hand held i presume??..
(2) To get to 1/6th shutter speed i presume you first used the cameras light / exposure meter to pick the speed or just through trial n error??
(3) Appature??..
With the play around i had at home i used my Pentax istDs and an 18-125 Sigma lens now no matter in manual or Priority mode once you start zooming with any Lens you cant dial in the full openening a lens will give , this is correct ,No??...As I did try for max appature but overidded each time i tried to zoom in..
Cheers and again "THANK YOU"..

[Smorter]

Hi Papou,

1. Yes handheld. Unfortunately I don't own a decent Tripod, and in any case I find it is too impractical to use them as they take too long to set up and they restrict your movement. For weddings I use a monopod during ceremonies but my Monopod is able to stand up because it has spikes at the bottom. It's a bit unnecessary but I use it so I can manually focus using Liveview and 10X magnification

2. I usually photograph in manual, what I would do in this situation is use the camera's meter and get to a position that is 1 stop or so under what the camera says is the correct exposure. I then use my flash bounced to fill in the rest because bounce flash tends to fill in the whole scene to some extent if you're only slightly underexposed

There are two metering procedures here, your camera meter, and the flash's own metering procedure

Usually your camera meter reports your background/ambient light exposure, and your flash controls your foreground/subject exposure (because the effect of flash falls off as it travels further). This is why the background is blurry, because it hasn't been frozen by the flash and is really an ambient light exposure at 1/6 hence the blur and camera shake

Admittedly it is somewhat affected by the flash still, but not as much as the foreground subjects which collect most of the flash blast. Indeed it is the foreground that the flash is metering for in this scenario using the Speedlite's Evaluative metering. It's a bit complicated but with trial and error you start to see how the flash meters the scene

3. Aperture was f/4, which was wide open on my Tokina 12-24 f/4 lens. I should have closed down a bit but 12mm (19mm equivalent FOV on my camera) tends to give plenty of depth of field for situations like this (and I wasn't interested in the background being sharp)

I think the reason your aperture changes as you zoom is because your lens is what is known as a "Variable aperture lens". That is, it's max aperture changes as you zoom to the telephoto end. This is a feature common in consumer and ambitious zoom lens designs. It's an annoying feature and most of the more expensive zoom lenses are constant aperture zooms (meaning the max aperture is constant throughout the zoom range), but many, many expensive zoom lenses also have this annoying feature so it's certainly not something that is unique. It's not much of an issue for AV or TV or P shooters, but it does mean using Manual is a pain in the bum for you sometimes because your exposures will vary as you zoom if you have your aperture set to max, unless you adjust everytime you zoom

Fortunately though, it isn't a huge deal if your exposures are at slightly different apertures between shots when indoors using flash because the differing flash burst magnitudes will make a larger difference to your

using f/5.6 or f/6.3 indoors with bounce flash is still viable, but you will need to up your ISO a bit to get the background in

How is your camera at high ISO?

[Photogenic]

Hi Papou - I think you have done well here - I find flash hard to use indoors. I can't offer any advice in regards to flash use sorry.

Smorter, I would like to pick your brains for the flash - is it possible to get a photo of what you mean by the following 2 comments - I would like to see how exactly you would bounce this way - I don't actually understand what you are bouncing off when you are bouncing over your shoulder.
Thanks
Linda
From your response above
4,5 look like direct flash or a 45 degree bounce. Try bouncing reverse 45 degrees (angled behind you at 45) for these situations)
6. You shouldn't have bounced up onto the ceiling here, you should have bounced over your right shoulder (135 to the right from head on, 45 up) otherwise you get blown out subjects close to you like the woman's arm and guy's head

[Papou]

The istDs can reach 3200 ISO whereás the K10D is 1600..
Mate what is Liveviewe with 10x Maginification if you dont mind my asking??..
Adaptor of sorts for the Camera?? or do you mean "Liveview which is a feature of some Cameras??..
Cheers and again a HUGE THANK YOU:)..

[Shaddsi]

Liveview is when you can view the image you are going to take on the back of the camera instead of looking through the viewfinder. the 10x magnification is the ability to zoom this view 10x for accurate manual focus. its good for macro and still shots.

[Smorter]

Hi Papou - I think you have done well here - I find flash hard to use indoors. I can't offer any advice in regards to flash use sorry.

Smorter, I would like to pick your brains for the flash - is it possible to get a photo of what you mean by the following 2 comments - I would like to see how exactly you would bounce this way - I don't actually understand what you are bouncing off when you are bouncing over your shoulder.
Thanks
Linda
From your response above
4,5 look like direct flash or a 45 degree bounce. Try bouncing reverse 45 degrees (angled behind you at 45) for these situations)
6. You shouldn't have bounced up onto the ceiling here, you should have bounced over your right shoulder (135 to the right from head on, 45 up) otherwise you get blown out subjects close to you like the woman's arm and guy's head

Hi Linda,

Here's a recent "unphotoshopped", straight out of camera photo I took using my over the shoulder technique. I'm sorry it's small and low resolution and watermarked please feel free to PM me if you would like to see a larger sized file.
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v6/p482427988.jpg

Directional bounce flash is very subtle and adds a pop to the image. This is a JPG pretty much out of camera so it needs a bit of colour correct and stuff but I thought I'd show an un-photoshopped photo so you can see the lighting effects without any software manipulation. The nasty light on the shoulders was caused my nasty overhead room lights, and I might need to use my RAW file to correct it there.

Do you bounce to the ceiling? If so, it would mean the light would come from the ceiling. But what I was taught was that if you imagine you're in a studio situation, you would never have a softbox or umbrella up on the ceiling unless you're going for some exotic effect. 99% of the time the main filling or key light softbox and or umbrella is always on an angle in front of the subject (usually), for instance facing the subject off centre to the right or left.

The idea is to do the same for a bounce flash. Unfortunately most (including myself) bouncing up onto the ceiling at 45 degrees forward, or 90 degrees straight up. But this gives light which comes from the top and creates harsh shadows especially if you are too close to the subject. When close you get even worse shadows and even situations where the head is illuminated and the body is dark.

A straight up bounce is more suited to when you are far away from the subject (e.g. more than 5 metres) but when close, it is not appropriate because of the eye and nose shadows.

One solution is to use a diffuser such as a Fong Dong, or a Flipit or a Stofen Omnibounce (or cheap ripoffs) but they make the light harsher and also they cost money and make you look silly in the case of the Fong Dong. Also they are another item that can be potentially lost and I just don't bother using any of them

Another solution is what I do: what I do is to turn the flash head to behind me (so when the flash bounces back it hits your subject from the front so you get even lighting and no shadows under eyes, nose, chin) But don't just turn it straight behind you, but behind you at a bit of an angle so you get directional lighting.

In other words, bounce your flash so that the light coming back is the directional you would normally want a softbox's light to be emanating from...if that makes sense

When I say turn your flash head 45 degrees up and 135 degrees behind, when the light then bounces back its like how a softbox's light would be positioned.

Effectively the flash is going over your shoulder. Now here's what I think is confusing you due to my lack of clarity: The flash head is angled high enough so it is hitting the ceiling behind you (and depending on your angle and your needs, hitting the back and/or side walls too), rather than the ceiling on top of you.

Here's a quickie example, sorry the subject is a bit ugly :D:

With a 90 degree straight up bounce, you have this situation where the nose and facial ridges get a lot of light and have hot spots, but you get deep shadows under the nose, eyes (some asian eyes bulge out a bit so its not a good example), chin. This is not as bad for when you are far away from subjects, but for closeups like this, I think it sucks
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v5/p418841-3.jpg
^ I REALLY HATE these type of bounce flash shots because there is just so much contrast between the hotspots (forehead and nose ridge) and the shadows (under eyes, nose and chin)

This following photo below is the flash spun around over the left shoulder so it is hitting the ceiling behind the subject, and whilst there are still shadows, I think its a more flattering light because it is less harsh and there's less of a hot spot, and it is more dynamic and directional. Notice how the shadows are more directional.
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v1/p232409105-3.jpg

I didn't take either of those two photos (for obvious reasons) but this is probably an extreme example, and the second photo can be tuned to be less harsh and directional.

By the way, I don't own any of that gear so nobody get any thoughts about trying to rob me :D


The istDs can reach 3200 ISO whereás the K10D is 1600..
Mate what is Liveviewe with 10x Maginification if you dont mind my asking??..
Adaptor of sorts for the Camera?? or do you mean "Liveview which is a feature of some Cameras??..
Cheers and again a HUGE THANK YOU..

Yeah what Luke said exactly. When using high ISOs exposures must be perfect, otherwise you get crazy noise when you push the exposures. I tend to be able to push my cameras about one stop in post processing, but I'm not sure how good your cameras are at high ISO. Maybe try shooting at ISO 800 and see if you get better results. I find my best flash results are when flash looks very subtle. And you can only get that when you allow the ambient light to blend in, otherwise you get flashed subjects and dark backgrounds, making it look like an obvious flash shot

[Smorter]

Sorry the second photo didn't come up on my last post, I dunno what happened but here it is:

(This is the over the shoulder bounce type shot):
http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v1/p232409105-3.jpg

[Smorter]

Yeah what Luke said exactly.

Sorry I meant Simon...no excuse but it's late and my brain is muddled :(

[Photogenic]

Thanks for the explanation and the example shots Smorter. You were right - I was confused about what the light was bouncing back from when going over your shoulder (I'm pretty sure you don't always have a wall behind you). I figured it would be behind and up to come form the ceiling but thought I would get some clarification.

You have definitely given me something to practice.

Linda

[Papou]

:)I practiced n practiced what you said just in my loungeroon shooting towards the dining room where light was rather low taking in that room and the loungeroom itself..Distance a good 15 -twenty feet maybe??..
Anyhows for my setup, your advice along with sore eyed and tired brain lol from heps of reading i ended up doing two things to get what i percieved good shots and will do so again to post here with live subjects , just to make sure i am on the right track:rolleyes:..
First lot i placed ISO on Auto,AV after working out GN No.divided by distance, then turned flash on with TTL and lighting for me appearded what i should have ..
Secondly i dragged the shutter to as above method (Slowed shutter speed) and again had what appeared good results.
Just need to try the same with subjects and preferably in a hall or even to make the practice perfect :) (Hopefully)..
People like yourself my friend and sites like this that help us novices get somewhere close to where we want to be....
Thank You...

[Papou]

Hokeydokes:), here's a coupla Pic mentioned in my previous post.
One has the lights from the fluro in the kitchen as well as the loungeroom blown though depth to me:( still appears okay far as light fill goes .This one was at f2.8, 1/30th and ISO 400 with methods used as mentioned.
The next i took over the shutter speed but still leaving ISO on auto f2.8 again, 1/125,and ISO went down to 100..
can you please give me a verdict on the best of the two ie; last one please,,
Now just need to carry out same tests with subjects see how the results turn out:)..

[Smorter]

Thanks for the explanation and the example shots Smorter. You were right - I was confused about what the light was bouncing back from when going over your shoulder (I'm pretty sure you don't always have a wall behind you). I figured it would be behind and up to come form the ceiling but thought I would get some clarification.

You have definitely given me something to practice.

Linda

Hi Linda,

I think Dennis Reggie (the so called godfather of photojournalistic wedding photography) popularised this technique of bouncing off side walls and ceilings behind the photographer etc. but this guy popularised it and has some good tutorials on his photo blog:

http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/4-bouncing-flash/

That page is like Bouncing 101 for the technique I described. My method I described is slightly different because I tend to use the flash as a fill and don't have as contrasty and dynamic results (directional lighting type) he tends to get, so I allow more ambient to bleed in, but Neil Van Niekerk is a very large influence on my flash photography.



Hokeydokes:), here's a coupla Pic mentioned in my previous post.
One has the lights from the fluro in the kitchen as well as the loungeroom blown though depth to me:( still appears okay far as light fill goes .This one was at f2.8, 1/30th and ISO 400 with methods used as mentioned.
The next i took over the shutter speed but still leaving ISO on auto f2.8 again, 1/125,and ISO went down to 100..
can you please give me a verdict on the best of the two ie; last one please,,
Now just need to carry out same tests with subjects see how the results turn out:)..

Hi Papou

Just a general comment first whilst I remember, I'd hate to be a detriment on your technique and don't want you to do anything you aren't comfortable with, I suggest for weddings and stuff you get the shots first as you have always done and then experiment after those shots are safely on the memory card

For your two photos, notice your first photo was a much slower shutter speed and a much higher ISO, which meant much more of your ambient light was exposed. Notice how the centre room that is almost hidden from view is very bright. It's because all the lights in that room are being exposed because of your higher ISO and slower shutter. As such your photo looks less flashed.

In the second shot, your camera settings exposed far lower, and as such look at the background particularly the centre room almost hidden from view (because the flash light didn't reach there).

In both shots, notice your foreground is roughly the same exposure because the flash kicks in enough light to fill the frontal section. Your camera settings then effectively control the background exposure where the flash doesn't reach as much.

Which shot is better? It's hard to say. I think the first one is more natural looking because of the greater amount of ambient light bleeding in, but of course using higher ISOs and lower Shutter speeds means that although more light is exposing in the background, you also get more blur and noise. It's a tradeoff that depends on the situation. I don't think the first one is better though, because you are allowing more of your room lights to expose, it affects the white balance more, whereas the second shot which is largely all flash is a very pure white

For a shot like this, where you don't have facial features, I recommend you point the flash straight up into the ceiling, forget about the technique I described earlier as that is more appropriate to people. Here's a photoshop simulation of the more even lighting possible if you stop down slightly (to reduce vignetting) and up the ISO a bit (I'm not sure if you're going for this look though, you might not be interested in something so "flat")

http://dawei.zenfolio.com/img/v5/p6537942-3.jpg

[Charismatic]

Bouncing indoors saves alot of shots. Stops that "harsh flash" and keeps that warm feel you want, IMO.

Bounce all the way.