Most people equate wedding photography with ambient light, but the reality is that you can’t always get what you want. The light you need is often absent, is the wrong kind, or is in the wrong place. That’s why judicious use of on-camera flash plays a central role in assuring great wedding photography shots and a happy bride and groom.
Todays with find that wedding photography in Nottingham, we find that shooting with ambient light is the current fad, but learning when to turn on the flash and buck the fad is just as important.
Thats not to say there aren’t critical choices to be made when using on-camera flash. Aside from stylistic and philosophical issues, you must deal with such potential downsides as distracting the wedding party and guests, creating unsightly side shadows, fall off and more. Still, its an essential tool for any successful wedding photographer in Nottingham or elsewhere, since its characteristics — and even its eccentricities — can be put to advantage in fully capturing the story of the wedding day.
The golden rule of using on-camera flash indoors is “bounce it,” which may be the most important factor in fostering an ambient feel and creating atmosphere while reducing the evidence of flash. Bounce softens light by effectively making the source larger, eliminating hard shadows and allowing selective enhancement existing illumination.
Bounce also unleashes unlimited creative possibilities. Ceilings and walls work, of course, but so can tablecloths and wedding dresses. Anything with reflective capability is a candidate for bounce. When using flash indoors, bounce at all times. Bounce off ceilings, walls, people’s white shirts — whatever is available in order to increase the effective flash-to-subject distance, to reduce fall-off effects and soften the light source by spreading it out in every direction.
As wedding photographers in Nottingham, Steve & Sarah Mills us bounce flash from an on-camera unit which can also can be combined with other photo flash sources. Success with on-camera flash often means going for a natural look, enhancing what ambient light is there, or at the very least creating a natural-looking result. Fortunately, the high ISO performance available in today’s digital SLRs has made it easier to use existing light while minimizing the evidence of flash. You can use high ISO and drag the shutter a bit in combination to prevent that flash fallout from becoming very evident. With the 1DS and 5D we go through the entire range up to 3200 ISO, and because of the high resolution you can really control noise, giving you a lot more flexibility by using more ambient light in the exposure.
Shooting in Raw also helps. It gives you latitude without having to worry about colour temperature, especially when you are switching between flash on and flash off between shots and theres no time to fuss with WB settings. When you drag the shutter a lot in combination with flash, sometimes you’ll get different color temperatures between the subject and the background, and Raw makes it easier to deal with that and colour cast in post production.
Diffusers are also widely used to minimize shadows, but not everyone buys into their effectiveness. We try not to use third party diffusers because they complicate things by adding additional variables to the equation. In fact, adding a diffuser, in my experience seems to make the results less predictable mainly because the camera and flash is not aware that such a device is diffusing the light. However, I do occasionally use the wide-angle diffuser on the flash itself or the white card built into the flash head.
And there is no substitute for fast lenses, which bring in more ambient light, allowing the photographer more of a balance between that and the flash. We can remember the time we were covering a reception in a dark, dimly lit barn, and we wanted to show the cake being served as well as the dancing guests in the background. We bounced her flash at an angle to give the foreground some directional lighting, and exposed the image at 800 ISO, 1/15th of a second, and f2.8. If we had exposed the background at the same shutter speed and ISO, but at f4, it would be much more dark and shadowy. Plus, the large aperture gave us focus where we wanted it, on the cake, while the background was blurred.
Flash is obtrusive. Blinding, high-intensity strobes are certainly not conducive to capturing intimacy and candid moments, or documenting the unadulterated story of the wedding day. Yet the reality remains that some flash is necessary, and whenever you use it, you’re going to create a degree of distraction. So where do you draw the line, and how do you minimize distraction wherever possible?
We never use it during the ceremonies and rarely during the getting ready period because we don’t want to distract,. But the worst time to use flash is when we’re in close quarters with people. We like to reduce the number of flashes going off in those situations.
We usually avoid flash even during the wedding day getting ready shots, unless the room is very dark or lacks any ambient light aside from overhead fluorescents, whereas she uses it almost the whole time during receptions. However, even then we prefer to dial down my bounced flash and mix it with a lot of ambient light. Thats generally less distracting to guests than heavy doses of direct flash.
The enhanced control afforded by on-camera flash is often extended from merely correcting poor light situations to actually enhancing the atmosphere of the image, all while remaining faithful to documenting reality. For example, most pros make regular use of shutter drag, lengthening the time of exposure just enough so that available light registers on the image while using the flash to fill out the scene. This technique works well for perfectly exposing the main subject while better illuminating background details, especially in dim light situations. And, you can let your creativity go from there, which is great during our wedding photography in Nottingham.
We often will drag the shutter or zoom with the flash so that the main subject is sharp but the background is maybe a little streaked. With a shutter speed of …say, a fifth of a second or slower, we start zooming, and get a nice effect there. You need to be careful not to overdue it, but it can be fun to experiment.
We often use second shutter sync and a slow shutter speed to create a sense of motion. I’ll set the shutter speed and the aperture to about 1.5 to 2 stops under the ambient light, and set the flash to expose for ambient light. I’ll then pan the camera and zoom my lens to create a blurry background while the subject is frozen by the flash.
Unflattering backlighting seems to be frequent when taking pictures of best man/maid of honour toasts, as venues love to set up the head tables directly in front of a wall of windows. In this kind of a situation, it’s not always possible to take a side angle, so you really need the fill. We recently had a couple that was toasted from a table at the edge of a tent in shadow, but directly behind them was a very bright background flooded with mid-day sun. Without fill, you would never see the faces of the bride and groom in their wedding photographs.
Outdoors, direct flash rules — no diffusers or modifiers, no bounce. Here it’s used as either a slight fill to get rid of harsh shadows, or with greater power to bring the subject in balance with the ambient light — usually for backlit formals. It can be especially useful for keeping eye sockets from getting too dark or to lower the contrast ratio of shadows and highlights in direct sun.
TOP TIPS FOR ON-CAMERA FLASH
Complement, not overpower the existing ambient light wherever possible so that the flash is not overpowering.
Always be aware of your subject and what you’re illuminating.
Know what look you want to achieve and you will know how to deal with your flash settings. Many photographers try and work the other way, taking a technical setting and trying to shoehorn it into their style.
Bounce at all time indoors to increase the effective light on the subject, reduce fall-off and soften the light source.
The quality and direction of your flash is generally more important than intensity of light.
Get to know your flash and camera characteristics before adding third party attachments. There is no substitute for fast lenses. Use them as much as possible to bring in more ambient light, giving more of a balance between that and the flash. Shoot Raw. That gives you latitude without having to worry about colour temperature.
Your overall philosophy should be use it, bounce it, and combine it with ambient light.
In the past, I used to simply think of my on-camera flash as a source of light to fill in shadows or provide lighting when there is none. However, as Srah & Steve Mills matured as photographers, they started to realize that the flash light, depending on which direction it is falling upon the subject, can create whatever mood we wanted to convey in the images we were shooting.
We think the main thing is that on-camera flash gives you freedom. Freedom from fixed room lights and their corresponding stands and cords, radio triggers, and pre-set locations to shoot within, or freedom from having an assistant follow you around with a light stick. In very dynamic situations, you need that freedom and flexibility. With a little creativity you can direct and bounce the light, and work with ambient sources to add back some dimension that on camera can lack and is sometimes criticized for.
Steve & Sarah Mills wedding photographers in Nottingham.
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