wedding shots with flash?

[akagi07]

hi, not sure if this section is right or should be in wedding column.
I like to know from those who shot weddings. be it morning tea ceremony or night dinner. how many would use flash and with omnibounce / bounce card / nothing at all to shoot?

was thinking will the flash light create nuisance to the people?

 

[hanqiang1011]

hi, not sure if this section is right or should be in wedding column.
I like to know from those who shot weddings. be it morning tea ceremony or night dinner. how many would use flash and with omnibounce / bounce card / nothing at all to shoot?

was thinking will the flash light create nuisance to the people?

Hi,

If no flash light, then the dark areas and almost all blur images will create nuisance to your client. Just tell the guests you are paid for what you do. You will have more problems if you cant deliver.

Using bounced flash or onmibounce is highly recommended for evenly lit images. Bounced flash also has pleasant results if ceiling is less than 2m, more than 2m dont bounced. These ways are more nicer than direct flash, but there are sometimes direct flash can do jobs that bounced flash cant do. Its all on the spot quick thinking.

Cheers

 

[rendition]

You don't always have to bounce to ceiling anyways, if there's a wall or pillar of sorts behind or next you, you can also bounce there. In fact, it may give you better result than the normal ceiling bounce. BTW, you can bounce even more than 2m (which is very low la) - generally the higher the more you'll lose power but you still 'can' bounce. That's for tea where setup is usually in smaller spaces like in house etc.

As for dinner, yes still bounce, before the dinner starts, just recce and test lor and nop it won't disturb people la. If ceiling is too high, you can also try 45% tilt. Just remember to balance ambient with flash to achieve a more pleasing look lor.

I use nothing but OmniBounce. Bouncing and balancing ambient light is the key. Good luck man.

 

[akagi07]

alright thanks for the advice.
think in case, i jus bring both card and the diffuser

 

[pokiemon]

agree with hanqiang - pics with flash is better than pics that is dark and blur. i cant live without a flash. even if you take your pics with no flash and high ISO, are you going to post-process all of them? pretty time consuming for 200 photos? yes no?

 

[rendition]

Oh if it helps, I actually have my sto-fen diffuser with the top cut off... I have 2 sets actually, one more set not cut off. Cuz the sto-fen actually cuts a bit of light output so by cutting the top, it won't cut light when doing ceiling bounce.

 

[rendition]

agree with hanqiang - pics with flash is better than pics that is dark and blur. i cant live without a flash. even if you take your pics with no flash and high ISO, are you going to post-process all of them? pretty time consuming for 200 photos? yes no?

Actually, I even use flash on well-littted condition occasionally... for fill la. Your pictures will be more pleasing looking.

 

[Snapperholic]

Omnibounce.

As the photographer of the wedding, you are the most important person. Be it having a front row seat of the tea ceremony or flashing excessively, you are just doing your job. Failure to produce the good (photos) would have been a bigger issue than the nuisance you cause during the ceremony.

Rgds.

 

[Anson]

So far I only know one of my photographer friend that didn't use flash for AD shoot. And he is shooting with mainly prime in high ISO.

For me after used & own several light modifiers (LS, WT, OmniBounce, etc) in AD, for me the best is still a cheap jumbo bounce card (cheap, good & portable). :thumbsup:

 

[shaoken]

For wedding events, it's better to use flash for your shots.

If you don't and use slow shutter speed, it will result in blurred images.
Even if you use high ISO to shoot, it will be grainy and would not be nice for wedding shots.

 

[hanqiang1011]

agree with hanqiang - pics with flash is better than pics that is dark and blur. i cant live without a flash. even if you take your pics with no flash and high ISO, are you going to post-process all of them? pretty time consuming for 200 photos? yes no?

Thanks pokiemon...

To TS: Yup, and also to mention high ISO make all your pic noisy and high ISO degrades the quality of the pic. Thats why sometimes I use direct flash if really cannot bounced light. I only do post processing after the job to adjust those bit harsh pictures.

When a client trusts you, you got to deliver.

 

[hanqiang1011]

Max to use ISO is still 400, unless the picture is mainly having dark areas - like a group of Indian in Indian wedding... You dont want them to have noise on their skin.

 

[m3lv1nh0]

My fav on-cam flash how to site. http://www.planetneil.com/tangents/

 

[pokiemon]

if you are using flash at night, would advise you to use manual mode. 1/60 ISO 600-800.

 

[ijnek]

wear white, n bounce off ur shirt

 

[theveed]

My opinion >> http://bit.ly/81v6xw <<

 

[Anson]

if you are using flash at night, would advise you to use manual mode. 1/60 ISO 600-800.

Depend very much on your focal length, lens (aperture, IS) and lighting condition, there isn't a setting for all situation. That why experience come into play. Shoot More, Learn More.

 

[akagi07]

jus came back.. was acting as the second photographer.. as first time.
admitting myself still lack plenty of skills and knowledge.

yup, indeed flash helps alot and most of time. but I was advised not to use flash at certain moment as the videograher is filming which flash will cause disturbance in the vid cam. Nevertheless, as the second, I comply and acting was rather very scare tt i got in their ways.

now seems like those with flash are rock solid, little pp needed. thoe with ISO... my D90 reaches 3200 most of the time.. sad for the grains.

 

[Anson]

I was advised not to use flash at certain moment as the videograher is filming which flash will cause disturbance in the vid cam. Nevertheless, as the second, I comply and acting was rather very scare tt i got in their ways.

If the videographer using an video light? I still remember there was once that the video light was so strong that it blown my exposure. Which make me have to correct most of the evening AD shots in PP.

Hence I would think communicate with the VG first would be a better than not using flash at all, if the VG is experience enough I am sure he/she would understand it. Ultimately the VG & PG have their job to do, if you don't use flash and need alot more time to PP your shots I doubt the VG would compensate you back your extra effort.

 

[surrephoto]

So far I only know one of my photographer friend that didn't use flash for AD shoot. And he is shooting with mainly prime in high ISO.

For me after used & own several light modifiers (LS, WT, OmniBounce, etc) in AD, for me the best is still a cheap jumbo bounce card (cheap, good & portable). :thumbsup:

Shooting an AD without flash is possible if you know what you're doing. But for many cases we need to use flash to assure a large depth-of-field for groupshots etc.

Making sure your light is well spread out is very important as well. As bro hanqiang has spoke about ceiling bounce, i will add on that ceiling bounce can also be combined with a decent catch-light/bounce card especially for groupshots. Good example of a diffuser that does such would be the press-lite vertex and the demb flip-it.

As clients are mostly not tech-savvy, they expect the scene to look similar between real-life and photos; Ceiling bounce recreates this effect by simulating ceiling light, and a bounce card can help to add fill and flavour.

Other situations such as tea ceremony will require a mainly ceiling bounce light to prevent the closer subject from being over-exposed. Lightsphere/whail-tail would be the worse choice for scenes with uneven lines of subjects.

I'm someone who favors flashless photography even at dinners because these reasons;

1. White-balance trauma even when using gels in varying hotel lighting.
2. Danger of flash refreshing too slowly especially for march-ins.
3. Un-natural front-lit look when using flash as the primary light.

A good example of me shooting with my 85 f1.2 wide-open with AI servo for a march-in;

If the videographer using an video light? I still remember there was once that the video light was so strong that it blown my exposure. Which make me have to correct most of the evening AD shots in PP.

Hence I would think communicate with the VG first would be a better than not using flash at all, if the VG is experience enough I am sure he/she would understand it. Ultimately the VG & PG have their job to do, if you don't use flash and need alot more time to PP your shots I doubt the VG would compensate you back your extra effort.

Recently, I and a friend had to shoot a wedding dinner together and was extremely irritated by a videographer and his video-light (I'm a regular wedding videographer and generally see no reason to use video-light in most situations, i'm sure some vgs out there will disagree with me).

He used a white LED light in a tungsten dinner environment and caused our white balance to be heavily thrown off...

I'm also surprised by why the videographer is disturbed by flash from the photographer.