As is my lot in life, I have another three or four weddings booked this summer at a venue with dark wood panels for the walls and floors. To make it worse the overhead lights are ridiculously underpowered. Bouncing flash is not an option, and since its for the receptions as well as ceremonies I will be doing candids and unable to use a lightstand/umbrella.
As far as I know, only direct flash will work in this situation. Besides a flash bracket to keep the flash above the lens, what can I use to improve the quality of light? I hear about lightspheres but then I also here them criticized heavily. An on-flash softbox maybe?
Any suggestions would be helpful and appreciated. Thanks!
you could also use some fast primes and shoot at high isos-natural light can be killer in darker venues b/c the look you get cannot be duplicated by any guest (b/c they have to use flash)
so, that's two schools of thought-you can always mix it up between the two methods-though you're right that there are times where you are forced to use direct flash-if you get an on camera flash modifier, get a joe demb
Sarah Salyer wrote:
Try a demb flip-it or a better bounce card?
+1
Don't forget to angle the Flip-it forward a bit or check out a Lumiquest Pocketbouncer. I shot in a very dark venue a few months ago (dark wood floor, walls and ceiling), broke out the pocketbouncers and got usable photos, not overly creative, but very sellable
Besides the Demb Diffuser or Pocket Bouncer type modifier, and besides off camera flashes (they can be clamped to beams too), you can try a Lightsphere in the directly forward position, dome on. It widens the beam size, which the other modifiers do as well, and it also lets a bunch of light out the sides of the unit, which can bounce off nearby objects, such as other guests, and even the floor, if the floor is light colored. The Demb Diffuser also can give residual bounce, but throws the residual light above, not also down and directly to the sides. The Pocket Bouncer and on camera softbox do not throw residual light around at all. You still need to drag the shutter. You might also bring a medium white reflector and assistant to bounce your flash off. I sometimes use my white reflector this way, but I have a much harder time since I work alone--I do use the ones with the handle (triangle shape), meant to be used when alone. Be aware, though, the LS used as described will vignette the flash beam if you are using the wider angles.
put a flash on a mono pod and rest it up against the corner. pocket wizard that ish. shoot directly into it, you will get some really cool lighting and you can just move the stick to a different corner whenever you want.
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Here is what I am thinking of doing, especially for dancing and cake cutting. Mount an Alien Bee studio flash on a stand with a small softbox. Using pocket wizards, I can trigger it (I know I need an adapter cable to make this work).
Sound like it will work? Its not really mobile, but I think it will be good in certain situations.
I have used AB's many times with PW's and had great success but with limits.
You need to stay aware of your proximity to the light, or at least the subjects distance to the light. Then as that distance increases/decreases change your SS to accommodate. This is only useful for a limited range as you need a SS of around 1/30 to 1/160th to sync properly with the AB's. You can of course alter the F stop and ISO too, but I find it best to use only one of these to control the exposure.
If you can use ettl/ittl etc., you can often find places to put speedlights using multiclamps. I use the RP's with a couple and am liking the control it provides.
Umbrellas/softboxes are great but in a large(ish) hall, have little effect on softening the light. Directional off cam without mods will also hide better than with mods (softboxes/umbrellas etc.).
Do you shoot Nikon or Canon or other? I shot a wedding 2 weekends ago and rented an extra SB-800 and used CLS to fire it. I kept my SB-800 on camera and I setup the additional SB-800 on a lightstand near the DJ and it gave a great fill. You could rent as many as you need.
Since they are small, you can put them anywhere and you can either have them give direct light, bounced light or diffused with the diffuser head that comes with them.
I've had a demp flip it for while now. I've been thinking about this in theory and finally read in a book, that using a bounce modifier is only really eating up battery power when not used with a bounce off the ceiling or a wall and the same tuned down effect could be achieved with FEC. I've been playing around and it seems to be true. Think of all the wasted light fired into the sky if your using a flip it outside. The camera meters off the preflash, and the small amount of light from the flip it is hitting the subject so it just compensates with a close to or full power main blast. The light that does hit your subject is only coming from the card which may be 4 inches higher than if you had aimed the head directly at the subject. I guess the more you put the flip it foward the more light you throw foward but for the 4 inch height difference? Is that kind of bouncing for the sake of bouncing? From what i've seen so far (and i will be testing further) is that the flip it does not do it's magic unless combined with a wall or ceiling bounce. This is one of the reasons i'm considering a bracket for certain situations - get the flash up nice and high when there is no place to consistently bounce from.
Demb Flip it!!!!! with the reflector all the way forward works wonders in situations like that. I usually have to crank my flash up a stop or two but I get wonderfully diffused shots
elamont wrote:
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. Here is what I am thinking of doing, especially for dancing and cake cutting. Mount an Alien Bee studio flash on a stand with a small softbox. Using pocket wizards, I can trigger it (I know I need an adapter cable to make this work).
Sound like it will work? Its not really mobile, but I think it will be good in certain situations.
You said in your op that using stands was not an option....I cant imagine why they cant be used. I am wondering reading this post...can you use stands or no? I am no longer in the wedding business but I would use 4 to 6 Sunpak 555 flash heads placed thru out the room triggered with pw multi maxes...and then I would have another on a portable stand carried by my assistant. I used the multi maxes so I could control each light from the point of the camera...that way if i happened to be taking a photo in a part of the room facing directly at a set light I could turn it off for that one shot.
Out of all the weddings that I did...never had a place that was to dark for my set up...plus if all you use is an on camera/bracket mounted flash you get alot of light fall off...gives you that tunnel look to your picks.
George
