I guess you are thinking you have to light up the "whole" area. It depends on what types of images you are planning on taking. I'm assuming you want to take shots of the guests, individual, group, etc. If you have a Nikon or Canon flash you would be much better off with a camera mounted flash and good flash modifer for mobility.
JayCeePhotog wrote:
Flash modifier? Please elaborate as I am fresh on this. Like a ring flash or something?
For moving around an event/party, taking pictures of guests, one of the best setups is to use a flash on a bracket, connected to the camera with a TTL-metering cord. Unike a simple sync cord, a TTL cord will allow automatic through-the-lens flash metering, which is very handy in a changing environment.
Raising the flash on a bracket allows the flash to be centered over the lens, but raises it higher than if it were just mounted on the camera, so you have more pleasing highlight/shadow rendering on the subjects' faces, and if they're near a background the shadows cast by the subjects will fall lower (often out of sight) than a camera-mounted flash would do.
Forget ring flash for now; in my opinion that's too specialized for someone just starting out. Good modifiers to start with would be a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce cap for all-around bounce fill in smallish rooms, and maybe a Demb Flip-It! for ceiling bounce in larger rooms. Umbrellas and soft boxes are also modifiers, but I wouldn't use them at a typical party.
I'd leave the Alien Bees in their hive this time around. You need more practice before taking them out in public, lest you or someone else get stung.
Go to a good camera store and check out the Lumiquest line of speedlight modifiers. There are several that would work for this kind of gig. I like the ProMax kit; at $50 it's very flexible for various types of locations (indoors, outdoors, bounce flash, etc.)
Do a search on reception lighting in the wedding forum, this should give you everything you need. I would not use modifiers, at these distances they would need to be large to have any effect and will be obtrusive for guests.
They also have a larger model which I have but the smaller one is easier to use especially if you are a bit of a novice. The light quality is great and no need to stick Velcro to your flash.
I've long used what BrianO has already suggested, and more...
I stress understanding the cause and effect. When you understand that the best tool for the job and how to use it becomes obvious and instinctive.
What makes flash on camera shots look obviously fake is in large part due to where the shiny highlights wind up on the cheek bones — on the equator bouncing straight back at the lens. Adding diffuser like a SB to redirect flash in portrait mode will make the reflections less distracting but won't make them look "natural" because the vector of most of the light is at 0° to the face of a subject your height. If shooting someone taller or with camera low the shadows on face and behind angle upward. That only happens in natural light when it bounces off a beach or sidewalk.
Our impression of what indoor lighting ideally looks like come in part from what we see on television. Watch any show with good production values and you'll see angles and patterns on faces just like the snow heads. Why? Because cinematographers understand how to flatter a head that will be 20' tall on a movie screen with light by mimicking natural light angles — or not — depending on the scene.
What do those shots have to do with flash and brackets?
A bracket makes natural lighting with flash in single flash shots a "no brainer" 100% of the time. Raising the flash on a bracket so it hits at a downward angle of 45° imitates the angle of natural skylight when the subject looks up so the eyes are not shaded...
Start with what make on-camera flash look fake - the hot spots bouncing straight back at the lens. The bracket will not eliminate them completely, but it moves them up under the eyes where they look more natural. I learned that by: 1) having a good mentor who used a bracket 40 years ago, and; 2) using direct flash since then. The more you use any tool the better you understand how it works, when to use it and when something else is better.
Having the flash on the bracket doesn't prevent me from bouncing. In fact it makes bounce more effective because the flash is closer to the ceiling and creates more "spill fill" effect. For the shot of the little girl above I used my bracket and diffuser directly bouncing most of the light forward. The ceiling was high and painted brown so there wasn't a lot of spill fill into the background. That worked because I wanted to isolate her from the background like a star in a spotlight.
For the second shot of my co-worker the problem was his white shirt which would have been a huge distraction on a dark background. To solve that problem I put him against a white wall, but that created another one, exposing his face, the white shirt and the wall similarly. The solution? Keep them the same distance from the flash. I stood on a chair with the top of my diffuser pressed against the 8' ceiling so the direct "key" component would come from 45° but the room would be flooded with light like an overcast day. The net effect with just a single flash is very flattering "butterfly' modeling with open detailed shadows similar to the light in open shade.
For the B&W shot of the wife I put her back to the sun on the river bank below me for the same reason as my coworker — distracting white jacket. After exposing with shutter / aperture to keep the sunlit shoulder retaining detail (using clipping warning) I then turned on the flash, raised it until the front side was clipping due to the flash then went — click, click — and reduced FEC so front of white jacket was 2/3 stops below clipping. All the fill comes from the skylight and flash bouncing up off the shirt.
Would bounce alone have worked in those shots, or a diffuser without the bracket?
Bounce and splitting light wasn't practical in the shot of the young girl because the ceiling was dark. With little bounce coming off the ceiling the direct vector would be dominant any the result more like the "deer in headlight look" of direct flash shots. If using a cap most of the flash power would be wasted, which translates into waiting longer for the flash to recycle. Efficient modifiers = speed.
The second shot is one where a cap diffuser would work the same way to fill the room with light, but you always need to keep in mind what angle the most dominant part of the flash output creating the highlights on the face is coming from...
See that diamond pattern of highlights creating a "mask" that looks like a face even if blurred? That's how you tell the brain of the viewer immediately there is a face in the photo to find. What does that? The brain when scanning a scene is constantly matching patterns it sees with patterns it remembers seeing. That contrast pattern tells the brain: 1) it is a 3D face; and 2) the environment is "normal". If for example I took the exact same photo but put the flash down on the floor the modeling on the face would be the exact opposite of normal. How would you react differently? Reacting to lighting clues you'd figure for starters it wasn't a "normal" situation, and he was a much scarier dude than the mellow guy his is. Bouncing or a cap would have given me the "overcast day" fill I was looking for but not the pattern I wanted on the face.
In the outdoor shot bounce wouldn't work. All a cap diffuser would do is warm the 6000°K flash closer to the daylight, which isn't a bad thing. The white foam of my diffuser does the same, plus it increases the size of the source more than a StoFen or LightSphere would in that situation. Again without the bracket there would be a highlight pattern on the face, but one that was lower more "deer in headlights during the day" than natural looking.
I never shoot outdoors without a flash on bracket to deal with the contrast of the light....
Note the difference between the foreground (flashed) and background (ambient only). In outdoor shots with flash if you put something interesting and correctly exposed in flattering, natural looking 30- 45° downward flash light guess what? The viewer won't notice the dark background beyond the range of the flash fall off.
It's not about the tools its about understanding how light flatters faces, looking at the situation, then picking the best possible strategy you know to meet the goals of the shoot. Then once you have the best strategy figured out — experience must guide you there — THEN you pick the best tool to implement the strategy and meet the goals.
The bracket is just one tool in the kit, but a very important one when you understand how the angle of the flash is more important to modeling of the face. Using a bracket and my DIY diffuser I can:
Bounce 100% of the light - light the entire room like overcast day
Split the light for Key and Fill effect keeping the flash overhead at all times (i.e., natural modeling)
Project 100% of the flash forward - To isolate the foreground with fall-off or prevent wasting light when the light can't be bounced off the ceiling efficiently or at all, keeping flash overhead for natural modeling.
When using two flashes and putting the slave behind in a corner as rim light I know the flash will provide flattering downward modeling without any distracting shadows in the foreground..
For those shots I just parked the OCF in the corner out of reach of little feet and wandered around the room with flash on bracket knowing it and the ETTL metering would take care of the lighting direction and ratio in front.
Because I use a bracket and diffuser together which automatically controls many aspects of my lighting in a consistent predictable way I can react quickly to unexpected problems.
Below spectators were blocking direct placement of my "key" flash off camera to the right. I took off the diffuser put it behind them and banked it off the ceiling over their heads as my key light. With the bracket I didn't need to worry or think about how to place the flash. Point, focus, shoot. The ETTL metering cares of ratio and exposure with minor adjustments to FEC based on highlight clipping.
ETTL isn't always the best option. If wandering around at a party taking shots like this... http://super.nova.org/TP/MC03.jpg
I revert to my manual flash wedding days. I know what M power I need at 10ft. at f/5.6 which I typically use for that type of shot. I just set M power for 10ft. then stay at 10ft for all my shots, turning off the automatic zoom so I can change the crop from 10ft without affecting flash output.
In situations like this I'll typically switch modes and shoot with ETTL ratios because I have time to take a second shot if needed to tweek the exposure, ratio, foreground / background balance etc.
I use Canon flash because gives me the option of using M or ETTL options. I don't use radio triggers because I haven't found I need them. When shooting indoors for wide shots my OCF is in the corner facing me as at the kids party or like this shot where my slave was about 50' away on the stage just out of frame to the left.
To pull off that shot I opened the diffuser on the bracket, zoomed the flash to 105mm and aimed it off the ceiling, more to cut down the light from the foreground than expecting it to add much fill. But shooting at ISO 1600 a little goes a long way. The foreground is lit with just the flash bouncing forward off the foam sheet of the diffuser. The fact it was 12-20" above the lens on the bracket is why the modeling looks more natural.
Because flash falls off about 2 stops with distance I think in terms of "what is the star I want to put in the spotlight?" in any flash shot. Is it critical to have background context in every shot lit similarly to the "star" in the foreground?
But my tools don't limit my options or imagination. The bracket I use as the "foundation" for all the options I use is the cheapest one I could find 12 years ago when I bought my first digital and I'm still using it: Stroboframe Camera flip, costing $47.45
If you are doing a event I would not suggest you light up the room with strobes. Usually they prefer you be somewhat hidden and blend in a bit. Usually a on camera flash unit with small modifier plus bounce flash off a ceiling or wall or both.This is what I use and I shoot events all the time. Outside just use as fill flash depending on the brightness of the scene.
