Wedding lighting, what are you using?

StevenFullerton

StevenFullerton

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Steven Fullerton
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So the Majority of the time im just using my flash on the body, bouncing or at 45degrees. But im interested in increasing the technicality of my lighting by going for off camera flash but trying to assess the best way to go about it.

Do you use off camera flashes commanded by a main unit? or a single flash on a bracket? Something more exciting?
 
I was in the same dilemma; (Information courtesy of Nick at Wedding-Photos)

What I tend to do is this.

Shoot my camera in manual, set my remote flashes to ETTL. I aim for my camera exposure to be within a couple of stops of the correct ambient exposure and aiming for a shutter speed of around 1/80. At my last wedding this meant ISO 2500, 1/80 and F2.8 and I would say that's fairly typical of how much light there is for the first dance, occasionally its brighter. Try and keep your lights out of your frame and at least one of the lights to the rear of you. I usually shoot it with an ST-E2 so don't have on camera flash as I think that can sometimes make it look flat, especially when the ceilings too high to bounce off.

You dont have to shoot it in manual or use ETTL flash of course, completely up to, I think the thing that you do need though is to get more ambient light into your camera so higher ISO, wide apertures.

Hope that helps.

Nick
 
J4MIE_P said:
I was in the same dilemma; ....

....You dont have to shoot it in manual or use ETTL flash of course, completely up to, I think the thing that you do need though is to get more ambient light into your camera so higher ISO, wide apertures.

Hope that helps.

Nick
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perhaps you can answer my question then, when using the camera off flash in ettl mode, is the flash 'aware' if its not the only flash, eg. if there was 2 flashes do they both think they are trying to light the entire scene? or?
 
Yes when in ETTL there is two flashes that take place, a first flash to meter the power of the flashes needed to expose the scene and a second when the adjustments have been made :)
They are soo fast that you will only see it as a single flash.

But more to the point, in theory yes it does think theres two.
But if you are using it off camera at a wedding scene then be careful not to get the flash head in image as it'll drastically underexpose as it thinks the scene is very bright when the first flash goes off.

Hope that helps :)
 
It depends how far you want to go. Personally, I prefer the freedom and control that full manual gives me but you need to get to know your gear quite well.

Pick of a copy of Captured by the Light by David Ziser. An excellent book aimed at improving wedding photography by using off camera flash.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Captured-Light-Essential-Extraordinary-Photography/dp/0321646878

He writes really well, and his advice is excellent. I'm not a wedding 'tog (although I have shot a wedding), and yet there were some many good tips and tricks in here I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to go off camera with their lighting.
 
Just watched the webcast, thanks for that, it's opened my eyes a little more to off camera flash. Think Flash-in-the-Pan may get an order from me pretty soon.
 
Regards what Jamie P posted above from a PM conversation we had, I think its important to note that I was talking about how I handle the first dance set up only, I use lots of other different set-ups throughout the day depending on what I am shooting, natural light only, on camera flash, ETTL off camera flash with a softbox or umbrellas, manual off camera flash with umbrellas.

For the off camera flash stuff I use an ST-E2 when its dark and the flashes are close and pocket wizard TT1 and TT5 in bright conditions or where I want some distance between me and the flashes.
 
Wedding-Photos said:
Regards what Jamie P posted above from a PM conversation we had, I think its important to note that I was talking about how I handle the first dance set up only, I use lots of other different set-ups throughout the day depending on what I am shooting, natural light only, on camera flash, ETTL off camera flash with a softbox or umbrellas, manual off camera flash with umbrellas.

For the off camera flash stuff I use an ST-E2 when its dark and the flashes are close and pocket wizard TT1 and TT5 in bright conditions or where I want some distance between me and the flashes.
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Sorry Nick, completely forgot that PM was regarding the first dance only. Thought this info could of helped out the OP and hopefully it has.
 
varies, just done a marquee, and used 4 mains powered heads, and bounced them off the roof, in 2 split zones (1 for the speaches area, and one for the dancefloor)

And then I use sb800'S, either off camera or on camera. A long wedding day usually means you use all the amunition and tools in the box - natural light, reflectors, on camera flash, off camera flash and studio flash. Sorry if that sounds vauge, but you need to just do what it takes as it presents it to you
 
Richard King said:
A long wedding day usually means you use all the amunition and tools in the box - natural light, reflectors, on camera flash, off camera flash and studio flash. Sorry if that sounds vauge, but you need to just do what it takes as it presents it to you
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Yep, yesterday we used 4 SB900's, two studio heads one reflector and two torches. First dance was shot on 2 cameras both with SB900's at 45 deg. One photographer working at 45deg to the other so we don't shoot each other. One shooting a normal perspective and the other elevated to get a bit of variety.
 
AliB said:
Yep, yesterday we used 4 SB900's, two studio heads one reflector and two torches. First dance was shot on 2 cameras both with SB900's at 45 deg. One photographer working at 45deg to the other so we don't shoot each other. One shooting a normal perspective and the other elevated to get a bit of variety.
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and then the videographer turned on 2 x 2000w floodlights
 
AliB said:
and blinded the bride and groom! lol
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... and made me very quickly change my settings by quite a few stops. To be totally fair - he was totally up against it in terms of lighting, and gracefully worked around me all day long
 
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It's always a triumph when you can both work in harmony and get the results for the couple, you go home thinking..."Job well done" :)
 
AliB said:
It's always a triumph when you can both work in harmony and get the results for the couple, you go home thinking..."Job well done" :)
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Even more so when your wife was the wedding planner... a absolutely superb result all round
 
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