Shooting Wedding with Flash - What mode is best?

[xmacvicar]

After treading in the small flash forum, and reading so much, and trying so many test shots with flash myself - with some great and some horrible results, I feel i have to ask this question:

For someone doing their first wedding with flash, who wants consistent exposures, whats the best mode to shoot in? Is it really going to be Program mode?

I have shot some amazing shots in Manual, however, I find my exposures are not consistent. It seems that I cannot go higher than like f/5.6 because my shots then start looking completely unnatural - which sucks, because will there not be times u want to stop down to keep certain shots completley sharp, like a group setting?

Here are 2 examples of what I mean:
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j176/xmacvicar/Example2.jpg
http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j176/xmacvicar/Example1.jpg

Of course, the snow may be throwing the metering off. The first one I used a wider aperture, like 2.8 and the image seems 'natural'. The 2nd one, I metered off the background ( to expose it properly) and then wanted just fill flash for the girl, but look how horrible it is!! What i thought was the right procedure is causing me horribly incosistant exposures?!?!

Do I really have to shoot at really wide apertures to make the flash look 'natural'?

[tdodd]

I'm learning all this stuff myself so take the following with a pinch of salt, but here's my stab at what's going on and what you need to do. If I'm wildly wrong I look forward to being corrected by someone more experienced and knowledgeable :)

Looking at the EXIFs for both photos they were both shot at 70mm using manual exposure, ISO 800 and 1/200 secs. The difference between the two exposures is the aperture used, which was F6.3 for the first and F16 for the second. So you've basically chosen to reduce the exposure for the second photo by ~2.67 stops. This is confirmed by editing in Lightroom to bring the exposure back up in the second photo to match the brightness of the snow, which needed about +2.75 added to the exposure.

So the question is - why did you choose to take 2.67 stops off the exposure? When you say you metered the background did you meter off the snow or the earth/trees? My guess is the snow. The usual rule for a snow scene is to add a couple of stops of +ve EC to the metered reading but you haven't done that. So, forgive me if I'm wrong but basically you've metered off the wrong thing and failed to compensate the exposure. The flash will only illuminate the subject, not the distant background, so if you were expecting the flash to supply the extra light for the background that was a further error.

If you'd metered off the earth in the background, or the earth and a bit of snow, or the girl's face you would have got a lot closer. This is what you need to consider in wedding photography, when your subject may vary from a brillilant white dress (equate the dress to the snow) one minute to a row of dark tuxedos the next. If you try to use "P" mode the metering will be bouncing all over the place as the subject in front of the lens alters. This is not what you want.

What you should do (in my humble opinion and with limited experience) is switch to manual, meter off a suitable subject as a guide (e.g. caucasian flesh or a 50/50 split between the white dress and a dark tux), fire off a test shot or two and check your histogram for exposure. Once you're happy that you have your manual exposure dialed in correctly you are good to go for a whole series of shots without worrying from shot to shot about the metering and exposure each time.

Bear in mind that you might want to fine tune a bit and actually lower the "ambient" exposure a little, perhaps by a stop, so that the flash has room to work without then overexposing the subject. You need to be prepared to dial in some +/- flash EC as necessary to balance the flash vs ambient light to create the image you want.

[xmacvicar]

awesome post....thank you so much!

[tdodd]

Thanks for the kind words. I hope they give you what you need. Just to explain my caveats about my experience you may want to read through a post of mine from a few days ago where I was seeking help following my own diastrous performance at my first wedding. I have learned a lot from the feedback, further reading and most importantly practicing with the camera/flash and trying out +/- EC and +/- FEC. I actually went to a church with my girlfriend dressed in white (her, not me) to try out combinations of things. Here's my plea for help....

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=286091

[ofdphoto]

Haven't you posted these shots in another forum already? Didn't you get some good help there?

Anyway, tdodd has the right idea.

With flash photography you have 2 exposures to manage: ambient and flash. This is by no means easy. It requires plenty of experimentation with EC and FEC to master. For consistency, I recommend always shooting in M when using flash.

Bear in mind that the same factors influence flash exposure as ambient exposure (if you're using flash as your main light). So brides in white dresses will require +ve FEC for the flash to expose them correctly (otherwise they become roughly 18% grey). This is influenced somewhat by your camera's flash mode Custom Function (Evaluative or Average). Experiment with this too.

Hope that helps.

[tdodd]

Haven't you posted these shots in another forum already? Didn't you get some good help there?
<snip>
You mean this thread - http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=285301. It seems the advice there was pretty similar, at least regarding these two photos.

[lippy113]

Inside with canon 30D 17-55 IS and 580 ex speedlite
Manual mode RAW
1/60
6.3
iso 400
AWB
flash on Auto ETTL and dial in either +2/3 or +1 F.E.C.

[MJP]

my initial is 30-60 with larget aperature 400ISO..