Reception - On AND off camera lights?

Just curious, for those of you that use off camera strobes/flashes to illuminate the hall - do you also use an on camera flash for fill? Do you shoot it in ETTL with FEC or full manual? Examples?

I usually use two off camera strobes (set manually) with an on-camera speedlite for fill. I leave it in ETTL and don't usually need to mess with it. Sometimes I'll adjust + or - a bit if I'm farther away from the strobes, enter a part of the room with a low ceiling, etc. Sometime I play around with dragging the shutter too to gather more of the ambient light. Here are some recent examples using this setup:

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I use two monolights as well, but use a manual speedlight on or off the hotshoe.

I have one flash on camera with flash-assist, and I wirelessly control an off-camera flash on a lightstand. Sometimes I use the on-cam to fill, sometimes I make the stylistic decision not to.

Here is an example of just using off-camera lighting--I decided I didn't need fill in this case because I was really happy with what the off-axis lighting was doing on its own:

@StephenAndrew
Those are great pictures!!! Could please tell some more about how you place these offcamera lights.
- How do you place the lights ? Are they on opposite sites of the room some kind kind of cross-lighting
- Do you point them directly to the center of the dance floor, or do you feather them a bit , or do you bounce them via the white ceiling?
- How do you prevent any hard shadows or hard light??

Thx!

Erwin

Here's how I light my receptions: http://www.nicknphoto.​com/wedding-reception-lighting/

Essentially 2 strobes to light up the room and on-camera 600-EX-RT + Demb Flip-it to light up the subject.

I use two strobes and on-camera 580ex for fill.

no on-camera fill for me - all off

i use off camera flashes then an on camera light for fill
i use radio popper jrx's for radio controlling the ocf's, which work great because i can adjust them all on the fly without walking over to them, but they are still manually set.
problem is that they don't work super with a flash in the hotshoe on ettl, they generally fire too early that way.
so i usually have the on camera flash fill in manual too. which is actually easier than i was afraid of!


oh, and awesome examples above, by all!

Erwin Beckers wrote in post #14706894
@StephenAndrew
Those are great pictures!!! Could please tell some more about how you place these offcamera lights.
- How do you place the lights ? Are they on opposite sites of the room some kind kind of cross-lighting
- Do you point them directly to the center of the dance floor, or do you feather them a bit , or do you bounce them via the white ceiling?
- How do you prevent any hard shadows or hard light??

Thx!

Erwin

Thanks man

Nicksan and I have very similar ways of lighting a reception, so definitely check out his link. As a matter of fact, photos 2, 4, and 8 in my post were weddings I second shot with Nick and his setup.

What and how I set stuff up is largely dependent on the venue - the space, ceiling height, color of the walls/ceiling, where there's room for a stand, etc. I try to get both strobes facing the dance floor from different angles so I can get light covering most areas from where I want to shoot. For instance, if I put two lights just a few feet away from each other on the left side of the room, shooting into the light from the right side will result in a very different photo than one taken from the left side shooting away from the light. Placing them in opposite corners is ideal, since you'll get much more even light with more consistency regardless of where on or around the dance floor you shoot from. If the walls are white or otherwise neutral, I can just use bare bulb to let the light bounce off the walls/ceiling to "flood" the room with light. Or, I'll use reflectors and point them towards the center of the room or dance floor if the walls are colored. Using bare bulb and "flooding" the room will make for softer shadows since light is being bounced all over. Using the reflectors will result in harder light and shadows since the light is more concentrated and directed. And the distance from the subject to the strobe will also determine how soft or harsh the light/shadows are. Hope this helps!

Thanks for sharing Stephen!

Yes.

Tim has some great information:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=646469

I like to use one or two off-camera strobes, strategically placed in the venue. Firstly, I want to have it placed to give nice lighting for the head table and/or podium, as that's where many of the photos will be taken. That same light also works great as a back light for shots of the guests as they listen/watch the proceedings.

For the dance/party part of the reception, I'll have another light (or move the first one). Depending on the location and the feel of the wedding, I might go for simply shooting the light into the ceiling for an artificial ambient boost, but I really like using a more direct light and placing it for hair/accent lighting.

So in either set up, I will also have a flash on-camera, usually for fill when the strobe is behind the subjects, but I'm quick to turn it off when the strobe gives good light on it's own.

nicksan wrote in post #14706902
Here's how I light my receptions: http://www.nicknphoto.​com/wedding-reception-lighting/

Essentially 2 strobes to light up the room and on-camera 600-EX-RT + Demb Flip-it to light up the subject.

Good stuff Nick...good stuff!