How I photograph receptions

professorman wrote in post #15704424
Does anyone use Alien Bees strobes to light reception? How can I get them to play nice with my on-camera flash?

I have a 5D3 and 580EX2, and Yongnuo RF602 Triggers. How do I get everything to play nice with each other?

Camera in manual, flash in ETTL, off camera flash in manual. Set exposure for ambinet exposure you want, change strobe power to light how you like. Turn flash on when strobes aren't pointing in the right direction. It's pretty trivial.

I use speedlites at far more weddings than ABs, but when I need the ABs they're invaluable. I use the AB on location a lot at summer weddings.

scorpio_e wrote in post #15704510
If you want to buy a kata bag for AB's,let me know.

Interested, PM me cost and shipping cost to New Zealand - it may not be worthwhile but i've needed a new AB bag for ages.

wernersl wrote in post #13248935
and to add...this is a screw up on my part. didnt want to include the umbrella in this shot, but it happens. works for purpose of demonstration though. i have two nikon sb-24's on that stand, one for me and one on another channel for my partner. one speedlite fills that umbrella just fine at 1/8 power. iso 400 and f/2.5 i think. 1/50. i should have used a faster shutter through the night, but was trying to preserve a little bit of ambient from the buildings. worked for the most part with flash freezing the action. just sucked when they got near the video guys LED panel. then the motion showed a bit.

and the final image...

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Hi There,

What size umbrella and light stand?

Thanks,

jp

4and a half years later this thread is still valuable and still alive. Thanks Tim.

And I'm still here. Welcome I keep the first post up to date when I change what I do too.

Interestingly I'm doing less for first dance, often high ISO and a bounced flash is what I use. I find the more fancy you try to do the more chances you have to fail, and when some couples do 30 second first dances despite me asking them to dance a little longer I want to get that before I start playing with other options.

I do fully light a reception room though, I much prefer that look.

I'm an amateur (self taught) and this one help a lot. Thank you so much Tim

Somehow Flickr image new beta function doesn't work right, I couldn't link it.
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Always happy to help Attach small images if linking doesn't work.

The same method was using in a very small mobile homes of that morning.

Looks good. Probably best to keep this an information/teaching thread than an image sharing thread.