Wedding photographers (Manual flash / strobe OCF)

After looking at some of the photographers here who use off camera lighting in manual mode.. i decided to give it a shot and set up 2 flashes in two corners of my living room, and had 1 flash on camera in ETTL mode (for fill).

I used the Sekonic L-358 to measure both the off camera flashes and the meter was giving a reading of 1/200 f/2.8 ISO400. Then I made my on camera flash ETTL (zero exposure compensation) and took some shots in the middle of the room.

Now the problem is, every time i shot in the middle of the room, the images came out quite good.. exposed correctly in other words. But every time I went closer to each flash (towards the corners) the images were severely overexposed.

How do you guys overcome this problem? Is my only option to shoot at a larger aperture when i'm in the corners to compensate for the overexposuer due to power being set for the middle of the room?

OR do you guys take readings in the middle of the zoom and get an underexposed reading.. lets say by 1 stop from where you want to shoot at.. that way in the corners it wouldn't overexpose as much, and the ETTL flash on top of the camera would fill in for that 1 stop of under exposer in the middle of the room?

please help, and thanks in advance for the replies!

When you start moving around you're basically defeating the purpose of using manual flash, which is to have a constant flash output at a constant distance to subject. When you say you moved toward the corners where you had the manual flashes, were you still shooting a subject in the middle of the room, or something else closer to one of the flash units?

stsva wrote in post #15190150
When you start moving around you're basically defeating the purpose of using manual flash, which is to have a constant flash output at a constant distance to subject. When you say you moved toward the corners where you had the manual flashes, were you still shooting a subject in the middle of the room, or something else closer to one of the flash units?

it was something closer to one of the flash units.. Also i don't get how you guys "meter" for OCF when using it in manual mode.. do you take correct exposure for the dance floor?.. but if you took that, then when you fire the ETTL flash, that would overexpose everything because it is already correctly measured (the light coming from two OCF is metering the scene perfectly -- so wouldn't fill light from ETTL overexpose the pic?)

1/200 f/2.8 ISO400 indoors is lot of light IMHO. And that will kill ambient. With something like 5dmk3 why would you do that? I know not the anwser to you question but then I don't shoot weddings. You want OCF lights to provide rim/back light etc. but at the same time have ambient come in. I would bounce those OCF flashes from corner of the wall. And I would NOT at the settings to provide me the correct expsoure. I would have them much lower unless the intent is to light everything.

You can also play with aperture as you move closer to the OCF lights.

Look at Tim (forgot the last name, he is NZ) in the wedding forum. He shows how he does it.

5W0L3 wrote in post #15190171
it was something closer to one of the flash units.. Also i don't get how you guys "meter" for OCF when using it in manual mode.. do you take correct exposure for the dance floor?.. but if you took that, then when you fire the ETTL flash, that would overexpose everything because it is already correctly measured (the light coming from two OCF is metering the scene perfectly -- so wouldn't fill light from ETTL overexpose the pic?)

The assumption is that you will have an area of the subject that is less than fully lit by the OCFs - i.e., an area of shadow. That's what the ETTL light is for. If you're fully lighting the subject with the OCFs, then you don't need the on-camera ETTL flash for either fill or as a key light. If you're not fully lighting the subject with the OCFs, then the ETTL will "correctly" expose the subject according to the test flash and its internal programming. If that's too much light, adjust accordingly with FEC and/or turn down the manual OCFs some. When using an ETTL flash as fill, many people use between about negative 2/3 stop up to negative 1 1/2 stop flash exposure compensation, and you're not going to overexpose the subject doing that under normal lighting conditions.

Basically, you need to decide three things:
1) Will the background be equally lit with the subject, or a stop or so darker?
2) Are your OCFs just for the background or also for the subject, and if also for the subject, as key or fill?
3) Is your ETTL flash the key light or just for fill?

In other words, you need to decide what the purpose of each light source will be and locate, aim, and set the light accordingly.

Answering those questions will help you decide how much light you want the manual OCFs to put out compared to a "proper" metering result (i.e., if you used that result to set the power level the subject would be fully lit) at subject distance, and how much light you want the ETTL flash to put out, along with subsidiary issues such as whether you want to "flag" one or both OCFs to keep them from throwing light on your subject.

With regard to the separate issue of shooting things closer to the OCFs than you have them metered/set for, you'll naturally get more exposure from the manual OCF the closer you get to it (the inverse square thing), so you'll either have to adjust the OCF power output or adjust your camera's settings to compensate. As I noted above, manual flash is primarily useful when you have a constant distance from the flash to the area to be lit.

EDIT: Most of the above was written assuming that there was little/no ambient so you weren't worried about exposing for the ambient. As bobbyz points out, if there is ambient and you're just supplementing that with your OCFs, you'll take a different approach than if the only "ambient" light will be coming from the OCFs.

Here's something you might want to look at - it's not directly related to your question, but shows the power of a single bounced flash compared to direct flash when lighting a large area -
http://neilvn.com …y-and-inverse-square-law/

Here are some threads from the Wedding forum that might be helpful:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=646469
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1241563
https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1238218

One other thought - if using your on-camera ETTL flash for fill, use the camera's flash menu to set the flash metering mode to evaluative; if using your on-camera ETTL flash as a key light, set the flash metering mode to average.

stsva wrote in post #15190233
The assumption is that you will have an area of the subject that is less than fully lit by the OCFs - i.e., an area of shadow. That's what the ETTL light is for. If you're fully lighting the subject with the OCFs, then you don't need the on-camera ETTL flash for either fill or as a key light. If you're not fully lighting the subject with the OCFs, then the ETTL will "correctly" expose the subject according to the test flash and its internal programming. If that's too much light, adjust accordingly with FEC and/or turn down the manual OCFs some. When using an ETTL flash as fill, many people use between about negative 2/3 stop up to negative 1 1/2 stop flash exposure compensation, and you're not going to overexpose the subject doing that under normal lighting conditions.

Basically, you need to decide three things:
1) Will the background be equally lit with the subject, or a stop or so darker?
2) Are your OCFs just for the background or also for the subject, and if also for the subject, as key or fill?
3) Is your ETTL flash the key light or just for fill?

Answering those questions will help you decide how much light you want the manual OCFs to put out compared to a "proper" metering result (i.e., if you used that result to set the power level the subject would be fully lit) at subject distance, and how much light you want the ETTL flash to put out, along with subsidiary issues such as whether you want to "flag" one or both OCFs to keep them from throwing light on your subject.

With regard to the separate issue of shooting things closer to the OCFs than you have them metered/set for, you'll naturally get more exposure from the manual OCF the closer you get to it (the inverse square thing), so you'll either have to adjust the OCF power output or adjust your camera's settings to compensate. As I noted above, manual flash is primarily useful when you have a constant distance from the flash to the area to be lit.

EDIT: Most of the above was written assuming that there was little/no ambient so you weren't worried about exposing for the ambient. As bobbyz points out, if there is ambient and you're just supplementing that with your OCFs, you'll take a different approach than if the only "ambient" light will be coming from the OCFs.

fair enough.. that makes sense.. but my question is:

so if I'm going to take most of my shots around the middle of the dance floor.. should i meter for it that it is 3-4 stops under exposed?... i.e. that it only acts as an ambient light and to light up the background?.. so it lights up the subject slightly (the OCF that is).. and i let the ETTL do the lighting up the subject mostly?

5W0L3 wrote in post #15190313
fair enough.. that makes sense.. but my question is:

so if I'm going to take most of my shots around the middle of the dance floor.. should i meter for it that it is 3-4 stops under exposed?... i.e. that it only acts as an ambient light and to light up the background?.. so it lights up the subject slightly (the OCF that is).. and i let the ETTL do the lighting up the subject mostly?

That's a valid approach, but certainly not the only approach. Take a look at those threads from the Wedding forum I posted above.

EDIT: Also, take a look at this - http://neilvn.com …-flash-with-manual-flash/ - if you work your way through his flash tutorial and his blog, you'll learn an immense amount of good stuff about using flash.

Look at post 9 in this thread https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1242830

It has a link to a Ziser video that directly addresses your interest.

It mostly takes planning and practice. Which you are applying. As Ziser points out, you have to skim the light across the area to keep from burning out those close to the light.

Also, be sure to keep the inverse square law in mind... Here is a link to a picture on Zack Arias' blog: http://www.zarias.com …2008/05/inverse​square.jpg

I don't know the dimensions of your living room, but I assume they are small in comparison to a location for a wedding reception. That said, if you place the lights some distance away from the dance floor, the majority of the floor should be lit the same (within the same f-stop)... as opposed to moving around in a smaller space where you are closer to your flashes and the exposure changes more drastically as you move around.

thanks guys.. that helped a lot... also I looked at Nick's lighting and i really like it.. but it amazes me that he points his lights at his subjects and gets amazing pictures like he does.

Only question about his lighting would be.. how does he take pictures of people sitting down on the tables etc with that kind of lighting?.. I looked on his site and the lights are placed very close to the seated area (but far away from the dance floor).. so how would you take candids of people talking etc. while they're sitting down?

Either ETTL or work the F stop