Lighting a wedding service with one flash gun?

I am pretty new to DSLR photography and especially proper use of flash. Last year I was asked to be the "main photographer" at a friend's wedding as they were not hiring a pro and I was the only guy they know with a DSLR. I was also supposed to be a guest so not an easy combination! I accepted the challenge but was very nervous because I knew how limited my experience was at photography and non-existent at doing weddings. I had only had the camera (30D) for three months and the 580EX flash for a couple of days before the event and no time to practice with the flash as I flew in from holiday the night before the wedding. I also knew nothing of the venue as it is not local to me so I had to make it all up as I went along. Fortunately they did not want posed shots but simply a capture of people throughout the day enjoying themselves. So at least I had no posing or organising to do. All I had to do was use the camera/flash correctly. And this brings me to the point of the post......

The shots were rubbish out of the camera. Colours were shocking and most shots were generally underexposed regardless of what colours/shades were in front of the lens. Fortunately I was able to salvage something usable because I shot raw. If I'd shot jpeg I think my goose would have been cooked.

I have attached a couple of screen prints of my desktop showing some soft proofs of the before and after correction versions of the photos. The details in the photos are not important but the colour balance and exposure is. I am hoping somebody can advise me on how I should have approached lighting for the venue to improve the original shots.

I was limited to the 30D, 17-85 lens and 580EX flash. My settings were...

AV priority mode, f5.6 throughout for the indoor shots;
Evaluative metering;
ISO 800;
ETTL-2 flash, bounced off the ceiling. The ceiling and walls were cream coloured.

I know I should have used manual exposure to sort out and fix my exposures, as lighting conditions did not alter throughout the service. I also guess I could have performed a manual WB calibration in the beginning, but I didn't. Mind you, I'm not sure that manual WB would be any better than correcting WB in PP afterwards. Perhaps someone can advise on that.

The room was lit by tungsten lamps and daylight from several large windows with overcast skies. The service was at noon so the light was not streaming in at all but did backlight some of the shots.

Given all the above, can anyone suggest how I should have gone about lighting/shooting this as it is clear that my attempts were dreadful?

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Hi,

Could you post a couple of the shots alone, so we can get a better look at them?

Generally when we shoot weddings we use as little flash as possible, fast glass set wide open. I have just locked in with a master photographer in my area and he uses Sto-Fens on all of his flashes when he uses flash. He does shoot Nikon and from what I understand the Nikon system will recognize the Sto-fen and adjust settings accordingly. What I read is if you use a Sto-fen on the 580 you need to bump exposure comp up by 2/3. It is pretty hard to see your shots as they are SO small. It would be better if you would post some larger shots and we can really see what is going on. One other thing, using the 580, did you raise the bounce card that is housed in the flash? If not then you should as that will help throw some light onto your subject more directly as well as bouncing off the ceiling, pillar, floor big guy in a white shirt etc. If using the 580 by itself with the card raised you might want to drop the EC down a 1/3 or 2/3 and see how that works. From what I can see in the small shots your shots might have been better at the lowest aperture to get some bokeh around your subjects.

Thanks for the reply. Here's a couple that illustrate the problem pretty well.....

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gateruner wrote in post #2824398
Generally when we shoot weddings we use as little flash as possible, fast glass set wide open. I have just locked in with a master photographer in my area and he uses Sto-Fens on all of his flashes when he uses flash. He does shoot Nikon and from what I understand the Nikon system will recognize the Sto-fen and adjust settings accordingly. What I read is if you use a Sto-fen on the 580 you need to bump exposure comp up by 2/3. It is pretty hard to see your shots as they are SO small. It would be better if you would post some larger shots and we can really see what is going on. One other thing, using the 580, did you raise the bounce card that is housed in the flash? If not then you should as that will help throw some light onto your subject more directly as well as bouncing off the ceiling, pillar, floor big guy in a white shirt etc. From what I can see in the small shots your shots might have been better at the lowest aperture to get some bokeh around your subjects.

I didn't use the little bounce card because I did not realise I had a problem until I'd finished the shoot. If I had noticed the problem I would not have known at the time how to fix it. I still don't. Hence the reason for asking here

I chose f5.6 for my aperture because I had done lots of reading (but no practice) beforehand and understood that manual exposure was my best bet. I also understood why. I selected f5.6 so my aperture would not change as I zoomed in and out. In that regard I thought I was being clever. Unfortunately, due to my lack of experience, I got scared of the thought of using manual exposure and chose Av instead so that the camera would "sort things out for me". Of course, it did the very opposite

Another negative side effect of choosing AV mode is that my shutter speed often dropped well below 1/60th so many shots were subject to blur from subject movement even though the IS of the lens avoided camera shake. But that's another story, which I don't need explaining

Back when I was shooting with the 17-85, I'd typically set aperture to 5.6 and shutter to 1/40-1/60, ISO800, bounced flash. That seemed to work in darkish places. IF it was really bright I'd speed up the shutter a bit, but leave aperture and ISO as it is to not overwork the flash. With AV, in darker places, you may start getting some soft and motion blurred images. Shooting at a higher shutter will decrease the ambient light and tilt the light balance more towards flash, so you can freeze the people.

tdodd wrote in post #2824211
I...I was limited to the 30D, 17-85 lens and 580EX flash. My settings were...

AV priority mode, f5.6 throughout for the indoor shots;
Evaluative metering;
ISO 800;
ETTL-2 flash, bounced off the ceiling. The ceiling and walls were cream coloured.

Therin lies your problem.

In AV mode the 30D goes into "fill flash mode". It underexposes the ambient by one stop and fires the flash as a fill NOT as the primary light source. Don't believe me? Set your camera to AV mode without the flash and take a photo, let's say the camera chooses 1/60 at f5.6. Now mount your flash, turn it on and take another photo. The camera will choose 1/125 at f5.6. This probably saved your bacon a little bit since otherwise you would have probably been at a pretty slow SS (and might have gotten some blur), but it's also one of the reasons for the underexposure.

My advice to those who aren't yet confident enough to shoot manual with flash: shoot in "P" mode, and bump your FEC up 2/3 to 1 stop. In P mode the camera does not go into fill flash mode, and will use the flash as the primary light source if necessary. The 2/3 stop of FEC is because the Canon flash system tends to underexpose scenes as a default.

Oh, and as a general rule for using a flash at weddings:

- If your frame is mostly filled with the bride's white dress, the flash will underexpose. Increase your FEC.
- If your frame is mostly filled with the groom's black tux, the flash will overexpose. Decrease your FEC
- If you have a lot of backlight, Canon flashes will underexpose. Increase your FEC. Nikons have a nice mode just for backlit situations.
- Objects (especially bright ones) in the foreground will fool the TTL flash metering into thinking that your subject is closer. Move around to avoid this.

Learn to use the FEC and your histogram, and don't be afraid to chimp!

jamiewexler wrote in post #2824430
Therin lies your problem.

1. In AV mode the 30D goes into "fill flash mode". It underexposes the ambient by one stop and fires the flash as a fill NOT as the primary light source. Don't believe me? Set your camera to AV mode without the flash and take a photo, let's say the camera chooses 1/60 at f5.6. Now mount your flash, turn it on and take another photo. The camera will choose 1/125 at f5.6. This probably saved your bacon a little bit since otherwise you would have probably been at a pretty slow SS (and might have gotten some blur), but it's also one of the reasons for the underexposure.

2. My advice to those who aren't yet confident enough to shoot manual with flash: shoot in "P" mode, and bump your FEC up 2/3 to 1 stop. In P mode the camera does not go into fill flash mode, and will use the flash as the primary light source if necessary. The 2/3 stop of FEC is because the Canon flash system tends to underexpose scenes as a default.

3. Oh, and as a general rule for using a flash at weddings:

- If your frame is mostly filled with the bride's white dress, the flash will underexpose. Increase your FEC.
- If your frame is mostly filled with the groom's black tux, the flash will overexpose. Decrease your FEC
- If you have a lot of backlight, Canon flashes will underexpose. Increase your FEC. Nikons have a nice mode just for backlit situations.

Learn to use the FEC and your histogram, and don't be afraid to chimp!

1. Wow, that's really handy to know. I sure read plenty but either missed or forgot or failed to understand that bit about AV mode underexposing the background when using flash. I tried your test and you're absolutely right. I guess Canon think that's a good design decision but it seems a bit daft to me. I can't see why by default you'd want your background underexposed just becaue you were "filling in".

2. So why does Canon think people want their "P" flash shots underexposed by default? Seems a bit daft to me (again!).

3. I understand the exposure challenges of black tuxes vs white dresses but what is this preoccupation Canon has for underexposing in backlit conditions?

Are there any conditions in which the Canon flash system exposes properly or does everyone have to EC/FEC just because Canon has weird ideas? This just seems barmy. At least I know for the future. Thanks for the tip-off.

1. The fill flash mode makes sense - outdoors - where most people will be using AV mode. By underexposing the background a stop outside, you provide more seperation from the background. Indoors it desn't often make sense to shoot AV, since you usually get really slow shutter speeds.

2. I think it's due to the low exposure latitude of digital sensors - you blow the highlights and there's no recovery, underexpose by a stop and you can fix it in post processing. Same reason film folks like to overexpose a bit...

3. As for the backlight thing - not a sin of commission, more one of ommission. Nikon built an extra mode to put the flash in for a backlit situation, Canon didn't.

The replies so far seem to be concentrating on exposure control and I'm learning from that discussion. What are people's thoughts on the colour balance side of things? Could I have managed the lighting better or was it simply a case of setting manual WB. I'd like to think there was something I could have done to improve the lighting altogether rather than just compensate in camera. Maybe it was near impossible to do anything with creamy coloured surroundings. I appreciate the little white bounce card might have thrown more light forward but then I would have had to deal with the higher temperature flash light mixing with the tungsten background, which would have been impossible to correct easily. I was hoping that by bouncing the 580EX would have the power to create a fairly even illumination across a good portion of the room. Perhaps my expectations were too ambitious.

jamiewexler wrote in post #2824535
I think it's due to the low exposure latitude of digital sensors - you blow the highlights and there's no recovery, underexpose by a stop and you can fix it in post processing. Same reason film folks like to overexpose a bit...

I can understand saving the highlights but all it did in my case was wreck the overall exposure, needing me to boost exposure in PP and thus add noise. For me the highlights, if any, were in the background so I was far less interested in them than the actual subject. I guess the camera has no idea which my subject is, which is why it is down to me to take control. I guess I was expecting the flash to fill in on my subject to balance the windows/lights in the background. It seems my expectations were wrong there as well.

But the reason I posted the picture of the young lady is because I don't see any great challenges for the camera in that photo. There is no backlighting and most tones are of middle brightness, apart from the black jackets, and yet the whole scene is still underexposed (and too red). Very frustrating!

tdodd wrote in post #2824543
The replies so far seem to be concentrating on exposure control and I'm learning from that discussion. What are people's thoughts on the colour balance side of things? Could I have managed the lighting better or was it simply a case of setting manual WB. I'd like to think there was something I could have done to improve the lighting altogether rather than just compensate in camera. Maybe it was near impossible to do anything with creamy coloured surroundings. I appreciate the little white bounce card might have thrown more light forward but then I would have had to deal with the higher temperature flash light mixing with the tungsten background, which would have been impossible to correct easily. I was hoping that by bouncing the 580EX would have the power to create a fairly even illumination across a good portion of the room. Perhaps my expectations were too ambitious.

You are still in mixed lighting with two different color temperatures - the flash is daylight color (5500k), and the room is tungsten color (3200k). If you are using AWB with a flash, the camera will use the flash WB setting to keep your subject from becoming blue. This will make the parts of the room lit by tungsten lights really yellow. There are two ways to deal with it in the camera:

1. Make sure your flash overpowers the room lights - bounce it off the ceiling and bump up the FEC. Exposure DOES affect color temp, so you really want your exposure as spot on as possible.

2. buy a yellow Sto-fen or a small piece of CTO gel to tape over your flash head, and set your WB preset to Tungsten. This will change the color of the flash to the color of the lightbulbs and make the entire scene the same color.

I shoot jpeg and AWB, so I use the former method and have created two actions to help me balance a bit. Here's what the action does: Goes to the Hue/Saturation control, chooses the Yellow channel, reduces the saturation. I have an action that reduces it by -20 and one by -40, and they are really effective on a properly exposed scene.

Underexposed scenes are a different problem all together because in an underexposed scene you are often severly underexposing one channel more than another. In the first example you posted above, I'd bet your histogram shows that thr red channel is just a little underexposed, but the blue channel is severely underexposed. Simply removing the yellow from that photo won't bring the missing blue data back. Your best bet is to go B&W!

So yes - exposure is KING - even when shooting RAW!

tdodd wrote in post #2824568
I can understand saving the highlights but all it did in my case was wreck the overall exposure, needing me to boost exposure in PP and thus add noise. For me the highlights, if any, were in the background so I was far less interested in them than the actual subject. I guess the camera has no idea which my subject is, which is why it is down to me to take control. I guess I was expecting the flash to fill in on my subject to balance the windows/lights in the background. It seems my expectations were wrong there as well.

But the reason I posted the picture of the young lady is because I don't see any great challenges for the camera in that photo. There is no backlighting and most tones are of middle brightness, apart from the black jackets, and yet the whole scene is still underexposed (and too red). Very frustrating!

But look how much this experience is causing you to learn how your gear works! Once you know that, you'll find that it acts in a predictable way and that you can make the adjustments necessary to handle the situation. These cameras are wonderful vehicles, but you are still the driver! Using your histogram throughout the day would have told you that all of these photos were underexposed as you were taking them...

On my non-calibrated day-job monitor, the second photo you posted looks pretty close as far as exposure goes...maybe 1/3 under, but her face is pretty pink. Not sure what to tell you about that one! I'd probably lasso her face in PS and reduce the saturation in the red channel...

Also - when shooting inside put a gel on your flash. There's daylight to tungsten and there's daylight to fluorescent. That will avoid or significantly reduce color casts.

I can't advise on TTL flashes, but when you're shooting in constant conditions like a ceremony, you might want to set everything to manual.

jamiewexler wrote in post #2824430
... and don't be afraid to chimp!

Great posts Jamie, but what's Chimp? (Besides the cute guy at the zoo)