Fill Flash help Please! shoot on Saturday

Timing is everything, and I just happened to be online taking a work break. I'm glad somebody is having a good day..... I rather be out taking pictures. I'm sure you will do fine and we look forward to seeing some pictures. Take care young lady. - Stu

Denise Z wrote in post #5983631
You are a charm. Thank You! thank You! thank you! I will post a few shots when I get back next Friday. You have no Idea how much your kindness in taking time to help has been appreciated. Man your fast at replying! I'd like to carry you around in my pocket tomorrow so I could pull you out when I need info. LOL! Thanks again.

I would get familiar using your flash in manual mode. If you set it at 1/4 power, every flash will be the same, and will only look different when you change you camera's aperture. Makes it easy to tune in the ambient exposure, set flash to manual. Within 3 bursts and flash power adjustments, you should be able to find the sweet spot at a given distance. If your shutter speed for ambient is over 1/200th, make sure you set the flash for high speed sync, or it won't contribute to the exposure and your image will be blown out due to the flash making the camera drop its shutter speed.

In time, you'll probably find that your best results come from using the flash and the camera in manual mode. It takes a lot of practice, but will take the guesswork out of it.

fortinaa wrote in post #5986319
I would get familiar using your flash in manual mode. If you set it at 1/4 power, every flash will be the same, and will only look different when you change you camera's aperture. Makes it easy to tune in the ambient exposure, set flash to manual. Within 3 bursts and flash power adjustments, you should be able to find the sweet spot at a given distance. If your shutter speed for ambient is over 1/200th, make sure you set the flash for high speed sync, or it won't contribute to the exposure and your image will be blown out due to the flash making the camera drop its shutter speed.

In time, you'll probably find that your best results come from using the flash and the camera in manual mode. It takes a lot of practice, but will take the guesswork out of it.

Excuse my ignorance, but does HSS work when the flash is on manual? Pls note that I have never used my flash in manual and would really like to give this a try.

I struggled with some of the same issues this Sunday when I did a family session with the lake behind the subjects and the sun shining right on the lake. This was in their backyard so the house blocked the sun from directly hitting the subjects but the lake...was totally blow out. When I exposed the for the background, my subjects were totally dark. Since I'm not good with flash, I either over used the flash or I didn't have it turned up enough. The result? Lots of time trying to fix it in PS What could I have done differently? Would using the flash off camera with an umbrella made a difference?

Hi Rebel - I know the type of aggravation you went through; been there done that many times over the years.

That lake is easily 4-stops brighter than the shade in which your subjects are sitting. So if you meter primarily off the lake, you will get a great water exposure and your people will be too dark by at least 4-stops. You can choose one or the other, and use flash or no flash.

Look at this photo:

http://www.pbase.com/s​apearl/image/101326803

This shot has NOT been processed at all in PS. Global adjustments though have been made to the RAW file in ACR, and what's displayed here is a low rez proof. No flash was used, but I could have. For the effect I wanted, the flash was turned off.

I had a bright background similar to your bright lake. I also had nice cool shade that would flatter the bride. For the final processed shot that will go into her album, I will make an exposure adjustment layer for the background and get rid of some of that brightness.

But to set up the shot, I metered off a brighter spot around her face. I use an old fashioned hand held analog meter in incident mode (dome facing the light source). ISO was set to 400 because experience says that's a good shade shot for me. I wanted to isolate the background at the 105mm extension, so I used f/4 which is the largest aperture for that lens. This gave me 1/125 sec for shutter.

Now, I could have turned the 580ex and played around a little with FEC+ or -, to make the foreground (bride) closer in brightness to the background (lake). I then could have set a smaller aperture, which would have brought the light intensity of the bride closer in value to the bright background. That would have defeated the effect I wanted though.

Rebel without a cause wrote in post #6100754
I struggled with some of the same issues this Sunday when I did a family session with the lake behind the subjects and the sun shining right on the lake. This was in their backyard so the house blocked the sun from directly hitting the subjects but the lake...was totally blow out. When I exposed the for the background, my subjects were totally dark. Since I'm not good with flash, I either over used the flash or I didn't have it turned up enough. The result? Lots of time trying to fix it in PS What could I have done differently? Would using the flash off camera with an umbrella made a difference?

In short Rebel, I exposed for the foreground (bride) knowing full well the background would be blown out. Sometimes this works, sometimes it looks awful. It's a matter of style, experimentation, and the final effect you want to achieve.

Now in this other shot, I was facing 180 degrees in the opposite direction:

http://www.pbase.com/s​apearl/image/101326932

The shade was brighter and more even, but still with a lighter lake in the background. I don't know why the EXIF says no flash - I use the Canon off camera cord, so maybe that has something to do with it - but I did use the 580ex for some fill. I believe it may have been FEC -1, so there was a hint of light splashed in, without destroying the white detail of her dress. I find the effect to be very pleasing, some modelling, and no harsh objectionable shadows.

Again, this is the low rez proof with no PS applied at all. In the final album print I will darken the lake slightly, burn in or gamma darken the flowers for better detail, and apply modest sharpenning. - Stu

Thanks for your helpful tips sapearl! This all makes perfect sense but everything I know seems to go by the wayside once I'm actually shooting. I don't know why that happens! Maybe next time I'll make a few short notes and bring them with me as reminders until it becomse second nature. Lovely shots by the way! You do such a wonderful job!

Thank you Rebel - appreciate the nice words. I can distill it down for you:

1) Find the shade, or if no shade, even lighting.
2) Avoid harsh lighting w/strong contrast & ungly shadows.
3) Put your subjects in the "nice" light - see #1.
4) Get a good metering of/in the nice light; this is the same light hitting the people.
5) Try to avoid overly bright, or too dark backgrounds unless you are going for that effect/style; mid level lighting is good.
6) Use fill flash not to blast the people, but just to splash in enough to open up those ugly eye socket shadows.
7) Experiment with FEC+ and FEC-.
8.) Shoot all RAW if you want to expand your options; much easier to WB, reclaim blown highlights and lost shadow detail.
9) Right before shot, tell subjects to take a nice deep breath, let it out and smile - works like a charm.
10) Enjoy your photography .

Following is one of those nightmare wedding situations that you try to avoid at all costs. It's the "Noon, middle of the day, shooting directly into the sun wedding processional." This is also why it pays to fully understand how to run your camera in Manual mode. This type of lighting will drive auto metering crazy.

You've got a black tux in shade, white gown in shade, nuclear blast backlighting, and the potential for lens flare all over the place. Below is the RAW file which has been saved to screen rez JPG with no PP. I've only made the global exposure, etc. adjustments in ACR.

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Wow, someday I hope to achieve the same excellence in these types of situations LOL. Care to share the camera and flash settings?

Below now is the fully processed and PS JPG that the client is purchasing. There is not a tremendous amount of difference because I got the original capture pretty close to what I wanted. But I lightened faces a little, darkened background, some of the walkway, and a little exposure layer adjustment and burn.

My starting point was an incident reading (dome over sensor, facing towards camera), with my 30 year old Sekonic analog hand held meter. That reading would approximate their faces which are in shadow. I'd selected an ISO of 200. I could have just as easily used 100, but kept changing to 400 so I only wanted to keep an exposure difference of 1-stop. I'm mediocre at math, but with only a 1-stop difference even I can do that in my head when quickly changing camera settings.

The EXIF says no flash, but in fact I did fire the 580ex. I don't know why the EXIF reads that way. I use the off camera cord.... perhaps that has something to do with it. But I did bump the flash output up around FEC +2/3 or thereabouts. By increasing the flash output, that brings the facial exposure closer to the sunlight exposure, but not the same.

With extreme lighting like this, you can see how T, AV, P or any of the automatic exposure modes could be completely fooled and give you a lousy exposure. Aim the lens at the background, the tux, the dress..... you will get very different readings. And that can't be tolerated in a situation like this. It has to be a fixed unchanging exposure if you want consistent, repeatable results. That is why I will use the camera in MANUAL mode, and shoot RAW.

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Hey Sapearl,

Have you ever heard someone said meter the background then match your flash out put to match that reading? What area in the background do you meter exactly? Behind the bride's head with the dome facing the light source? I have seen some great flash exposed images done this way, but I just not sure where and how to exposed the background. Thanks in advance!

P.S. I currently employed your method of metering and usually do a FEC -1 to -1.5 for fill flash.

Cordially,
Ben

Hi Ben - yes, I have heard people recommend it but personally I don't like the results for this particular lighting.

Here, direct sunlight is hitting on that background behind the bride. At ISO 200 that will be about 1/200 sec @ f/16. If I matched flash output to that in this particular example during the processional, their faces would be way overexposed and washed out to my taste.

Now, your example perfectly applies to the recessional.

During that part of the ceremony they were marching down the aisle directly into the sun. So your recommendation would be absolutely right on. And in fact, that is what I had to do. I metered the bright background - actually didn't even use the meter, used the SUNNY 16 RULE, calculated my exposure that way, and cranked up the flash.

Now regarding your question about the dome Ben, whenever I do an INCIDENT reading, I always try to get close to the subject and have the dome pointed at me/my camera. This reads the intensity of the overall light falling on the subject. It is pointed at the light source, and hence is not influenced appreciably by the black tux, or white gown or my polka dot tie .

Buckeye1 wrote in post #6103591
Hey Sapearl,

Have you ever heard someone said meter the background then match your flash out put to match that reading? What area in the background do you meter exactly? Behind the bride's head with the dome facing the light source? I have seen some great flash exposed images done this way, but I just not sure where and how to exposed the background. Thanks in advance!

P.S. I currently employed your method of metering and usually do a FEC -1 to -1.5 for fill flash.

Cordially,
Ben

Thanks, Stu. When I do incident reading, I am doing the same as you are and love the result...providing the meter is accurate

I am just confuse and not sure what they mean by metering the background. I guess I will go out and try what I think it means and see what happens.

Actually Ben, you are likely less confused than you realize.

In just about every post I've seen on POTN regarding metering, when they say meter the background, or the sky, or the whatever, people are referring to a REFLECTED reading. You point the camera at the target, and get a measure of the light that is being reflected off the object back to the lens.

I do that all the time when I am doing my urban landscape shots - I will typically point the lens at a nice blue sky and get a nice meter reading that will render some beautiful clouds. This is great for the sky, but it will darken my foreground by a stop or two if it is not in direct sunlight.

An incident reading is the quantitative measure of the light falling on the subject, not being reflected back from it. That's why you have to put the dome in place for a correct reading. This type of metering is more consistent for me when I am doing bridal and group portraits outdoors, typically in bright shade.

Both methods are perfectly valid techniques and have their advantages and disadvantages. It takes practice, but eventually you determine which works best for you under the particular circumstance. - Stu

Buckeye1 wrote in post #6103793
Thanks, Stu. When I do incident reading, I am doing the same as you are and love the result...providing the meter is accurate

I am just confuse and not sure what they mean by metering the background. I guess I will go out and try what I think it means and see what happens.