Why are they using these settings?

I work as a waitress at a wedding reception venue. We get photographers who come in and roam around the room, taking photos of the guests. They then print these out on the night, and come back and sell them.

So I was talking to one of these photographers, and asked him what settings he was using. He had his nikon d70 at f11-f13, 1/125th, iso 200. The flash was on a bracket and pointing directly at the people.

Why are they using such a small aperture? Why arent they bouncing their flash, the ceiling isnt that high. Is it because its too time consuming to set up bounce? The photos look ok but nothing special. They have a really black background most of the time, and lighting is harsh and unflattering, with some dark shadows. If the background isnt black, its distracting because everything is in focus.

So why dont they shoot with a larger aperture? Is it because a small DOF will mean more room for error? And isnt there a better way to use their flash without getting such awful shadows? Please enlighten me, I want to understand why they are doing it this way.

Short answer? Because those settings produce consistent, though not necessarily optimal results and most people can't tell the difference. The photographer's goal is to take and sell as many photos as possible, not take the best possible photo of each person.

I imagine it's similar to the large chain portrait studios in the US, they're set up to get as many people in and out as possible. The lighting's always the same, the photographer works under set guidelines and you're limited to certain props and backgrounds. And, again, the average consumer doesn't recognize (or want to pay for) something better.

There could be a number of reasons for doing this and it really depends on ones shooting style. What may look unappealing to you may make that photographer happy. Photography is such a subjective craft that in many cases there is no right or wrong way to do some things.

Let's look at what he is doing here. Taking some shots to turn around quickly and put some cash in his/her pockets. It is not like these (the way you wrote it) are part of the wedding services to the bride and groom. Shooting with a higher f-stop will lessen the issues of nailing your focus. It gives you a little leeway. I personally wouldn't shoot it this way but to each their own. Not only do you end up with everything in focus shooting at such a high f-stop requires that your flash output requires more power and recycling time would be longer in some cases and at some point you could run out of juice.

Without seeing the room it is hard to say whether I would bounce or not. I certainly would use a diffuser of some sort to cut down on the harsh lighting and shadows. You don't say what flash he was using and I will admit to my ignorance about the Nikon SB flashes though I have read that they are highly recommended. The flash that I use, Quantum T5Dr allows you to ignore everything beyond a user defined distance. This would allow me to use that higher f-stop and it wouldn't light anything beyond the distance that I enter into the unit's control panel. I have done similar things to what this person was doing, going around and shooting guests at an event. I set the flash to ignore anything beyond 15 feet and it works well. Does the room have an odd colored ceiling that would impact the quality of the reflected light.

This has more to do with the photographers personal decisions to shoot this way than it does about his choice of equipment. Let's not turn this into a Canon vs Nikon issue. The bottom line is that he is turning these around in time to still make the sale and is he in fact making the sale. These types of candid shots are not exactly rocket science.

Thanks for the input, what you both wrote makes sense. Ssim I have no idea which flash they are using. The ceiling is white so that shouldnt be a problem. Its high, but I see the offical wedding photographers bouncing off it, so I think its ok.

I was thinking, maybe the black background is intentional, and maybe thats why they use such small apertures. Its a quick and easy way to keep the distracting stuff out of it. I am starting to see the reasoning behind this.

To separate out the background is correct.
Not many people want a pic with someone they don't know eating in the background.