how does he do it?

<p>Generally, I don't shoot anything narrower than f5.6 and the flash will almost always go into HSS mode even at ISO 100 under harsh sunlight. </p>

<p>As a matter of convenience, I bump up the ISO to 400 to increase the effective power of the flash gun in HSS mode so long as my required shutter speed is lower than 1/8000 (Canon 1Ds limit) and my aperture no smaller than f5.6. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I couldn't find any technical analysis on how much power HSS cuts for the Canon flash guns. So there're no good way to calculate the trade off between f stops and ISO for the flash guns in HSSmode. Thanks.</p>

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<p>As a matter of convenience, I bump up the ISO to 400 to increase the effective power of the flash gun</p>

</blockquote>

<p>If you bump up the ISO then that forces the camera to either reduce the aperture or shorten the shutter speed, or both, to correctly expose the ambient light, and that cancels out the power gain of the flash for increased ISO.</p>

<p>So eg., you increase the ISO from 100 to 400. That makes the sensor 2 stops more sensitive to the flash. But the camera stops the lens down 2 stops to keep the ambient light at the same exposure. So there is no net gain in the power of the flash. Better to leave it at ISO 100.</p>

<p>Sorry, this all got a bit off topic, but as fill flash was mentioned!</p>

<p>There's a very interesting link on Canon high speed sync mode <a href="http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/canon_speedite_high_speed_sync.html">here</a>. Basically, the import of it seems to be that you lose somewhere around 1 stop of power by going into high speed sync mode. After that, the reduction in power seems to be proportionate - one stop effective flash power reduction for every stop of increase in shutter speed, all the way up to 1/8000th sec shutter speed.</p>

<p>Since you gain a stop of effective flash power for every stop you open up the aperture while shortening the shutter speed, these two cancel each other out, and the net effect that you will feel as a user is that the flash has become around a stop less powerful in high speed sync mode compared to normal flash mode. Against this loss of a stop of power, it does give you the ability to open the aperture right up for shallow DOF.</p>

 

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<p>I dial up the ISO to the point that I don't need to reduce the aperture but ISO 400 (or sometimes ISO 800) is usually the highest I can do to stay within my 1/8000 shutter speed limit under harsh sunlight. Any other ideas? Thanks.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Another idea is to not use HSS but use a ND filter. A 3 stop filter allows you to use normal flash in bright sun at f5.6, ISO 100, 1/250th. ND filters come in different strengths.</p>

<p>You may be interested in the following.<br>

<a href="http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=208520">http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=208520</a></p>

<p>With high speed sync, the flash unit's guide number is cut in half each time the shutter speed is quadrupled. Basically, the faster the shutter speed beyond the 'native' one, the more the flash power is cut.</p>

<p>It is interesting that in my 380EX instruction manual, there is a guide number table for HSS, but in my 580EX manual, there isn't a table. You're supposed to look at the not-too-accurate LCD calculator.</p>

<p>In any case, for ceremonies, you won't need to calculate trade off, since for many bright sun ceremony shots, you are more than 5-6 feet from your subjects. One thing to remember is to narrow your flash beam manually to cover just your subject, which increases the distance the flash can be effective.</p>

<p>Also remember that one can have OOF backgrounds using mid apertures. Look for my photo of a bride in Chinese dress in the following thread. Distance and a tele lens make the background OOF at f8. Don't just set a wide aperture and leave it there thinking that makes all backgrounds pleasingly OOF. A wide lens, at f2.8, is still going to have most backgrounds reasonably in focus.</p>

<p><a href="00TP1h?start=10">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00TP1h?start=10</a></p>

<p>Here is just one of the many threads about using ND filters on sunny days.</p>

<p><a href="00M8uC">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00M8uC</a></p>

<p>I just wanted to point out, about high speed sync, that my</p>

 

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<p>the reduction in power seems to be proportionate - one stop effective flash power reduction for every stop of increase in shutter speed</p>

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<p>and Nadine's</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>the flash unit's guide number is cut in half each time the shutter speed is quadrupled</p>

</blockquote>

<p>are two different ways of saying the same thing. Doubling the guide number of a flash is the same as increasing the power of the flash by two stops, or quadrupling its power.</p>

<p>Since each stop of increase in shutter speed (reducing effective flash power by one stop), is accompanies by a stop of opening the aperture (increasing effective flash power by one stop) the effective 'reach', or perceived power, of the flash should not change as the shutter speed is increased in high speed sync mode.</p>

 

<p>I think it may be even easier than what's been discussed. There is a lot of software out there with great effects, especially for wedding photography. I took the example picture and used two effects, "Bleach Bypass" & "Golden Hour Enhancer". His photos are a bit more yellow, but that's easily adjusted. Anyway, I think this is pretty close.</p>

<div></div>

<p>I'm pretty sure the OP is looking for a high key look. In his 1st post, he says, <em>"...Please see the example below... I've seen others do this style too, where all the shots are higher key...".</em></p>

<p>Tom M<em><br /></em></p>

<p>Since everyone is doing it, I thought I'd have a go...</p><div></div>

<p>hahahaha! Now I have to get in the game. First - my quick attempt at making the image more high key but keeping detail.</p><div></div>

<p>and this one is an attempt to process as well as Nadine!!!! ;-)</p><div></div>

<p>Nadine, I think you just created the new latest style - Please send me your photoshop action ASAP!!! I can't wait to copy you :D</p>

<p>Nathan you win the 'furthest from original I am going to really mess this image up' award. I don't imagine you were serious. Were you?</p>

<p>Most times when I see people try to 'correct' an image in this forum it ends up looking worse. This thread was no exception. There is no accounting for peoples/clients tastes, but there is such a thing as too much.</p>

<p>holy cow, I misread the name and thought that it was a Nadine "tongue in cheek" version. oops. sorry, Nathan. I really hope you were kidding.</p>

<p>Yikes! Hey Maira (Maria)--it is OK to use my name for the action, but Nathan might be miffed... :^) It is also OK to play with actions, since we are talking about processing effects to an extent, but people--please be careful about preserving the couple's dignity in your renditions. We are playing with their wedding image.</p>

<p>Q: How does he do it?<br />A: I was wondering the same thing ... How does a guy like that end up with a beauty like her?</p>

<p>Looks like he used film.</p>

<p>It can all be done using some tasteful curves moves. Its a pretty extreme s-curve as to not really blow everything out rather just raise a lot of the highlights. The gradual shoulder is what gives it the film like look. </p>

<p>That "honey" sort of look is achieved by a mild s curve on the blue channel. I use this for everything, at adds a beautiful subtle glow to everything and nicely flattens things out a bit.</p>

<p>heres the curves i used:</p>

<p>serious?... this is my most popular creative preset.</p>

<p>lol.. I think Art Tatum might have missed the complete sarcasm in your artistic peice Nathan.</p>

<p>This "washed out" expired film look is actually quite popular in Asia nowadays. Many wedding pictures are processed this way... But not everyone likes it. This is achieved by adding a white layer below the image, and setting the opacity of the image to around 85-95%. The other way to achieve this, is to add a white layer over the image and set the opacity to 7%-15%

</p>

<p>Bert, that looks nothing like expired film.</p>

<p>How does he do it----more important to me is why does he do it? This upload has my preference on the right. I do it this way because I believe it to be the most simple straight-forward old school way to present the subject in the most natural way possible.</p><div></div>

<p>Dave,<br>

Or should I say, that they think is, expired film. LOL.<br>

Personally I will call it lightness...</p>

In BRIDGE you can over expose the images and also change the contrast and clarity to minus 6 or so. You can select all of the photos in bridge to do this automatically.