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Finally . . . my first wedding photos!


studio460

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Thanks Rab, I will check it out.

 

The good thing about pre-scouting locations is to better understand the layout, get to know the Banquet Manager, also

see if there are prime shooting areas and what kind of light patterns there might be, if any, at different times of day.

Examples. Three places in particular I worked a LOT. One had a stairway to the upstairs where the whole left side was

windows. So at different hours the light was very different, but there were lots of possibilities. Another had a green house

style room which could be pretty challenging to shoot in, you had to have a grip on the direction and flow of the ambient

light. A third had a huge staircase where every bridal party was expected to be set up. You HAD to have good extra lights

with you to pull it off well.

So, scouting is not necessarily a bad thing, but, you must be able to adapt to anything as things move along scouting or

not.

 

Some other advantages of scouting is hopefully, eventually being in really good with some of the banquet managers, or in my case several of the owners. I always got the best food, a nice glass of good wine, bus help with my car and equipment etc.

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<p>Well Ralph, I have to hand it to you …. you have certainly invigorated this wedding forum. Over 100 responses and counting!</p>

<p>Congratulations on your second gig. However, you must <strong>STOP WORKING FOR FREE</strong> … LOL! </p>

<p>Right from the get-go, my pat answer to those friends and family who asked for, or expected, free photography was a cordial, <em>"Sorry, I have all the free work I can handle." </em></p>

<p>I think scouting a venue is okay if the place is special. Most of them aren't. However, when just starting out it can't hurt, and can make you more comfortable knowing what possibilities may exist (or not). I just met with a signed client to go over their plans. They are getting married at Henry Ford Greenfield Village which offers a mind boggling list of special places to shoot … which can be almost as bad as no place to shoot because you can get overly ambitious, "running and gunning" too many possibilities, and end up with mediocre shots done in wonderful locations.</p>

<p>If shooting outdoors at a venue like a country club, I try to use sunset data for that date to figure out when the best time for a B&G couple portrait would be. (See attached below, where I knew exactly when and where to have the couple in position for this shot).</p>

<p>Pre-planning can be fun IF you limit it to a few concepts to achieve during the day. More structure than that tends to interfere with what is really happening and leads to nerve fraying frustration. Keep it simple. For example, at one wedding, the client mentioned the abandoned second floor of an old 1800s opera house she was getting married in on the restored first floor … the 2nd floor was totally inclosed with two 25 watt light-bulbs. I'll attach two of those shots on my next post. It was so dark that my second shooter's Canon DSLR just kept hunting … I pre-planned and brought my rangefinder with fast lenses including a 50/0.95 Noctilux to shoot totally available light … lighting of any kind would have destroyed the dramatically cool ambience of a fashion shoot … albeit, a bit creepy cool : -) See attachment next post. </p>

<p>- Marc</p><div>00cWZJ-547279684.jpg.54059a6b2bdaf5259ebe8d292cefa3c0.jpg</div>

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<p>Marc shoots terrific images because he has the artistic, visual sense to know what looks good and the technical chops to capture what he wants in the image. Without some concept of how one wants the final image to look, there might as well be a monkey pushing the button.</p>

<p><blockquote><strong> Moderator Comment:</p>

<p> Marc also makes excellent and similarly “results focused” commentaries to this forum. For example the excellent post above where he took up the points that you tried to make but your most aggressive and off putting tone clouded any useful meaning to the OP and others. </p>

<p>The members of the community put this thread back onto the track of professional, civil, social intercourse</p>

<p>References like the ‘monkey’ comment above are un-necessary and make it easy for one to conclude, when taking into account your previous abrasive writing style, that a main intention is to flame the discourse. </p>

<p>This is a warning to please keep your comments: civil. </strong></blockquote></p>

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<blockquote>

<p>@Marc Williams: re: Apr 13 06:15am - 2nd shot w/ off camera strobe and camera flash for fill:<br />1. how was off camera strobe synced ?, and 2. was camera flash in ttl or manual mode? Thanks if you've got the time.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> Hi Wayne,</p>

<p>When working with off-camera strobe(s) for the key directional light, and on-camera TTL speed-light for fill, I have the camera mounted to Kirk Grip with the transmitter on the grip handle connected to the camera's PC flash port. This frees the hot shoe to directly take the TTL speed-light.</p>

<p>In highly mobile situations like moving around a location, or stuff like the dance floor shot you asked about, I have a mobile assistant holding the strobe head & 27" Deep Octa modifier on a simple boom arm. He watches my movements and tries to position the light direction at the best angle possible.</p>

<p>Setting the speed-light to TTL works because it is taking into account the light levels provided by the much more powerful strobe in an ever changing situation. </p>

<p>I don't use a strobes all the time. I also use one of those Pass Trough TTL transmitters that goes in the hot-shoe but allows you to mount a TTL speed-light on top of that. So, this triggers the off-camera speed-light in the same exact manner as a strobe while retaining the TTL function of the on-camera light. Of course, the off-camera speed-light isn't nearly as powerful, so you have to adjust for that</p>

<p>Hope this answers your question.</p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p><em><strong>BTW,</strong> here is an example of deliberately making the background go pitch black on purpose. In this case, there was all kinds of distractions behind the couch (people, chairs and windows). So rather than dragging the shutter, I used a high shutter speed and low ISO to kill the ambient … then used a tiny but powerful Elinchrom Quadra strobe and small shoot through umbrella as directional (camera right), and the on-camera TTL speed-light for fill. Basically the same set-up used differently.</em></p>

<p> </p><div>00cWv4-547355884.jpg.f910fd39aeed3ebfc5a6cf5363fed148.jpg</div>

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<p>Thanks Marc, the wealth of information you provide to this community is valued by all. And that is a stunning photo!<br>

I remain a bit confused. I'm not totally unfamiliar with the concepts, having successfully used my Nikon SB800 at arms length in conjunction with the camera popup flash on my D300, SB800 providing 2/3, popup 1/3 via Nikon CLS. Worked great at a birthday reception in a good sized hall with reasonable ambient window light and maybe 10-12' ceiling -- not too demanding a scenario. My question comes with the<br>

<em>"speed-light to TTL works because it is taking into account the light levels provided by the much more powerful strobe"</em><br>

MY understanding is the ttl speedlight adjusts by measuring a preflash, which would NOT take into account the more powerful strobe, which not be fired until after the preflash is dead. It seems to me that a thyristor speedlight WOULD take into account the strobe.<br>

Of course you were possibly using equipment that works differently. (My Minolta 7xi film camera used ttl reflected off the film)<br>

My apologies to the OP if this is hijacking the thread, but when I see an opportunity to correct a malfunction in my understanding, I go for it.</p>

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<p>Wayne, very astute observation.</p>

<p>I have pre-flash TTL turned off on my Sony cameras. I use Sony's ADI TTL menu choice (A900, A99, A7R cameras)</p>

<p>ADI (Advanced Distance Integration) uses the data from the lens to determine distance to subject. So firing a pre-flash isn't necessary for the camera's exposure CPU to determine that. Most modern cameras have some form of ADI.</p>

<p>In the case of Minolta/Sony systems, ADI was initially implemented with the Minolta Dynax 7 (AKA Maxxum 7) along with some select lenses with the necessary integrated hardware to communicate with the camera.</p>

<p>Pre-Flash is still left as a menu choice in case you are using an old lens or an adapted one that doesn't have the necessary communication hardware. In my case, being a Sony user, I can generally tell if a lens supports ADI TTL Flash by counting the data bus contacts on the rear of the lens … five is the old … eight or more indicates the ADI versions. A non-ADI lens has to be a pretty old Minolta version, where the later Minolta-Konica versions usually have them, and all of the Sony or Sony ZA lenses are ADI equipped.</p>

<p>BTW, Pre-flash also doesn't work in studio if working with mono-lights being triggered by their integrated light sensors. The pre-flash triggers them before the camera opens the shutter.</p>

<p>Hope this helps,</p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>If pre-flashes are turned off, the camera is probably not performing TTL flash metering at all (though film cameras could do TTL flash without pre-flashes). It sounds like ADI is a distance priority mode. Some Nikon flashes have that kind of a mode also (they call it distance-priority manual flash). The use of distance only works if the flash head points ahead (or is slightly tilted down from the 90 degree position). If the flash head is pointed in this way in a TTL mode in Nikons, the camera takes advantage of the distance information (if provided by the lens) in addition to information obtained from pre-flashes, whereas in the distance priority manual mode it relies exclusively on the distance and doesn't do TTL flash metering or issue pre-flashes. I don't know how Sony's flash system differs from Nikon's but they sound similar even if they use different terminology.</p>

<p>Preflashes have some disadvantages but they do provide for very good automatic flash metering capability. One disadvantage is that in some cameras the delay between pre-flashes and the main exposure is so long that the eyes have time to close (as a reaction to the pre-flashes); this happens e.g. with Nikon D3100 and similar cameras. The higher end models (e.g. D7000 and up) have a lot shorter delay between pre-flashes (they may also be lower energy) and main exposure, thus preventing subject eye closure effectively (but not as well as not having pre-flashes at all). Distance priority mode, manual mode, and non-TTL automatic flash modes don't have this problem but they may require more attention from the operator. The distance priority mode turns itself off if you turn the flash head up or to the side or take the flash off camera. TTL is nice in that it doesn't care what modifiers you put between the flash and the subject and it also doesn't care which direction you point the flash; it compensates automatically. </p>

<p>The version of the Elinchrom Quadra that I have has a programmable feature to ignore the light from TTL pre-flashes so if you want to use the optical slave mode, you can trigger the flash with an on-camera TTL flash instead of radio or manual flash. But at weddings, firing the Quadra optically is probably not be a good idea as it would fire whenever someone takes a picture with flash and then you have to wait for the recycle time before you can use it again. ;-)</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Here is a shot with two room lights bouncing on the right and an assistant with a lumidyne on the left and I am using my speed light as fill. I switch between E-TTL and manual as sometimes the E-TTL can overexpose at times. I am exposing for my room lights so even if my flash did not fire I still have the shot.</p><div>00cX2N-547381684.jpg.24d1ee97f94157258befb6bd7ae30a2f.jpg</div>
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<p><strong>Very interesting post Ilkka!</strong> I realized that for most work using strobes for the key light, I DO have the speed-light head pointed straight forward because bouncing for fill wouldn't make any sense in that case. However, I almost always have the standard Stofen type diffuser that comes with the flash in place unless shooting at a greater distance where it just robs light. </p>

<p>While I tend to not delve too deeply into tech info if something already works for me, this made me curious about how ADI works on my camera … and to make <strong>SURE</strong> it works the way I think it does.</p>

<p>So, I got out my Sony A99 and dedicated speed-light to try some experiments.</p>

<p><strong>Settings:</strong> Camera: ADI is selected in the menu. Flash is always set to TTL. <em>(Note: I usually have HHS enabled in the flash menu. On the Sony flash, HHS is enabled only if the flash head is in the forward position, not bounce [which makes sense]. However, due to its' unique design, it can be swiveled side-to-side while in the forward position to place light on the shadow side of a side lit subject). </em></p>

<p><strong>The ADI Experiment:</strong> I shot a subject with the speed-light head in the forward position, then without changing anything tilted up for bounce. Result: other than light direction, exposure was identical.</p>

<p>Repeated it at a greater distance. Same result.</p>

<p>Then without changing anything else. I changed the menu setting to Pre-Flash TTL. Identical exposure results straight on or in bounce. </p>

<p>Then hardwired to my Profoto pack, camera set to ADI with speed-light set to TTL in hot-shoe. Shot in straight-forward position and side-bounce position … other than fill direction, exposure results were identical.</p>

<p>Then switch to Pre-flash TTL while hardwired: identical results.</p>

<p>Baffling.</p>

<p>The only thing I can think of is that there is some kind of hybrid metering business going on with how this all works. Doesn't matter if I understand it, as long as it works.</p>

<p>Oh and I discovered something else I didn't realize. The A99 is an EVF camera, so when you stop down a lot with strobes the viewfinder gets to dark to see anything. You have to set the menu to "Setting Effect Off" to get a normal view finder. However, the minute you turn on the speed-light it automatically switches to that setting. Very clever. </p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>The ADI flash sounded interesting so I had a look in the a99 manual, page 121 to be exact.</p>

<p><em>ADI Flash: This method controls the lighting of the flash, factoring in the</em><br /><em>focus distance information <strong>and light metering data from the</strong></em><br /><em><strong>pre-flash</strong>. This method enables an accurate flash</em><br /><em>compensation with virtually no effect from the reflection off</em><br /><em>the subject.</em><br /><br /></p>

<p>So it looks like ADI takes the focusing distance into consideration when determining the flash exposure but it is still TTL metering and there is still preflash.</p>

<p>It sounds a lot like TTL on Nikon when you have a AF-D lens, where D stands for distance information. With this the camera knows the distance to the subject and isn't as easily fooled by nearby reflective objects.</p>

<p>It's also possible that the Sony camera automatically reverts back to the preflash TTL algorithm (without distance information) if the preflash exposure information isn't what it should be. That's often how things works.</p>

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<p>Thanks Pete!</p>

<p>That sounds like exactly what is going on. All of these systems must be engineered so the trigger pulse is sent to the PC outlet on the real flash to keep everything in sync when working with strobes.</p>

<p>I've never tried using the IR trigger on strobes, but it sounds like that wouldn't work unless equipped with the same "ignore first flash" like the Elinchrom Quadra offers (and others may).</p>

<p>- Marc</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Ralph, I think you did a great job. You captured great moments and you will learn more and more from each wedding. You have to start somewhere and you are off to a great start. I think Bruce's comments were uncalled for. In my experience, people who are highly critical like Bruce are usually just insecure about their own work. The first wedding is tough but it seems like you were prepared. Again, great job and best of luck in the future.</p>
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