lighting for dark church wedding

<p>Hi All:</p>

<p>Want some advice on shooting an evening (dark) wedding in a dark, wood paneled church. My wife and I will be shooting with D700s and SB 600 flash units and 1 sb 900 (also D90 and D200 for backup) and I'm curious on advice as to how best manage the flash lighting. This is a huge church, over 100' from front to back. I have gotten the ok for flash photography during the ceremony and also have access to the choir (but a far distance). We have some flash diffusers (fong, demb, omnibounce) which I figured could be useful for the more close up shots. With long lens like 70-200 will my flash even do anything? I assume bounce flash is out at those distances so am I limited to high ISO with available light (dim) with tripod. We are doing this more as a favor so it give us a bit of experimenting time, but also the couple would like to have some decent photos. I've scoured through some articles here but I'm still trying to put together the best method of achieving good lighting. Thanks!</p>

 

<p>If you are sure bouncing is out, which it will be if you only have shoemounts PLUS you have to deal with color cast, you only have available light and multiple, direct lighting to choose from. With the latter, you will need permission to set up some stands and depending upon how the altar/church is constructed, you may not be able to use those without the stands being in the way, and/or being a distraction during the service.</p>

<p>maybe get a monopod or other stick-like thing you (or wife) can hold and can put the SB on w/ a small shoot-thru and trigger from the D700. gets the flash off camera and doesn't waste power</p>

<p>I would suggest a couple of things:</p>

<p>1. Have you completely ruled out available light with the D700? Seems to me you could shoot in a coal mine at night with one and get usable / sellable photos.</p>

<p>2. Get into the church (if you can) before (days) the ceremony and experment with different locations - I'd recommend removing the flash from the cameras and using the flash is an area flash. As Nadine pointed out - you need to mount them securely and out of the way...but not so far out of the that your camera won't trigger them.</p>

<p>3. SB 600 is somewhat limited - I believe it's zoom range is about 90-105 max... so if you're shooting at 200mm you're going to have some issues, unless you remote the flash.</p>

<p>Disadvantage to using the D700 as a commander is that you will get 2 flashes per shot - a pre flash and the real flash. Also - you and your wife will both be trying to tripper the flash at the same time or close to it.</p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

<p>Thanks for the responses, those are all good ideas. I may try the sb600s on lightstands off camera as was suggested if we can find an unobtrusive spot for them. Do you find an on camera flash at all useful when using a long lens like a 70-200? And I'm assuming at over 100mm direct flash is pretty much the only option. I do have 1 sb 900 also. Do you really find a huge difference between the two, I know the sb 900 has higher guide numbers and a zoom head that allegedly goes to 200mm but do you find in practice that they are useful at such long focal lengths?</p>

<p>When shooting in dark churches use fast film/ high asa on digital and slow shutter speeds with your flash (not bounced). Let you f-stop be controled by the flash output and the shutter speed is controled by the ambint light. But you need a flash/ambient meter to do this corectly, or just check meter reading with your camera for flash and then aging without flash and use the two together. <br>

Example if your flash output is f8, take an ambient reading for f-8, if it shows f-8 at 1/15 of a second, then shoot at f-8 at 1/15 of a second. The flash will light the subject, the slow shutter speed will allow the ambient light to fill in the background.....and your pictures wont look like you were in a cave.<br>

You already said you were using a tripod..... practice this with a test model on the site before the wedding.....you really dont need more lights....but dont try to use bounce light in a large room you are wasting your time.<br>

I have seen beautiful 16X20s and larger shot on location with shutter speeds for 30 seconds and more by Don Blair (Big Daddy) that were amazing.....it works. You have to practice this, but its not that hard to do.</p>

<p>I personally hate using direct flash with a long lens. You can bounce, if you have enough flash power in an ideal environment. In a wooden church--not so much. Now, is the ceiling wood too? If the ceiling is white or light colored, even though high, you will be surprised how much you can get from bounced flash, but you will have to kick in some frontal light because the wood walls will soak up reflected light.</p>

<p>You can use a white card with long lenses, as long as you use those higher ISOs. A white card is better than direct flash, if only just.</p>

<p>You can get some nice lighting from off camera direct flash if you can manage good positions for the off camera flashes. As Russ explains, you need to be dragging the shutter as well.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, yes the ceiling is dark wooden beams. It sounds like flash will only be a small part of this equation, due to the large open space and dark reflective surfaces. I will certainly be cranking up with ISO on the FX cameras and hopefully that in combination with dragging the shutter with the flashes will give good enough results. I guess its just a tricky balance between getting the right exposure and having enough shutter speed / flash to freeze motion. Your responses have all been very helpful.</p>

<p>I recently shot a "dark" wedding in a smaller church with only the available light from the windows. I used my Canon 5dMarkII without any flash and ran it at 6400 wide open with a 2.8 lens. I just ran it through lightroom2 to do a quick white balance and they really look nice.<br>

Now, that being said, they didn't want any huge prints (anything over 8x10) so the grain is not noticeable. You might want to try that with your 7000.</p>

 

<p>You could rent a Qflash. You could have an assistant hold a remote flash.</p>

<p>You could rent a Qflash. You could have an assistant hold a remote flash.</p>

<p>You will get a lot more light with a 200mm lens than you think. I shoot fashion shows all the time with my Canon 30 and 5D mark II from long distances. In a dark room the flash will carry very far. I use my 70 - 200 and ISO 3200 on Mark II 1600 on 30D set 580 EX I flash to manual and full or half power. Too much light will make huge ugly shadows when used very far away so reducing the power helps. I use direct flash no diffuser or bounce. The flash also helps focusing in low light. I would leave flash on camera as you will have more control I miss tons of shots when I move flash completely off camera. Light does not get to a certain distance and stop it just becomes less bright so adjust you camera ISO accordingly and utilize as much ambient light as you can. </p>