Use of studio strobe & brolly in wedding ceremony?

I've seen some weddings where the photographers have studio strobes on stands

with brollies set up at the front. What are they for really? Are they useful?

I'm thinking that if the bride and groom's face needs to be light up, you can

use hotshoe flash. If you use studio strobes and maintain a high shutter speed,

the background will be dark. If you drag the shutter to bring in background,

you won't need the studio strobes anyways. Can anyone please clear this up for

me? Thanks for the advice!

shutter speed has nothing to do with the background. The background is controlled by the ap.

Creating dramatic lighting comes to mind, with or without your shutter speed considerations. Very low shutter speeds has its moments at the right place and the right time, as with faster speeds. The many awards I won, only 15 or so, lighting was the ONLY reason for winning. I had photos done on a 1911 harley motorcycle that got front page of the magazine, and Miss America that shots went everywhere, posters to front pages, won't get into the amount of money these can generate, but my wife drive a Porsche. I have a tricycle but it has studio lights built in!

 

Seriously, my friend really study light, take 1000's of pic's and play around in photoshop. Develop your eye to see. Ansel spent 8 hours in a darkroon and sometimes he likes the final print then again he may have ripped up a print worth a lot just because of the lighting wasn't right.

 

So play, read, use Photoshop as your darkroom, and find develop your techinque that is only you. you will grab the market.

 

Sometimes start with your favorite lens and work with natural light. Then when natural light isn't there create it with a stobe. Then learn about how shadows are sometimes what sets the mood to the perfect pic.

 

Good luck, you posted an excellent question that we all seem to forget about get careless, and get into a rut.

 

You have a style, work with it. By the way Gary Bernstein http://www.garybernsteinstudio.com/portfolio.html

was famous for often using only 1 light! Strategically placed. All of the STARS went to him for whatever reason. He made millions.

J C, I sort of agree with your analysis, depending on the conditions, but if the room is too dark or you are outside at night you will still need to lower the speed of the shutter to a second or less. I did a shot of the B&G overlooking Burbank and 1 second didn't work. They can't hold still for anything longer even with the use of a flash to stop the movement. So I took 3 shots, 1 of the couple and a 1 minute shot of Burbank. Then I added a moon, which was just a handhelp shot of 60th at f16. Used photoshop to complete the rest of the image into 1. I usually don't show too many images on the site so email me if you'd like to see this.

<p><em>shutter speed has nothing to do with the background. The background is

controlled by the ap.</em></p>

 

<p>Not sure what you mean by this, JC. Are you talking about DOF perhaps? Otherwise what

Fievel says is correct: if you're using flash, the aperture controls the flash exposure only. And

shutter speed absolutely controls ambient (background) exposure.</p>

"If you use studio strobes and maintain a high shutter speed, the background will be dark.

If you drag the shutter to bring in background, you won't need the studio strobes anyways.

Can anyone please clear this up for me? Thanks for the advice!"

 

You can use any strobe at whatever shutter speed you wish ... up to your camera's

maximum sync speed Fievel. You can also dial down any strobe to "balance" the

foreground exposure with the ambient background in whatever ratio you wish.

 

Foreground flash light is controlled by the aperture NOT the shutter speed. That is

because the duration of the flash is far quicker than the the fastest sync speed of the

camera's shutter. To get more of the background ambient, you can then use a slower

shutter speed which has less effect on the foreground subject being lit by the flash.

 

There are other advantages to using strobes: you can place them anywhere to produce

directional light on the subject ... and big umbrellas create a much larger diffused light

source than any on camera flash could ever hope to do.

 

We don't do studio strobes all that often, but when we do it's at least two ... one as a key

light usually placed 3/4 front on the groomsmen side because they are dressed in black,

and a second strobe 3/4 front on the opposite side dialed down for fill.

I mainly think trying to do lights on stands at a wedding would be a nightmare.

 

Even during the formals there are people everywhere and kids and its just an accident waiting to happen, so I would recommend trying to use only one light very close to your tripod, with no cords except the sync.

 

Someone mentioned Gary Bernstein. I don't know him but if you get fashion magazines you will see that the lighting is usually very simple- most of the action is hair, clothes, makeup, and interaction with the subject. That may be why they loved Gary.

 

Read "Social Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman.

Most venues look bright enough but to a camera they are really quite dark. A head and brolly increase the light getting good shots.<BR><BR>

The shutter speed is for controlling the ambient lighting when using flash. A slow shutter speed (dragging the shutter) will allow more of the ambient light to expose on the film/sensor.

<br>

The apeture controls flash output, a wide open apeture will allow more of the flash light to expose onto the film/sensor and a smaller apeture will allow less.<br><BR>

Check out <a href="http://www.strobist.com">Strobist.com</a> for more help using off camera flash.

The studio lights are mainly for controlling the quality of light. While you can use shoemount flashes for the same thing, the higher power of studio strobes allows the use of modifiers to soften the light while still giving enough light for the smaller apertures needed for DOF. They also allow you to create directional, more flattering lighting. These are separate issues from dragging the shutter for background detail.

Thanks everyone for the response. I'm just baffled at how studio strobes on location will work at creating dramatic lighting. I'm not very good at using strobes besides doing the usual bouncing off walls feat. I'll look up some wedding porfolios to see how it's done.

Good books on portrait photography will have lighting diagrams that you can use to learn how it's done.

 

The more you know about portrait photography the better your wedding pictures will be.

By "dramatic", I believe it is meant that the lighting is not flat, which is the kind of light you get when you use frontal direct flash or even frontal bounced flash with shutter drag. Most people that use studio strobes for formals use them in classic portrait style lighting, which is directional--the main or key light is at an angle to the subjects.