Wedding portraits with horrible lighting

[bob_peters]

I'm shooting a wedding on Sunday and the forecast is bright and sunny, and the

formals will be at 1.00pm after the ceremony.

 

The couple have specifically requested shots in front of the church so panda

eyes are going to be a real potential issue. I normally use a white reflector

but the time has come to give fill flash a go. Am I right that as a rule of

thumb if I dial in a 1 stop underexposure and fire direct at the couple I

should be ok? Or is there a "more scientific" way to calculate the amount of

underexposure?

 

thanks

[j_c38]

I manually expose my camera. TTL on flash. Dial -1 to -1 1/2 direct flash. The amount of flash being added to the highlights is nothing, but opens up the shadows nicely.

 

In short, Yes you are correct.

[al_kaplan1]

Avoid side shadow by mounting your flash so it's directly above the lens on a bracket. Set the correct exposure on your camera for the sunlight and adjust your flash intensity to underexpose by about one stop. Using a flash diffuser won't make much difference. If you use less flash exposure you're back to the "racoon eyes" look, while too much flash intensity makes the lighting too flat.

[ellis_vener_photography]

try practising today, so you aren't learning on the job tomorrow.

[annealmasy]

Make sure your flash is powerful enough to compensate for the sun. Many flash units do not

have enough power - even at full - to compensate. Like Ellis said - do some practicing today

so you can get a feel for it. :)

[bob_peters]

So when you expose manually are you exposing for the faces or the background?

 

thanks for all the help

[gregory_c]

I would bracket shoot about 2 or 3 f stops each way, shoot 2 or 3 shots on each f stop. That will be a lot of shots, if you are like me, I shoot about 1/2 film & medium format not especially cheap, but what is the perfect exposed wedding picture worth ? Shoot digital ? bracket, bracket, bracket,,,delete, delete. I do like the practicing idea, but the white dress might fool the light meter. Expose for the people, use a hand held light meter,

[ptucci]

I don't know what direction the church faces (not that it will matter much at 1PM), but try to face the couple so the sun is at their backs. There'll be a big blown out spot on their shoulders, but you won't have raccoon eyes.

[al_kaplan1]

When you expose manually, and intend to use flash for filling the shadows, you expose for the bright areas with your camera settings and pick a flash intensity to bring up the shadows to about one stop less. You don't want to wipe out the shadows completely.

 

With negative color film it can take a stop of overexposure with no problem, and actually give you finer grain than the "correct" exposure. I suspect that Kodak and Fuji cheat a bit on their ratings...LOL. If you're using ISO 160 or 200 film set your shutter speed at 1/500 or even 1/250 second. The "sunny 16 rule" would tell you to set an aperture in the f/11 to f/8 range. Use f/8 or f/5.6 instead. Now pick an exposure rnge on your flash that calld for f/5.6 or f/4, assuring that the flash will be underexposing the ambient light by a stop. The most important thing is getting that aproximately one stop difference in intensity.

[mike_barrett2]

Bob, sorry to have to disagree with so many other posts but the method of adjusting your flash compensation to -1 stop will not work here. The flash will overcompensate for the brides white dress and will underexpose, plus your flash (at best) will likely only give you about 10 feet in which it can effectively knock down the shadows caused by direct sun.

 

First, you will want to have the people positioned as to not let any or as little as possible direct sun hit their face. Then, do a reading on the highlight side (where the sun is hitting, your meter reading will likely be around F16 at 250, ISO 200. You want to set your flash at approximatly +1 to +2 compensation for any large groups with the bride in it and move in as close as possible to get the maximum benefit from your flash. If you have a wide angle lens(I use a 17-85mm) you will want to use it. If there is no bride in the shot (or other very light colors), you will dial it back down to 0 to -1/2).

 

Your flash will be the primary light source and the sun will be essentially a hair/ separation light. This will give you the best possible results in a less than ideal condition.

 

Good luck,

Mike

[picturesque]

Al's last post is exactly what I do. However, since I'm shooting with a digital, there are a few things that are different. First, you can't overexpose unless you have the sun on subjects' backs and the sun does not intrude upon faces (especially nose tips at that hour). Sometimes you can get away with a stop overexposure of the ambient--especially if the background behind doesn't have large white or bright spots and there are no pale blonds among the subjects. In any case, the amount of flash fill should remain about a stop less than the camera EV (read f stop), so if you are using automated flash exposure, you won't be able to be sure of this unless you eyeball it from experience. This is hard to do on camera LCDs in bright sun. Or you can use manual flash exposure. If you get too much flash fill, you will start to get blown highlights, even though you never eradicate the shadow patterns from eye sockets and such. Also remember that outside, you rate your flash about a stop less in power since there is no reflectivity from walls and ceilings.

 

To answer your question about faces or background, I would say you expose for the ambient light, not necessarily the background. You don't expose for the faces unless you have the sun on subjects' backs with no sunlight intrusion on faces, and you want to ignore the backlighting in favor of the shadow side. You will definitely get blown highlights on hair and shoulders, veils, etc., with this scenario. It may or may not work in the overall look of the scene.

 

With my 20D, I use f10 @ 1/250th for sunlight, ISO 100, and use my flash at the "normal" setting of +2/3, with evaluative flash metering on, which accounts for ramping down fill flash. I then watch the resulting ratios on my LCD (I have a Hoodman Loupe) and adjust accordingly, realizing that the flash will max out at about 10-12 feet subject distance.

[al_kaplan1]

The flash weon't over compensate if, like the camera, it's set on manual. Many units still allow you to choose from several power levels in manual mode.

[wedding-photography-denver]

Pretty much as Al says except I use - 1 1/3 to - 2 stops of fill. If your party is fairly mixed between lights and darks, the - 1 1/3 applies. If you have predominantly darks (dark church walls, colored dresses, black tux's), the - 2 applies. At least that's my method.

 

Practice a few if you can (not meaning to say the obvious) :-)

 

Best, D.

[mike_barrett2]

If you are shooting in direct sun, and your subject isn't facing the sun, we can assume that the shadowed part of the face is at least 3 stops less than the hightights. If you expose for the shadows, you will blow out your background unless your background is also in shadow. This looks real bad in most circumstances.

 

Mike

[mike_barrett2]

Correction, you will blow out your background and highlights!

[mike_barrett2]

Al, I was assuming based on the question that some sort of ttl was being used. I agree, shoot on manual. Both flash and camera. That's what I would likely do. However, not many of us old timers left so I felt that might be beating a dead horse.

 

Mike

[al_kaplan1]

I guess -2 stops works OK with you pale face northern folks, but here in South Florida where you might have a mixture of light and dark skinned people, and even the white ones have some tan, I'd rather have the extra fill.