Settings for color backlighting....all red

[jace_barthlmes]

<p>I need some major help when it comes to taking good photos in receptions that use the all colored lighting. For example these kinds of pics. I found these on flickr as the best example. I recently did a wedding that had the same type of lighting but all red. I was shooting with a d90, 17-55mm f/2.8 and an SB-600. I managed to get some ok shots but I had to fiddle around a ton. In the example pictures they had a good balance of ambient light and flash. How in the heck were they able to do this. Is there a basic formula that I can follow. Such as a certain flash mode. Thanks for the help.</p>

[drjoder]

<p>Jason, are you shooting in RAW? </p>

[jace_barthlmes]

<p>I am.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Use your camera to meter for the background, so that it preserves the brightness/darkness and color saturation of that background, looking the way you like it. Note the shutter speed, aperture, and ISO that got you there. Go into Manual mode, and preserve those settings. Make sure you're at a shutter speed at or below your flash sync speed (say, 1/200th or slower).<br /><br />Then turn on your flash. Put it in manual mode. Try a fairly low-power setting (say, 1/8th). Review the shot, and see if you like the ratio. If you do, you're good. Otherwise, raise/lower power to suit. If you find yourself having to crank it up so high that you're going to blow through the batteries too quickly or that it takes too long for the flash to cycle, raise the ISO, and re-meter the scene ... then work with the flash at a lower power.<br /><br />You should then be able to shoot similar ambient light and subject working distance, and have considerable latitude (by shooting in RAW) to make up for a stop or two's error on some compositions. <br /><br />If you'd rather do it all in a more automated way, you'll have to to iTTL, and then experiment with the flash compensation settings, to back off the power if it's over-cooking your up-close subjects. But then you're still trusting the camera's meter not to be fooled by white dresses (or is that a grey dress?), etc.</p>

[jon_robert]

<p>There are 2 observations here.<br>

1 To avoid red colored subjects do a remove color cast in Photoshop Elements 5.0 or equivalent for whatever program you use.</p>

<p>2. This is a classic application of rear curtain flash principle. The camera will meter and expose for the ambiant lighting and then fire the flash at the end to freeze frame and properly expose the foreground subjects. With traditional flash the background tends to disappear into darkness. Rear curtain flash gives you the result you see in your sample photos.<br>

See "Rear-Curtain Sync" on pg 71 of your D90 manual. And then try it out.</p>

[jace_barthlmes]

<p>Wow thank you both for your advice. I've searched all over the internet and I've gotten the most valuable information here. Explained perfectly. Thank you again!</p>

[dan_south]

<p>If I were to guess, the photos on the flickr page were shot with Flash white balance. If you use Auto white balance it will try to counteract the red/pink/magenta colors in the background, and this is of course the opposite of what you want to accomplish. The good news is that if you shoot RAW you can set whatever white balance you want during post-processing.</p>

[jason_hall5]

<p>I think the photo below is another example of what you are looking for.</p>

<p>In this case</p>

<p>Set the camera to manual and expose your background about -1 to -2 stops. In this shot(as I recall) ISO 1600, 1/60 f4.<br>

The flash was left on ETTL and I used a Gary Fong light sephere.</p>

<p>So the exposure setting on your camera has to be such that the ambient light is there so it looks natural, however, the flash will be the main light on the subject and overcome the ambient. The background will retain the colors you want due to light fall off from the flash.</p>

<p>Other tips, To me (maybe not to you) useing flash in manual in this application (event photography) is difficult because distance from flash to subject changes all the time, and even more difficult if you bounce your flash (the only way I shoot).</p>

<p>Try to set up your subject so that they are not directly lite by the colored lights. Always be mindful of the spot lights and such and think ahead of time how they will play into the final exposure of your shot.</p>

<p><img src="http://www.jphotoarts.com/photos/262354542_q2dRa-M.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="450" /></p>

<p>Jason</p>