How to use flash in this room?

[tom_whitwell]

<p>I have been asked by my niece to take photos at her wedding "kitchen" shower. It is at a cooking demonstration room that has bright spot lights, a high ceiling with blacked-out duct work and such, and one whole side wall is a glass window. I have a D300 and planned to use my 50mm 1.8 for non-flash pics but was wanting to use 18-200 (5.6) with my brand new sb900 flash as well. My question is how to point the flash. It appears to me that ceiling bounce won't work. <br>

Thanks, Tom</p><div></div>

[lornesunley]

<p>I'd suggest you rent a couple of more flash units, 3 stands and shoot through umbrellas. Place the units up high and use the pop-up flash and CLS to trigger the flash units. That will give you a nice well lit room.</p>

<p>You should see if you can run a few test shots with your existing SB-900 and a shoot through umbrella on a stand as a remote and see how that will work to light the room. an f/5.6 lens does not let much light through.</p>

[ejchem101]

<p>I think you will be surprised how well bouncing flash works (even off of surfaces that don't necisarily look like they would be ideal for bouncing. I was reading an article just a couple of days ago that was speaking of just using flash to help compliment the ambient light.</p>

<p>It was something like don't be afraid to use high iso's and then just have the ambiet 1-2 stops lower than the flash. And let the flash "ride on top of" the ambient light. </p>

<p>Found it here:<br>

<a href="http://neilvn.com/tangents/2011/01/14/flash-on-top-of-ambient-light/">http://neilvn.com/tangents/2011/01/14/flash-on-top-of-ambient-light/</a></p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>That's a toughie. You got 4 types of lights tungsten, flourescent, daylight, colored light. You could try a custom white balance, but no matter one of the lights is probably going to dominate the others.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>You could try using the 'half way bounce' which has the flash directed upwards but with a white card attached to it to reflect the light in a softer way at the subjects. I re-cycled the bottom of an ice cream container for this job.</p><div></div>

[jcuknz]

<p>If you are likely to point the camera downwards the flash should be pointed further upwards than in drawing otherwise you could get a band of over exposure across the top of the photographs ... as I found out to my disgust :-)</p>

[frank uhlig]

<p>My question is simple: how did you take the picture to show us the room. That one looks quite ok, so why not re-photograph it the same way ... ? ?</p>

[jaydesi]

<p>As Frank said, there seems to be plenty of ambient light. Perhaps just use your flash for fill as necessary, rather than as a primary light source.</p>

[bob_sunley]

<p>1/15sec at f2.8 ISO 160 isn't a lot of light. :(</p>

[William Michael]

<p>It appears you pulled that sample shot using an Apple Phone Camera and the tech Specs were: F/2.8 @ 1/15s @ ISO160.<br />From the indicative image – I suggest you were about 1? stops underexposed – so I suggest that the <strong>Room Ambient</strong> actually required exposure specs thus: F/2.8 @ 1/15s @ IS0400.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/12900892-lg.jpg" alt="" width="600" height="450" /><br /><strong>Exposure +1?</strong></p>

<p>There is no issue with <strong>Ambient Light LEVELS</strong> for <strong>ROOM illumination.(i.e. the tables and chairs and other stuff)</strong><br />You can let the Shutter Drag (Research “Dragging the Shutter”).</p>

<p>I also suggest (as already advised) using only one Flash head and bouncing, with either Ceiling or Wall Bounce <strong>or better, IMO a White Card Bounce</strong> will suffice.<br />If you use a White Card Bounce, I suggest a LARGER white card than the illustration above depicts – something in the order of an A4 Sheet of White Card.</p>

<p>There will be an issue with Colour Balance <strong>OF THE ROOM</strong> – but IF you hold the Flash to be dominate about 1 to 2 stops stronger than the Ambient Light of the room (as already suggested) and direct the bounce Flash to the Subjects <strong>you will get good skin tone Colour Balance</strong> - the Colour Balance of the ROOM <strong>does not matter</strong> it will only add to “mood”, in this circumstance.</p>

<p>The whole idea is to Illuminate the Subjects with a nice soft Flash and to fill their Faces such to avoid the eye sockets appearing like racoon eyes.</p>

<p>Your <strong>Test Shot</strong> should be, for the Bounce Flash to be the Key Light for a <strong>Correct Flash Exposure</strong> at F/2.8 @ 1/60s @ ISO400 – if you need more DoF then: F/4 @ 1/60s @ ISO800.<br />Now after you research “Dragging the Shutter” – you will understand that you then <strong>SHOOT AT </strong>something in the order of: F/4 @ 1/30s @ ISO800.<br />That exposure will allow one stop more bleed of the room’s ambient light.<br />If you fear movement at 1/30s: then you can bump to ISO1600 and pull a faster shutter.</p>

<p>The key to this is: practicing with a Bounce Card and also Practice Dragging the Shutter, before you get there.</p>

<p>***</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/12751156-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="486" /><br />Sample of White Card (5” x 8”) Bounce.<br />Flash exposure was about 1½ stops dominate over the Room’s Ambient and the Ambient was allowed to bleed.<br />Mixed room down-lighting tungsten / fluorescent and also daylight from camera left. <br />Bounce Flash was sufficient to remove Raccoon Eyes and make good skin tone colour balance, yet not dominate enough (and also soft enough from the bouce card) so as to not create hard shadows.<br>

WW</p>

[William Michael]

<p>PS - Yes I did note that your lens is likely the <strong>Nikkor18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 G ED-IF AF-S VR DX Zoom - </strong>but in a room that small you will most likely be working at FL = 18mm to 28mm, I would expect and at those FL you should have F/4 available to you - or at least F/4.5.<br />Certainly if you require longer than 28mm, you have the 50/1.8.<br />I took these facts into consideration, when I suggested the shooting specs for the test shots you should make.</p>

<p>WW</p>

[jpo3136b]

<p>Allow a stop for a bounce and point the flash at a wall behind you for backwards bounce. It works well within ten feet of a wall. Flash in one hand, camera in the other, make your photos. I would let all of the color problems go as-is. If most of the action is up there by the kitchen, then you can bounce off the yellow wall, the red wall, and the shiny ductwork. I would probably want to play around with bouncing some light off of that range hood, and then find out that it was not worth my time. For the long shots, with the flash handheld, you can just lay it up against the barrel of the lens to keep it on axis as fill.</p>

<p>Maybe bring along an umbrella and a light stand if you need some area illumination on the more open side of the room. Maybe use that to fill if the window causes backlighting.</p>

<p>One flash is all you need.</p>

<p>I think the one zoom lens sounded like a good choice. </p>

<p>What is the principal activity at a kitchen shower? Are people giving cookware gifts? Maybe you should think up some simple setups for some gift photos in advance. To gain confidence, you could maybe photograph some of your own shiny pots and pans as a warm-up.</p>

<p>If you have a wireless trigger or a PC cord kit and can handhold the flash for backwards bounce, I think you will find that works well for crowded situations. If this is a party, then you may want to cut down on the equipment quite a bit. Be sure to think through the event and plot out a simple timetable and a shot list for yourself. Good luck.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>I could be wrong, but from the OP's photo, I don't see a lot of colored or fluorescent lights ... only tungsten and daylight.</p>

<p>If the shower happens to take place at night, there will be no daylight coming in through the window and that will make your job easier: just gel your strobe to match tungsten (the SB900 comes with a tungsten gel), set your camera on tungsten, bounce away as suggested above, and you will be fairly close.</p>

<p>If the shower is in the daytime, do the same, but strongly reduce the saturation of the blues either in ACR or PS. This will take care of the view out the window and can be done quickly.</p>

<p>If you don't mind spending a bit on equipment rentals for the event, rent a few more sb900's, gel them all the same way, mount them high in the corners of the room, pointing up towards the most neutral parts of the ceiling and trigger them all from your on-camera sb-900 (which should also be gelled). You should be able to get enough light from these to get decent color balance and fill light, but be careful not to completely overwhelm the very nice ambient light. You should be able to get something that looks significantly better than the attached tweaked image without spending gobs of time in PS.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[picturesque]

<p>If you want a set and forget solution, do as William W recommends. Otherwise, you can use backward bounce, as John O'Keefe recommends, plus use ceiling bounce when in the kitchen area with the white ceiling. You will, of course, have to be mindful of where your bounce surfaces are in relation to your subjects. You don't want to deliberately bounce off the dark red/pink and purple surfaces. It isn't the end of the world if you do, but it makes things harder in post re white balance. Same for the wood door. If the walls are pale yellow, that is workable.</p>

<p>You will also be surprised what you bounce off--even black ceilings, particularly if they are shiny, like the vent seems to be. With a 'half bounce' solution as pictured by JC Unkz, you can get along, although I would open the flash upward even more.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>Arghhh ... I just happened to look at the tweaked image I posted in a browser that isn't color space aware and suddenly realized that I forgot to convert from ProPhoto to sRGB b4 posting. Sorry. Here it is in sRGB. For some of you, this will make a difference, for others, no.</p>

<p>Tom M</p><div></div>

[hjoseph7]

<p>I Fuji Reala film might handle this situation better than digital.</p>

[xavier_henri]

<p>You might want to check my <a href="http://www.fovegraphy.com/FlashTipsE.php">Cobra Flash Tips and Tricks</a> page...</p>