Direct Sunlight for Bridal Party Photos - HELP

[brooke_renee]

<p>Hi All,<br>

I am shooting my 2nd wedding next weekend, only problem is the weather! It is forcasted to be 40 degrees and sunny the bride wants photos in a small garden behind the reception place and it will be around 3.30pm. The only problem is there is not many shady spots at all nor is she willing to budge with venue.<br>

I would just like as much advice as possible with the settings you use in direct sunlight or any tricks or tips to get the best photos (really worried about the shadowing on the face)<br>

I am using two nikon D7000 one with a 17-55mm 2.8 and one with a 50mm 1.4G, I also have a back up body of a D90 with a 18-55 or 35mm 1.8. I have two SB600 flash units.<br>

Thank you!<br>

Renee</p>

[frank_skomial]

<p>I would recommend flash FP or flash iTTL/balanced mode, if you had a stronger flash like SB800 or SB900/910.<br>

Also, those flashes would have power to bounce lighting in most small to medium venues, with D7000 and other high ISO capable cameras.<br>

I believe SB600 has much less power, and could be less suitable for this task, unless you boost the ISO.<br>

Otherwise, you could use an asistant holding a large reflector and directing some sun light onto the subject.</p>

[personalphotos]

<p>You can actually use this type of light to your advantage. The trick is this; Place her where the background directly behind her is dark. It can be quite a distance away but needs to be darker. Trees, a building whatever. It's best performed with a longer lens (on a cropped sensor, something like the Tokina 50-135mm f2.8 would be ideal or a prime like the Nikon 85mm f1.8 etc).</p>

<p>You put the sun to her back and a bit off the camera axis (so you're not pointing the camera directly at the sun). Expose for her face in the shadow of the sun and this will balance nicely with the dark background. Shoot with the lens fairly wide open around f4 or more. You'll get a nicely exposed face/dress with hair highlights and since the sky isn't in the shot, the background won't be blown out. No flash is needed for this shot.<br /> The other option of course is to use fill flash as much as possible. I strongly recommend you practice this with a friend before wedding day! Even better if you can go to the venue around the same time of day and similar light to practice.</p>

 

[davidfong]

<p>Renee,<br>

The problem you will be facing is not enough power for flash. I know when shooting in Sun, harsh shadows is the tough shot. If you had an assistant you could get them to hold a reflector to help fill the shadow areas but if you don't you can always ask someone in the Bridal party to do that for you. Another thing you could do is use a shoot through umbrella to control some of the sunlight. Just hold it over the person to filter some of that harsh sunlight. I know the old rule "Sunny 16" applies here. Yes, set your camera to manual and shoot F16. This is not the best setting for awesome bokeh but it does control the amount of light going into the camera. Set your ISO to 100, Shutter speed will control the amount of ambient light, faster, less light, slower, more light. You could probably shoot 1/250th or higher if its really bright out. I can't tell you what to setup exactly as I am unfamiliar with what type of photos you are going to try and shoot. These settings should work fine for scenic/group shots. For the Individual shots, you can change the settings. You can always set your camera's ISO to auto and shoot Aperture priority, this will a least let the camera do all the shutter speed changes and ISO changes, while you control the depth of field. I would shoot in Raw and need be, fix your photos in Photoshop or Lightroom. Watch where the shadows fall and use the flash to fill. I hope this helps. Remember to check your photos with every location change, this way you won't be surprised with incorrect settings if you move indoors. Good Luck!</p>

[simon_hickie1]

<p>Yes, any kind of frontal sunlight is going to give you some harsh shadows and, more importantly, people squinting. So putting the sun as Peter suggests is wise. Some fill flash will be needed - the SB600 should be OK for this if you are not too far away. Sunny 16 rule for subjects in open shade suggests f5.6 at 1/125th ISO 100. However, any part of the image in sunlight will be overexposed by up to 3 stops if you want to balance the exposure. The SB-600 in BL-TTL mode 'should' make a decent fist of this, but you need to practice first.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>First of all, is this session the bride and groom's session or is the whole wedding, including pre-ceremony, ceremony, formals and bride and groom's session, going to be in the garden? It makes a difference if you have control over the proceedings or not.</p>

<p>Realize that there is no way to eradicate any shadows made by the sun--not even with fill flash, unless you want to 'nuke' the photo with tons of flash.</p>

<p>Therefore, your options, if you have no shade at all, are limited, re choice of backgrounds. This is because you need to turn the subject's faces (and fronts of their bodies) away from the sun, so that the important parts are in even shade, which limits background choicces. There can be no dappling and small hot spots on the subject 'fronts'.</p>

<p>Once you get this condition, you can decide to use fill flash or expose for the shadow side, with the caveat that whatever is lit by direct sun will be blown out. This could include hair, veils, sides of faces, and parts of the dress. This can be OK, or it can be disturbing (the blown parts)--you will have to decide, taking into consideration what the client will think about your blowing out parts of themselves. For the bride and groom's session this might be OK, even preferable. For formals, it might not be.</p>

<p>Tell us if you are familiar with fill flash, along with the specifics as asked about above.</p>

[pete_s.]

<p>If it's just the B&G or a few people I think using a big 4x6 ft reflector is the simple way to solve this. Reflectors are good because what you see is what you get.</p>

<p>Place the subjects so they are back lit, expose for the background using manual mode, use the reflector close to bring up the exposure on the subjects and if you like add the flash from the camera as well.</p>

<p>You might get a slight underexposure on the subject depending on how close you can bring the reflector. Don't worry about that. It's better to raise the last bit of the exposure in your raw converter because that way you can still retain detail in the highlights that way and you don't have to blow anything out by overexposing it. Since you are shooting at low ISO the noise added by this process is minuscule.</p>

<p>Another variation of this method is to use flash with shoot through umbrellas or big diffusion panels placed close. These will both reflect light like a reflector and add soft light from the flash. You must have radio triggers though. Also keep in mind that all kinds of reflectors and umbrellas are very difficult to use in windy conditions.</p>

<p>For large groups nothing you can do will really work because the amount of flash power or size of reflectors needed are beyond what most wedding photographers usually have access to or in their budget. It will all be a matter of making compromises.</p>

<p> </p>

[fuccisphotos]

<p>This may seem silly to say, but I've seen people do it before. Remember when you are outside in the open, unless you have someone holding a reflector over you, you don't have a surface to bounce your light off of. So you have to either use something that will help to bounce the light forward, like an angled demb PJ flip it is my equipment of choice) or go with the dreaded straight on flash. Otherwise you are just sending flash up to the heavens, which does nothing to fill in shadows on faces. </p>

[john_deerfield]

<blockquote>

<p>I would just like as much advice as possible with the settings you use in direct sunlight or any tricks or tips to get the best photos (really worried about the shadowing on the face)</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>It is very difficult to give advice without "seeing" the light. I can't know how I am going to shoot something until I know under what conditions I am shooting! Part of being the photographer is being able to recognize the light and adapt as needed. That said, if the sun is to my back, directly hitting the subject (no clouds), worst case scenario... do you have a diffuser?! That would be my number 1 modifier in such a situation, using the SB600 as a bit of fill. If that is the situation, the SB600 is going to get hot fast and is already (for me) a bit slow to recycle. I might try to get <em>both</em> flash units on the same stand. Two flashes at 1/2 power will recycle faster than one flash at full power. If all you are using is CLS to control the flashes and you are in bright light, you will need to the flashes to be very, very close to the camera. You start pushing any distance and CLS will be useless in bright light. I seem to recall someone mentioning TTL radio, wireless triggers for under $100? But you would need a 2nd receiver for a 2nd flash. If it is bright sun, there is no use in modifying the flash. A) a shoe mount flash doesn't have the power to compete with the sun, let alone modifying it and B) you are only using the flash as fill: to raise the shadows, not blast them away.</p>

<p>A step stool is always a good idea. As mentioned, you don't want the sky in the frame if you can avoid it (assuming a bright, cloudless day). By shooting down, you can control this. If I am outside, I like to try to use longer lenses. This compresses the background so there is less of it to worry about. If 55mm is the longest you have, then that is what I would use. If you have longer, great. The issue there being trying to trigger your flashes (unless you have a radio trigger?).</p>

<p>Bottom line: the only way to make hard light soft is to modify it. If you can't modify it (diffusers) you can try to use fill flash to raise shadows. 2x SB600's might do the trick in direct sunlight. Avoid the sky. And of course the beginners advice: shoot Raw. Pray. </p>

[picturesque]

<p>Brooke--can you give us more detail so we can better help you?</p>

[brooke_renee]

Thank you for your feedback - my Internet has been down the past two days and I have been dying to get back on here!

This is for bride and groom shots and bridal party shots after the ceremony, I have also just purchased the Nikon sb700, I

will be taking a large reflector with me but I will not be using any off camera flash as I am not confident in using it yet. I

have just started researching fill flash Nadine I think this may be my best option if you have any more feedback I'm all

ears

[picturesque]

<p>OK. You can start with the following.</p>

<p><a href="00YIWA">http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00YIWA</a></p>

[Jerry_]

<p>You, probably will be taking a lot of risk without one, need <strong>a flash bracket and the cord </strong>(even outside in the garden...) and maybe more than one speedlight to light up the wedding party. Just the bride-and-groom will be OK with one flash, but the group.....?</p>

<p> </p>

[picturesque]

<p>OK--here's a way to think about it.</p>

<p>1. Keep sunlight off subject faces and 'fronts'. No dappling and no hotspots on faces and fronts. This means turning people away from the sun unless you have tree shade or something.</p>

<p>2. Look at what is in the background re 'bright' or 'medium/dark'. If bright (the sun is hitting the background too), you will have washed out/blown out backgrounds. If medium/dark, you have more choices re how much flash to use to fill, if at all. Ask yourself--is it important to retain detail in any part of the background?</p>

<p>3. Decide how much highlight detail you want--either in the background or subject (such as blonde hair, veils, edges of faces and clothing.</p>

<p>4. Set your exposure accordingly. Sunlight is pretty consistent--ISO 100, f11, 1/250th (fastest sync speed without HSS). To keep background and subject details from blowing, that's the exposure. To bias the exposure toward the ambient, you start opening up the aperture. I often open up 1 stop or more from f11, 1/250th so things don't look so dark and I don't have to use so much flash.</p>

<p>About the examples: A and B are the same couple, same session. A has way less flash <em>and</em> is biased to the ambient shadow side EV, but not completely. The exposure was ISO 200, f5.6, 1/200th. If the ISO was 100, that would be f4, 1/200th. That is 3 stops from f11 (3 and 1/3, if you account for the shutter speed difference). Notice how the background is beginning to blow. Water highlights are gone. The sky was cloudy/blue and looks plain white.</p>

<p>B is ISO 100, f7.1, 1/200th with more flash. The color pop more but the light is harsher. The background is saturated and colorful, with blue sky showing. Which is better? Up to you and how much detail you think your client is going to MISS--such as dress detail.</p>

<p>C is from a different wedding but illustrates what Peter is talking about above. The background is dark, the exposure is for the shadow side of the subjects. What is in shadow is detailed. What is being hit by the sun is blown out. I used flash but I was so far back that it basically didn't register (see sunlight caveats below). I believe the specs were 1/250th, f4, ISO 100. Does it bother you that the side of the center subject's face is blown out?</p>

<p>Also, today we have much improved software to recover highlights and dig out detail from shadows--it is work, though.</p>

<p>Caveats:</p>

<p>1. Your flash doesn't go far against bright sun. Stay within 10-12 feet of your subjects if you expect to have fill. If you are using wider angles, the less flash power you have.</p>

<p>2. High speed sync will allow you to use wider apertures but cuts flash power. If you attempted to use it against bright sun, photographing a group at 35mm or wider, it will not register at all.</p>

<p>It is useful, however, if you are closer to your subjects--maybe up to 5-6 feet.</p>

<p>Ask some questions...</p><div></div>

[picturesque]

<p>By the way, I personally don't use reflectors. Besides the fact that I don't use assistants, reflectors tend to make subjects squint big time.</p>