Marylebone Town Hall

[jeff_ford]

I'm a retired cinematographer who has agreed to take some wedding stills for a family member. Unfortunately the venue is Marylebone Town Hall late afternoon in mid December.... And I know less than nothing about flash. 

I've a Nikon SB700

Nikon D800e or Sony A7 mk2

Would prefer the Sony with my Leica summicron lenses but no ttl. Not sure I'll have the time or confidence to go manual flash mode, so guess its the D800e

Any tips re settings on camera and flash? 

And has anybody shot this location in the dark? We only own the steps for 30 minutes. I've no time to recce beforehand, so any advice gratefully accepted. 

[Robin Smith]

Set on A. Set ISO at 200 - 800. The higher the ISO the more ambient light you can record. The more ambient you get, in general, the better. With the D800, high ISO is good, so I would go with 800. It will make for lighter backgrounds and a more natural look. Make sure that minimum shutter speed with flash is 1/60th or higher when on A (it'll be a choice in your camera's menu somewhere). Pick your aperture and flash away. The wider the aperture the more ambient light will be recorded (generally good). Do some test shooting and chimping when you arrive with a guinea-pig (don't bring a small S. American rodentia), to check that the ambient/flash balance is good and that you are nor overexposing the person. If you are, stop down, or lower ISO. Try to make sure the subjects do not move too much as, if ambient light is being recorded, then there can be residual blur with s/s of 1/60th. Another way is, of course, to increase the minimum shutter speed to the highest shutter speed for flash (1/250th). I say this not knowing what Marylebone Town Hall steps are like at night. Note that the flash will be daylight and ambient will be tungsten, sodium, or LED so there may be a color balance issue, but I wouldn't worry about that. If you really just want shots of people and are happy with direct flash then set minimum s/s to 1/250th and shoot at 400 ISO TTL with aperture to suit. This latter way you are guaranteed to get sharp pics, even if they may look a bit like "deer in the headlights"