As shocking as this may come to you, dear readers, I have a pet peeve or two when it comes to photographers. I also have a pet peeve with people who use the term “pet peeve” but that is neither here nor there. Anyway, words that grate on my ears include “I’m a natural light shooter.” That’s code for “I don’t know how to use a strobe.” Shouldn’t we just be…light shooters? Regardless of whether it’s artificial, ambient or modified, so long as it communicates what we need in an image?
Along those lines, DWF superstar Dave Cheung has dropped an informative and insightful post on the QuiKeys blog about using off-camera flash at receptions. Dave has a slightly different take on off-camera lighting at receptions than most people. Most photographers who light their receptions are using flashes to overpower the ambient light (that’s generally what I do, anyway), but Dave suggests merely accenting it instead. It’s trickier than you think, because flashes are just too powerful. Quoth the Dave:
“For this post, I’m talking about dark venues. Really dark venues. Take, for example, last weekend’s reception venue with an ambient light reading of 3200ISO, 1/80 and f2. When I say “low-powered flash” I mean having to add a 3-stop neutral density gel to a Nikon SB900 or Canon 580EXII manually set to 1/128 power to balance the fore-mentioned low light levels and still having to shoot at 1600ISO and f2.”
Later in the post Dave calls for camera makers to consider creating a lower-powered mini-flash to help photographers add just the slightest pops to images without having to add gel after gel to standard Canon and Nikon fare to power them down to usable levels. What do you think? Ultra low-powered flash: useful tool for pros, or niche toy? Let Dave and the DWF know.
10 Comments at "Accenting Ambient Light at Dark Receptions"
Lower your ISO.
what paul said plus drag shutter + sb400 or whatever cheapo low powered flash??
Paul, lowering your ISO doesn’t help as it also lowers the ambient light. The answer to that is to slow your shutter speed to capture more ambient, but if you want to avoid motion blur and ghosting you can only go so low.
I doubt the manufacturers would create the desired flash for such a small market, though it would be nice if they simply added lower and lower powers to the next generation of their existing units.
My current solution is to use a 3-stop ND gel, and this has always given me enough flexibility at low powers while using 1/128, 1/64 and 1/32 powers on the flash, which become 1/1024, 1/512, and 1/256. (Sidenote, if we get lower powers in our flashes, the numbering system may need to change as I think the exponential increases starts getting cumbersome beyond 1/64.)
I dont know if its a technical problem but future designs should consider lower levels like 1/256, 1/512 and 1/1024. Just a kiss of light which shall be possible IMHO. HighIsos are improved but the manufacturers forget about their flashes being too powerful at those levels.
Love your writing style Matt
Paul: Brett’s on the money. The trick is balancing existing light; not overpowering it.
kckong: I had Nikon send me *every* flash they currently make. Unfortunately there’s deficiencies for them all and even cheapo 3rd party flashes are too powerful for the light levels mentioned above. This doesn’t even mention the fact that recycle times with these smaller flashes are NOT be usable for the average pro wedding photographer.
Brett: 3-stop ND helps, but there’s a mired shift (i.e. images turn funky blue-gray) with ND’s, so I’m compensating for that by slapping 2 more gels to warm them up to balance the super-orange tungsten.
You & George are right though: it’s a long-shot, but even if Nikon & Canon just allowed smaller pops of flash, it would be great. Would be even nicer if they somehow auto-warmed the flash color when dialing it down
For now, it’s a great way to set ourselves apart since the price of entry is a big pain when dealing with current limitations.
Blessings y’all …
d
Unless you require the use a wide open lens for a limited depth of field look, you can use other techniques to achieve the look without the use of filters. The problem comes from the fact that you are shooting wide open at high ISO. I feel that by lowering your ISO, tightening your aperture, and adjusting your shutter speed you would limit the amount of light that the flash contributes to the overall scene. It’s similar to the technique that Ed Pingol uses in direct sunlight….
Low ISO(200), tight aperture(f22) and direct flash combine to overcome direct sunlight in the scene and making the flash into a directional light source.
Plus, I doubt many clients want a lot of images like your example. It looks like a candle lit scene…. without the candle. That’s what I feel you are doing…. adding a candle in the form of a flash on their table to achieve your “look”.
Why not add the candle and be done with it.
just my humble opinion. YMMV
I agree with Dave, it would be nice to be able to dial a flash waaaaay down, 1/256th even, but I find the solution is just to place the strobes further away. If there set at 1/64th, or whatever your lowest setting is, you’ll be getting pretty quick recycles.
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