Using flash, part 4 - wedding photography

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When you take a photograph using flash you get to make two creative decisions about exposure - how much ambient light do you capture and how much flash light do you add. You get to control both of these factors independently through under- or overexposure. The above photograph was taken at Chris and Sue's wedding last week in Folkestone. It was taken in aperture priority mode with -1 stop of exposure compensation to keep some colour in the sea (pity there were no clouds) and with -2/3 of flash exposure compensation to tone down the fill-flash effect. How did I arrive at these values? I let the camera take its best guess for the first shot, checked out the LCD screen and histogram, and then made the necessary adjustments to balance the two light sources.