Wedding Photography Skills - Exposure Compensation

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

Exposure compensation is a key skill for any photographer to acquire, and if you shoot weddings you'll find yourself using it a lot. Subjects framed by very bright sources of light are commonly encountered as people enter buildings and during the wedding meal, particularly when photographing the speeches - see the photo above taken at Chris and Sue's wedding. There are a number of options for dealing with this scenario, such as fill-in flash, centre-weighted or spot metering but I prefer to leave my camera in evaluative metering mode and manually compensate for exposure. You need to have a good 'feel' for your camera's exposure system to be spot-on, but shooting RAW gives you increased latitude for making exposure adjustments if you're not. I use a Canon EOS 5D which is programmed to spot classic under-exposure scenarios but I know that it will under-expose a shot such as the above. In this case I manually dialled in exposure compensation of +1 EV (exposure value) - in photographers' parlance I 'over-exposed by one stop', ie let in twice as much light as the camera thought would be required for a correct exposure. More about exposure will follow.

Window light is pretty good too!

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

I've spent quite a few posts talking about using flash light but window light is pretty good too, particularly when the sun is not directly streaming in through the window.  It's for this reason that painters have always favoured studios with north-facing windows. The picture above was taken at Johanna & Jeremy's wedding in Sandwich on Saturday and uses only window light.

Wedding photography at the Guildhall, Sandwich, Kent

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

Had great fun photographing Johanna & Jeremy's wedding at the Guildhall, Sandwich yesterday. I knew that it would be very dark inside, that the ceilings were low and that the oak walls would be highly reflective, so I knew I wasn't going to be bouncing flash. I also thought that I might be doing a lot of close-up portrait shots which test my homemade diffusers (David's photography blog: Using flash, part 3) to the limit as it's difficult to avoid hotspots. Since I use my Lastolite EzyBox for studio-style portrait photography at home, as it does a great job of softening flash light, I thought why not mount it on the camera? I therefore ordered a Manfrotto 233B flash bracket from Speed Graphics, one of my favourite online photographic retailers. It's not a discreet set-up (see shot above) but the results are stunning - check out the softness of the light illuminating the poor Nikon user below (joke - Canon please respond to the gauntlet laid down by the Nikon D3).

So it's quite heavy and it does raise a smile from wedding guests but the results mean that I shall be using it again. Check out a small, untweaked selection of Johanna and Jeremy's wedding photographs to see more examples.

Using flash, part 6 - flash colour temperature

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

Light from flash units is typically balanced for noon daylight (5600K) - if this means nothing to you then check out an overview of colour temperature at ePhotozine. Summer sunlight from 9am to 3pm is in the range 5400-5700K, so using your flash as a fill-in light during this time leads to a good mix between ambient and flash light. When you use your flash indoors and capture ambient light produced by tungsten lightbulbs (2800K), however, it's impossible to adjust the white balance of your shot correctly for both light sources. If you set the white balance for the flash light, the ambient light will appear orange, setting correctly for the ambient light means the flash light will appear blue. To overcome this you can adjust the colour temperature of your flash using filters - I purchased a great selection from FlashGels.co.uk. The picture above shows three types of filter: colour temperature orange (CTO - for cooling the flash light to balance with the light from tungsten lamps), colour temperature blue (CTB - to warm the flash light) and plus green (adds a green cast to balance with fluorescent lighting). These can be attached to the flash unit using velcro, but having watched Blue Peter during my formative years, I'm naturally a dab-hand with cardboard, double-sided sticky tape and scissors (provided an adult is available to supervise me) and so constructed a filter mount. 

A relaxing interlude

Having a hectic evening but didn't want to disappoint my readership (Chris, your support is very much appreciated!) A calming shot of a flower to soothe fevered brows...

Using flash, part 5 - portrait photography

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

A photograph of my daughter's first encounter with a bubble! Click this link to see further portraits and my portable studio. Two Canon 580 EX Speedlites were used to light this scene, one fitted with a homemade snoot (a device to limit the spill of light) to light the bubble, and the other fitted with a Lastolite EzyBox softbox to illuminate Emily. These were controlled wirelessly by a Canon ST-E2 transmitter which allows full control of the lighting ratio. I've made a range of flashlight modifiers, primarily inspired by the terrific Strobist blog, and will discuss these soon.

Using flash, part 4 - wedding photography

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

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. 

Using flash, part 3

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

So, if there's no suitable surface for bouncing your flash off, or you're outdoors, what do you do? One solution is to bring a surface with you, as shown in the photo above.

To construct this flash-modifier I followed Chuck Gardner's instructions on his 'Photography and Lighting for the Thinking Photographer' website. It increases the effective size of the flash over 10-fold, loses little light, weighs next-to-nothing and is readily assembled

I still have materials left to construct more of these (for a small fee) - if you're interested please get in contact.

Using flash, part 2

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

The effective size of the light source is the most important factor in lighting a subject as it determines the type of shadows produced. Bouncing flash is a simple way of increasing the size of the light source and reducing the contrast between light and shadow - referred to as 'softening' the light. An ideal surface for bouncing flash will provide diffuse (same brightness regardless of viewing angle) rather than direct (as from a mirror) reflection and will not impart any colouration to the light. Another consideration is distance to the surface, as the resulting light intensity will be inversely proportional to the square of the distance.

In practice this means that it's not always easy to find a suitable surface for bouncing flash - it's either too far away (large loss of light), too close (light not sufficiently softened), too reflective (light remains hard), too coloured (light is also coloured) or features shadow-casting objects, such as chandeliers and moose heads! Also, what can you do outside, when there are no surfaces at all?

Read my next post to find out.

Using flash, part 1

For further photography-related information check out my compendium of tips.

I'm a huge fan of using flash to light a scene. I always take my three 580 EX II Speedlites and ST-E2 wireless transmitter along to weddings. Of course the key challenge is to make it look as if you haven't used flash. The picture above was taken on a very dimly-lit staircase and the flash was bounced off the wall to my left with -1 stop of flash exposure compensation. I think it's not a bad approximation to a window-lit portrait (please let me know if you disagree - if I'm not fooling anybody I need to know about it!) However, bouncing flash is not the panacea that you might at first think, as I shall discuss in my next post.

Photographer's Rights

Just read an article at BBC Online regarding photographer's rights. With public anxiety over terrorism and paedophilia on the increase, more and more photographers are finding themselves challenged when pursuing their hobby in public. A motion has been tabled in the Commons and a petition started on the Number 10 e-petition site to raise awareness of this issue. In principle the more militant amongst the photographic community could carry a card in their camera bag stating:

You are reminded that under UK law, there are no restrictions on taking photographs in a public place or on photography of individuals, whether they are adults or minors. There is no right to privacy in a public place, although photographers are of course subject to the usual libel laws in the same way as any other citizen and should observe them. Equipment or film may not be confiscated, or images deleted by any person or officer unlesss a warrant for such action is issued. Any attempt without a warrant is considered assault under UK law.

However, further reading made me realise that a key caveat is determining whether you are in a 'public place' or a 'place to which the public has access'. Many parks, for example, owned by local authorities fall under the latter category, and as such, entry comes with terms and conditions - such as permission being required to take photographs. If you're asked to desist from taking photos of your own children by an officious park attendant, it appears that the law may not be on your side after all.

 

Rush hour in Luang Prabang, Laos

Chatted with a friend today about their forthcoming trip to SE Asia, which got me reflecting on our tour of Laos-Vietnam-Cambodia in Dec 2005 - very fond memories.
I therefore share with you this photograph from Luang Prabang, the old royal capital of Laos. 

Emily Fenwick is almost nine months old...

...and still no teeth!

Warning - fake SanDisk memory cards on eBay

I ordered a SanDisk Extreme IV compact flash card on eBay recently and received a fake. I immediately suspected it was a wrong 'un and a quick call to SanDisk confirmed the fact. I then raised a dispute in PayPal which allowed me to claim my money back. The card on the left in the picture above is genuine, the card on the right fake. Although the poorly cropped sticker on the front of the latter is a giveaway in this case, SanDisk advise that a more reliable way of identifying a genuine card is that all four corners of the metallic inlay should be rounded - subtle but clearly observable in the picture above. Caveat emptor!

St Clement's Church, Sandwich

Another photo post to get the hang of the settings. A high-dynamic range (HDR) shot of St Clement's Church in Sandwich, processed using Photomatix.

Mange-a-trois

The last image was smaller and darker than expected. I'll try another - three mange-tout.

A little splash!

It was that easy! Less than 60 seconds to set up a blog on my website. Let's try posting an image - a shot of a water droplet I took recently.

David's first post

Can Google Blogger really be this easy?