Weddings - speedlite in church/reception

[Susan O]

Hello, I recently began second shooting weddings and I love it...but my weakness is using my speedlite during low-light situations. I'm more of a natural light photographer, so the external flash and I are not friends, but we'd like to be.

I stumbled on to this site (from Flickr) and hope to gain some valuable advice, tips, techniques, etc.

My main questions are in regard to shooting in churches (that allow flash), evening receptions in dimly lit rooms, and also using fill flash outside.

Here are a few of my recent wedding shots inside the reception tent. They are SOOC. I thought that I read somewhere that wedding photogs can stay around 1/60 to 1/80 at 3.2 or so and an ISO of 400. (To start with at least.) Regardless, I have a really hard time understanding my flash and how to get really pretty light. I dread evening receptions.

All shot with the 430 EX II, bounced off ceiling (tent)

This is the bride/father dance. I think it's too dark.
f 2.2, 1/60, ISO 400, 50mm


This is one that I actually like (table setting).
F 1.8, 1/60, ISO 400, 50mm


Another too dark.
f 2.8, 1/80, ISO 640, 100mm


And another dark one.
f 2.8, 1/50, ISO 400, 24-70 (27mm)

[shotupdave]

They seem to be a little underexposed, are you shooting manual or using ttl metering?

[curtscamera]

You've got some good shots here, and with a few tweaks to your lighting setup they could be really good. There are no shortcuts to becoming a good wedding photographer, but if there were, it would look a lot like this: http://digitalprotalk.blogspot.com/ David Ziser is a very, very skilled wedding photographer and an excellent teacher and explainer. He has recently released a new book titled "Captured by the Light" and a companion DVD that comes with enough free offers and discount coupons to make up the cost of the DVD. I'm in my 4th season as a wedding photographer, and I wish I had these resources when I was starting. Other sites that have helped me include Flickr groups and Strobist, and of course, this awesome site speedliting.com. Good luck, and I'd love to see some more of your photos.

[KerryG]

I agree, they are too dark but I don't know what your flash settings were. I don't know what camera you are using but I use a 50D and I can shoot those shots up to 1600 ISO and have them turn out great. The second option, especially at the reception is slow that shutter down. Put the flash on second curtain sync, and blast away, you can get very clear shots at relatively slow shutter speeds with that technique.

[Susan O]

Thank you both!
Curtscamera...thank you for recommending David Ziser, I'll look into that. I'm also a Flickrite but more for my fine art work. I need to share more of my wedding work on Flickr and also join more wedding focused groups.

KerryG...I shoot with a Canon 5D. I think part of my problem was being "afraid" to up my ISO so much when using the flash. But I did that today for a Bar Mitzvah and they turned out 100% better! So I will keep practicing and fudging around. I also got a LumiQuest Pocket Bouncer which seemed to help.

[Lee Gochenour]

I know these can be very hard shots to get, especially the dancing ones. These are great. The only thing I would recommend and maybe you have done this. When taking the dancing pictures I find it ok to let some off them blur a bit. It ads emotion and excitement to the pictures at times.

[BillW]

Your exposures are recording ambient light just fine. That's not the problem. It's your flash's output.

Everyone will have a different approach, but here's what I do at weddings...

I regularly use my flash exposure lock (FEL) button through the center focusing point to lock in exposure on the skin tone (usually the face) and with average white skin, I generally have a +2/3 flash exposure compensation, but I ride that to get what I need.

Just for kicks, see how far you're taking your exposure up to get a good skin tone. My guess it will be close to my number of +2/3rd of a stop.

It doesn't matter where my light comes from ( I almost NEVER shoot direct flash), I get consistent results this way. Shooting a ton of shots during an average wedding, and using flash on the majority of them, I can't afford to tweak exposures on all my shots, nor do I want to be underexposed in any way, if I can help it.

Try it!

Bill

[ColemanPhoto]

I think curtscamera gave you a pretty good site to check out regarding this. I also agree with Lee: having a little blur on the action shots is completely okay, especially in dimly lit environments. These are great pictures though. With a few tweaks, you'll have it down!