The Best of Wedding Photography.pdf - Free

it up for better modeling. If you want to accentuate the
lighting pattern and darken the background and shadows,
increase the flash output to 1/2 to one stop greater than the
daylight exposure and expose for the flash. Do not underexpose
your background by more than a stop, however, or
you will produce an unnatural nighttime effect.
Many times this effect will allow you to shoot out in
open shade without fear of hollow eye sockets. The overhead
nature of the diffused daylight
will be overridden by the directional
flash, which creates a distinct lighting
pattern.
Flash-Sync Speeds. If using a
focal-plane shutter as found in 35mm
SLRs, you have an X-sync shutter
speed setting. You cannot use flash and
employ a shutter speed faster than the
X-sync speed. Otherwise, your files or
negatives will be only half exposed.
You can, however, use any shutter
speed slower than the X-sync speed.
Your strobe will fire in synchronization
with the shutter, and the longer shutter
speed will build up the ambient
light exposure. The latest generation
of DSLRs, like the Nikon D1X and
Canon EOS 1-Ds, use flash-sync shutter
speeds of 1/500 second, making daylight
flash sync at almost any aperture
possible.
Straight Flash. On-camera flash
should be avoided altogether for making
wedding portraits—except as a fillin
source. Straight flash is too harsh
and flat and it produces no roundness
or contouring. Since light falloff is extreme,
it produces cavernous black
backgrounds—unless the shutter is left
open for a longer time to expose the
ambient room light.
When you diffuse on-camera flash,
you get a reasonably soft frontal lighting.
While diffused flash is still a flat
lighting and frontal in nature, the softness
of the light produces much better
contouring than direct, undiffused
flash. Lumiquest offers devices like the Pocket Bouncer,
which redirects light at a 90-degree angle from the flash to
soften the quality of light and distribute it over a wider
area. There are also frosted acetate caps that fit over the
flash reflector to soften the direct flash and these can be effective
as well. Most of these accessories can be used with
your flash in auto or TTL mode, making exposure calculation
effortless.
One of the best facets of shooting digitally is the ability to shoot virtually anywhere under almost
any lighting situation. Both of these shots are by Anthony Cava and were made with a
Nikon D100 at exposures of 1/320 second at f/1.7. In the image of the bride, Anthony set the
white balance for shade so the tungsten lights would go yellow-red. In the shot of the groom on
the train, he set the white balance for tungsten, even though there was a mix of tungsten, fluorescent,
and daylight. In each instance he could have color corrected the scene but opted for a
more creative approach to the color balance.
OUTDOOR AND MIXED LIGHTING 73