Weddings: Fill in flash indoors? How?

[Moos3h]

Hi all,

Shooting my first wedding next week (pooing myself as we speak) and have:

30D with 12-24, 24-70, 50 f1,8 and 75-300 lenses,
580EX flash with Sto-Fen.

Now, not being a flash expert, I always leave it on 'P' and let the flash do the work - but should I be using fill in flash for group shots? These might have to be taken inside, depending on the weather...

Any help would be great, I'm entering panic mode as the church is sooooo dark!

Thanks,
James

 

[CT]

Don't get confused between fill-in flash and flash shots where the flash is the main or sole source of illumination.

For outside shots, unless you're going for a particular natural light effect, always use fill flash - it considerably brightens shots on duller days. On sunny days you still need it to eliminate the shadows in the eye sockets which you get although you're often better to avoid the harsh contrast by moving into the shade and letting the fill flash brighten the shots.

If there's no shade available then turn your subjects with their backs to the sun, but make sure that in that situation you meter on your subjects for a good balance of flash and ambient light.

At this late stage, I wouldn't worry too much about trying to grasp flash technique. Leaving the camera on 'P' will do a pretty good job as long as you make sure that the flash is set on ETTL.

For the interior shots, 'P' will still work for you up to a point but 'P' tends to set at least a minimum flash sync speed of around 1/60 second for safe hand holding and in that situation the flash tends to overpower the available light in darker situations and become the sole or main source of illumination It's probably no bad thing if the church is very dark as that would be the situation anyway, but in lighter interiors a better result can be obtained by metering for the available light, using a slower shutter speed, and letting the flash output less power to act as a fill in. You'd need to switch mode to do that and personally I'd use AV Mode.

Tbh I'd really recommend AV for all the shots, but as this is your first wedding and you'll be under pressure anyway, I'd stick with 'P, ' but flash is something you really should be getting to grips with by the time you start to think about doing weddings.

 

[Moos3h]

Thanks, this is really helpful!

Although I'm getting paid, this is a favour more than anything else, so I still want to do a great job, despite my inexperience!

Thanks again,
James

 

[Janice]

When you meter for the available light in AV mode, CT, do you use matrix/evaluative metering then lock itwith the * button and then bring it back over the subject again to focus?

 

[CT]

When you meter for the available light in AV mode, CT, do you use matrix/evaluative metering then lock it with the * button and then bring it back over the subject again to focus?

Not for normal shots Janice where there's no particular exposure problem - the metering system is reading continuously and shouldn't have any problem matching the flash output to the ambient light.

Where I would use it is in a strongly back lit situation where the faces will be in shadow so you obviously need fill flash, but you need very accurate metering on the faces for a good balanced result. In that situation move right in to the subject till your subject's face fills the screen -it doesn't actually matter what metering system you're using as long as you fill the screen.

Now press the Exposure Lock Button (*) to lock that exposure setting - move back to your picture taking distance, focus as normal and take the shot.

HTH?

 

[Janice]

It certainly does!! Thank you!

 

[pxl8]

Erm, CT you're confusing me here. Taking and locking an ambient reading from the face means the backlit background will blow right out, doesn't it?

 

[CT]

Well that would entirely depend on the strength of the back lighting and the amount of luminance difference between that and the subject. Obviously in very extreme situations you'd need to use a degree of judgement.

 

[pxl8]

What's confused me is that my understanding of fill flash is that I meter for whatever part of the scene I'd like correctly exposed by available light and then let the flash fill in the rest. So in a back lit siutation I'd expose for the background and let the flash expose the subjects faces. That seems to work well in most situations but you've got me wondering that maybe I'm missing a trick by not exposing for available light on the faces?

 

[CT]

I hear what you're saying and that works too.

If you drop flash from the equation with the method I've suggested and think about it just as an available light shot into the light - (just working with the light) then you get those nice flattering rim lighting halos around the subjects hair from the back light. The background will only blow out unacceptably if it's very light anyway, perhaps against the sky.

The faces will inevitably be in the shade though, even though you've correctly metered for them. Now add fill flash to the shot and it should just brighten the faces enough to give the shot a bit more punch without interfering with that nice back lit effect you want to keep. You may need to reduce flash power a little, but I'd normally do that for fill flash shots anyway.

Give it a try - see what happens.

 

[pxl8]

Ahh, I get it, almost like a studio set up. Very clever