I was doing some browsing around and hit up my buddy David Ziser's site and found a tutorial he recently put together on "tricking" the sync speed of your camera. I'm liking this idea and can't wait to try it... ALL this time I've been afraid of going above the native sync speed of the camera in fear of the big black stripe on the bottom of the frame.

David makes use of this by filling that black stripe with ambient and highlighting just a certain part of the subject that still remains in the lit part of the frame's upper to mid half.... COOL TRICK MAN!


Also, Strobist featured this and has a few tid-bits to add, so check out David Hobby's article too!


Thanks for the great advice amigos!
Enjoy!

Mateo

Where have I been lately? Not writing too many FF posts... sorry bout that. I wanted to add a little weekly motivation to your wedding photography diet. I shot a wedding last night, Friday in Athens Georgia. To my surprise, I woke up this Saturday morning with a SMILE on my face that I didnt have to go to a wedding!!!!! Just to show you how my day started, here is the first awake thing that I did this morning...*note that the eggs fell as you see them, no arranging :)

NO FF value, but smile value is 100%. I didnt manipulte this at all :)

OK, howsa bout a little FF motivation :)

Do you ever feel stale or tired of doing the same ol' thing at your weddings? Welcome to the club! Often, I am constantly challenging myself to figure out how I can make my imagery more dynamic. How can I tweak my lighting? What special twist can I add to the frame to enhance the overall message I am trying to communicate? These are questions that I constantly ask myself. If you are seeking growth or are just looking for a few ideas, I think this FF post will help you out!

I'd like to talk a little bit about balancing ambient light in a reception environment. First thing you must consider is that it is your GOAL to tell the story and communicate not only the actions and sequences of the wedding day or reception, but a clear idea on the mood and ambiance.

With off camera flash lighting, its too easy to let it get out of hand and light up the entire world, especially if you are using bounce flash carelessly. Recently, I made a HUGE effort to try and make sure that I captured an event with the most subtle mix of strobe and ambient that it would give my client an exact remembrance of the ambiance. This is a challenge as all reception rooms are different and every event can present you with new challenges... big bands bring big lights.... ambient can sometimes be turned WAY down, or WAY up or WAY orange or RED....etc.

At this event, I found that shooting with a few primes and adding a subtle bounce gave me just the desired look. As you are evaluating these frames, really give it some time and visualize this room.

ISO 400 1/200 @ 1.4 NO FLASH, ambient only. This shot is provided to show the setup of the room. There were 90 guests. Ambient light fixtures on ceiling pumping out a little tungsten color. Band lights with par can's providing red, orange, yellow gelled lights. BIG band, 10 members.

ISO 400 1/125 @ 1.4 I used a Nikon Speedlight on a stand with a very low power bounce flash, 1/32 power. I made sure to position the bounce setup so that it would highlight an area of the dance floor and I could increase my ISO if I needed the flash to travel more distance. I also left myself with the ability to drag the shutter to give the bounce light a boost if I needed more distance. My advice is to figure out these equations with a little trial and error. You will be surprised how easy it can be. Overall, I made sure NOT to blow out the room and let the ambient in the distance fall 1 or 2 stops under the foreground exposure.

Here is a photo using the same lighting setup, just from the opposite side of the room. You can see the small dispersion of bounce flash in the reflection of the glass. The light is located on a stand just behind the musicians lights to camera left.

ISO 500 1/200 @ 1.8 Here the strobe isnt adding much but it is making a small statement. The band's lights were very HOT and they provided me with most of the exposure seen here. There is a nice highlight on the toasting hand of the maid of honor and a highlight on the edge of B&G. This frame mostly shows the setup position of the camera position in the above photo example.

Here is one more from a different angle slightly closer to the strobe as you can start to see shadows.

ISO 400 1/100 @ 2.2 I was able to freeze action here but think that I could have made a slight adjustment in the flash's position as the flash head is so close that there was a little direct spill, causing the few shadows seen on the girls. Not alarming, but a slight technical flaw.

I hope that this helps you with a little motivation to make sure you are capturing the Mood and Ambiance at your events as your clients remembered them. Are you blasting flash all over the place? probably shouldn't do that...

Next post is going to be from the SAME wedding... VIDEO LIGHT Flavor... coming soon!

Cheers!
matt

*revised to add*

If you have any snazzy lit detail shots and are proud to share the inspiration with us, please send it to me.  Link to my "contact" page on the Nav bar to get me. 850ish wide with your branding.  I'd like to build a series of posts with lots of killer idears.... so please contribute.

My friends Ed & Monica recently were talking about adding a flash flavor to their detail shots. This is a technique that i highly recommend you plug in and try every once in a while. We really enjoy adding colors or streaks of light to our detail shots. Just to change up your normal routine every wedding, do something crazy or set up a science project on the subject...watching that volcano spew can be really exciting.

Ed & Monica have previously contributed to FF. Thank you for your suport!

Also read "flash flavor formals"& one of my fav's, "deleting the ambient"

Also read this article about FF details that I published a bit back...."shoot the cake"

Ed writes:

When shooting FF-style weddings, don't just limit yourself to the couple or the bridal party. Flash flavor applies to anything... seriously, ANYTHING. What we like to do is cover the details with our "safe shots." shoot it how you normally shoot details. as soon as you're done, start playing.

We''ll place the strobes anywhere and angle it in ways we've never done before... basically, we experiment...and if we get a shot, cool! and if not, that's cool too because we'll know what not to do next time. It only increases your chances of getting cool and unexpected images. we even surprise ourselves sometimes. =)


//ed pingol
edpingol.blogspot.com

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Take this shoe shot. we placed it on this cool chandelier hanging in the kitchen. It was peculiar-looking plus the mom was like, "what are you guys doing?" LOL! the background was a mess, people were running back and forth, and if you shot it straight, it would definitely be a "throw away." So we shot from a low angle where everything was clear of any mess and we back lit it. same situation with the dress below.

Cakes are particularly shot "normally." sure, it looks nice with a lot of shallow depth of field (of course, everything looks good with a shallow depth of field). But when you look at most of the photographers out there, they normally settle on shooting it straight or maybe shooting down on it with a tilt, to be more creative. Why not add some "flava" to the cake? light it up and shoot low. Include the flare..why not? Anything and everything goes. If you like it, then SWEET! if most people like it and some hate it, then you're on the right track. Why? Because that means you're creating a niche with how you shoot details. This will make you stand out from other photographers. Believe me, it's a good thing.

Cheers & thanks for these images ED & Monica! They sent me so many detail shots that i figured that I woluld bring you a VOL 2 detial set from them both.... Thank you for your contribtion again amigos!

mateo