at night, drag and hang low
posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 in Photographers Matt Adcock
I often sit here wondering what I am going to do at the next wedding to change it up, making everything different.
One thing I've been trying lately that will certainly make you smile a little bit more in your pursuit is to try and use the ambient! Add a little flashflavor and you will be hooked!
I'm very happy shooting my receptions at ISO 1000 or 1250 with my Canon 5d and using my primes at wide open or my 2.8 lenses, shot with 1/30th of a second. That will pretty much allow you to BLAZE highlights in the background into your frame. Now, try adding a little flashflavor at a LOW power. This can be done in one million ways... If you have a static setup, flash on a stand, concentrate on small areas of the dance floor. Use the flash on 1/32 or 1/64 or 1/128 with these settings.... Bouncing may require you to add a little power, but may decrease the mood of the photo by making the scene look like a daylight lit photo. If you are going direct flash off camera, set it up on the lowest power and play...
Check this example out:
1/32 slave bounce camera left | ISO 1000, 2.8 1/25th
Also, try to add a snooted flash..I have found that my SB-28's at 1/64th power are too often very bright, at about 4-6 feet distance to subject. I will often take a piece of paper to damper the light's power. This works :) We shoot slow dances like this almost every wedding....ALL the following were shot with a snoot and 1/64th power on the slave...
Check these out:
ISO 1000 2.8 1/40th
and this one:
ISO 1000 2.8 1/15th.... how sexy is that light in the background????
With this one, I wanted to emphasize the background, but it was still semi daylight out side...
ISO 1000 5.6 1/10th... I had to get a little movement in the background. A small camera movement helped me out here big time!
Low light is also discussed in this FF post.
1/32 slave bounce camera left | ISO 1000, 2.8 1/25th
Also, try to add a snooted flash..I have found that my SB-28's at 1/64th power are too often very bright, at about 4-6 feet distance to subject. I will often take a piece of paper to damper the light's power. This works :) We shoot slow dances like this almost every wedding....ALL the following were shot with a snoot and 1/64th power on the slave...
Check these out:
ISO 1000 2.8 1/40th
and this one:
ISO 1000 2.8 1/15th.... how sexy is that light in the background????
With this one, I wanted to emphasize the background, but it was still semi daylight out side...
ISO 1000 5.6 1/10th... I had to get a little movement in the background. A small camera movement helped me out here big time!
Low light is also discussed in this FF post.
at night, drag and hang LOW with the power.... get some happy results! Anybody have any good PJ stuff to submit to Flashflavor? Will the image wow the world? If so, tell me why :) Anybody have any sexy low light stuff with slave flavor? If you want to submit them to the Flash Flavor Flickr group, please feel free to do so.
Cheers! Matt
20 comments for "at night, drag and hang low"
Gotta thanks Kenji, i had the exact same quesiton and now have the answers. But i just wanted to say a thanks to MazzaPix and George, and just to make surely sure i got your right, basically what ur saying is that the flash should only be powerful enough to lite up your subject right infront of you (thus in the beginning Matt suggests using low power if camera mounted) and not reach the background, and since the flash doesnt lite up the background, you get a blur! Awesome! Thanks Matt!
Kenji, Yep, the flash acts as a shutter in this case. I have no idea what the actual time timing of the strobe, but its lightening fast. I use this technique to actually freeze my subjects while blurring my backgrounds, works every time!
@kenji
The shake will be visible in the background. The couples movement will be mostly freezed by the flash ;)
thanks guys
but, how can you keep you subjects in focus, when you are shooting under 1/60s? you will run into a risk of camera shake, no?
Forgot to elaborate more.
Lets say your shooting on the dance floor, your at 1/60th and f2.8 say, your couple is lit perfectly but the background is very under exposed.Hmmmm, you drop the shutter speed to 1/15th and keep f2.8 aperture for arguments sake. You still end up with a perfectly exposed couple, but now you have captured more of the ambient light in the room. Remember, flash only listens to aperture (and ISO), but ambient listens to aperture and shutter speed(and ISO).
Cheers
kenji,
Dragging the shutter referes to using a shutter speed longer than the slowest sync speed, usually 1/60th. So, if you were to use lets say 1/40th with your flash, you'd be 'dragging the shutter'.
Hope this helps.
when people say dragging it, it means panning??
sorry, i am new to this stuff
I shoot this way a bunch but I don’t shoot at high ISO’s very much. Usually in the 400 range and just drag with even slower shutter speeds. I like 1/15th and 1/8th. This shot was at an 1/8th, http://bryanmitchell.com/wedding/07shannon/sj16.html
This one at 1/4 http://bryanmitchell.com/wedding/07shannon/sj21.html
Both direct strobe.
I also like off camera strobe like this while dragging.
http://bryanmitchell.com/wedding/07shannon/sj13.html
shot at 1/30th.
Bryan
worst part of strobist at weddings? I leave stuff lying around - snoots, gobos, filters - i'm an idiot and have to visit sites a few days later getting the bobbles I left behind - doh!
Morgan, we don't actually think too hard when using these slaves... Yes, sometimes you may snap to adjust settings and you may loose a moment, but we try to get that stuff done prior to the actual time to get that moment.. Like setting up the dance floor stuff prior to people dancing on it!
Just play with low power and you will see!
RV, that is a mighty fine compliment. Is your mother commissionable? Tripods are not for the dance floor, ever. I use them for dusk shots and scene setters where I have super long shutters, but for moving around and actually documenting an event, a tripod is like carrying around cement blocks, not my style dude.
But, everybody has an opinion and I'm happy to publish yours. However its too bad you didnt show me a link to your stuff so we could see how it is really done!
Cheers!
matt
Morgan,
You can adjust the flash exposure with the aperture. The flash cares only about aperture, ambient cares about aperture and shutter speed. So if your flash is too powerful for a given shot, stop down aperture and open up the shutter speed to compensate for the ambient. Reverse that process if the flash needs more power.
For those long exposure shots you really need a tripod. Too much camera movement in some of those for me. Looks like a mother in law with her point and shoot.
Sorry to say that, but that's what these photos say to me.
Matt, in a dynamic situation how are you triggering and controling your flash? Do you just have 1 target area or are you mobile? Have you got it pocketwizarded on a stand or with an assistant? Or is it in your left hand triggered by a ST-E2 or similar? I assume you're playing with aperture and chimping histograms to get the exposure as your subjects move?
My SB800 is bright at 1/128th so I'm loving the snoot and piece of paper idea! Liking the blog, lots of good ideas!
Good feedback, Matt! TTL world can be a little crazy but I've had some killer luck with it. I do dabble with both though... Quick Q- if you have to have the flash on-camera and you are using M- how do you adjust so quickly to subject distance?? It doesn't take long to pop it up a notch or two in either direction but that split second could break the shot... thoughts? That's the only thing that holds me back from going M crazy! (: You're the best, Matt! Thanks for the tips!
Awesome tips Matt, my photography has improved so much since I started learning from your techniques! You rock!
pablo, I sent you an email with some answers to your questions... Basically, www.strobist.com is the WAY to go! Check out lighting 101!
Morgan, I have tried the on camera lighting with th is technique but I find that TTL is always way OFF, because the camera thinks that with the ambient, that everything is ok and 9 times out of 10, it is NOT. The subjects tend to be dark and muddy the light quality isnt pretty. This is pretty much one of my main reasons for leaving the TTL world to live in the manual flash world.... give it a try and you may never go back!
cheers & thanks ALL for the nice comments... I'm glad to know that folks still read this crap that I post here :)
matt
Fun stuff!! I have actually been trying this by default actually! I just went with it first off and I liked the results. It works well with on camera flash too actually...Off camera flash is a new trick for me but I had some fun with it at a wedding I just shot in Peru. Crazy stuff!! I LOVE to hear from a pro like Matt to confirm that this is a worthy trick! I find that some people don't understand the drag but I think mixed with other lighting effects it shows intention and creativity. Keep it coming Matt!! (:
also... why the heck are your photos so awesome at such high ISO? I feel like if i go above 800 my photos suffer...
i've really gotten into photography the last few months man... i bought myself the 24-70mm f/2.8L lens and am ready to get serious and learn! you and sol should teach a class or some crazy shiz like that. :)
dude... this blog is kick-ass. i have been trying to learn about lighting for a while now. thats my biggest problem with photography... i dont have any sort of flash except whats built into my 40D and i hate using head-on flash. it washes out the photos and drains it of all creativity.
problem is i dont know what i should buy to start experimenting with portable flash... what the heck is slave-flash-bounce-whatever-you-call-it?
is that the same as one of those canon speedlite protable units? i know how important light is... i wanna learn! :) do you recommend any good books or some junk like that?
Guero! Nice post... I love the use of the snoot, high iso, slow speed... perfect combination to get moody photos ...
You are the best!... I still need to learn to think as fast as you do... To fast for the world!...