Wedding Lighting Question: On or Off Camera Strobes?

[ChristianGrattan]

I recently got this question from a fellow photographer and I wanted to answer it here in case others had the same question. Read all the way through cause there is a trick at the end that saves everyone headaches.

I do have lighting questions (flash/strobe) related, do you use either of them during weddings? I have seen both used before but I am not sure which is better. At the recent wedding with the other photographer she used two speed lites and I felt like there was so much light falling off and variation in exposure depending on where I was standing. I never quite knew when to adjust my on camera flash settings because there was so much moving around.

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I can answer your first question easily. Yes! I use both.

I shoot very few weddings anymore. I tend to shoot high end ($100,000+) bar/bar mitzvahs mostly. I am very comfortable in that format and they have a banging candy table at the end of the night. For those jobs I use a couple of different types of lighting, and it applies to weddings.

What I Don't Love About Bouncing Strobes off the Ceiling for Back Ground Fill - A List

Back in the film days I used to shoot with a wedding photographer and he would use monoblocks (monolights) to light the whole room to get a bright background. I was never a fan. for the following reasons:

• it was disruptive to the guests to have the room popping like a fire alarm was going off during a nice dinner
• the people in the background could unintentionally ruin a nice shot with their nonsense faces
• if the room was not lit like that, how is it going to be for the bride to look back and see her nice soft candle lighted room looking like every light in creation is on
• it can ruin the guests shots if you are using non radio slaves to fire the monoblocks. When a guests flash goes off it triggers the monoblocks and way more light is in the scene than their camera metered for. It can blow out their shots. Then everyone has to go to you to buy pics. I don't think the bride and groom would love knowing this was part of your diabolical plan.
• You have to take them down at the END of the night. You can't have your assistant start packing 20 minutes before the end when there are still 35 people in the room. You have to wait till their drunken asses are out of the room. FUN!
• It draws power that you are going to have to coordinate with the DJ for. How much? Will it flip something? It is going to max out the circuit and make the party come to a screeching halt?
• Getting them to light the room evenly is tricky and you are going to have to factor an inequity in as you are working. I find the fewer things I need to focus on to get a shot, the happier I am.

OK that is enough of that list.

My Favorite Strobes, and How I Use Them

Now I do use strobes almost every big job I do. I prefer the consistency and quality of light I get to flash units, even when the flashes are hooked up to extra batteries. I tend to use the Profoto 600B packs for this work.

When I am shooting formals or portraits I use the battery powered strobe and the parabolic light modifier from Paul C Buff. It is a tricky thing that particular light modifier. Sometimes I use a giant umbrella. I do find that the Buff parabolic gives out about a stop more light so I can save the battery that way, but it confuses my assistants and it take practice to get good at setting it up.

I use strobes for

• Family portraits on and off the bimah (altar)
• during the hora

During the hora I will clamp the heads to a truss, if there is one, and then my second shooter will pop them off using radio slaves while (s)he is shooting. We test out the exposure, take test shots to see how the light spread is, and make adjustments well before the party starts. Even with all of this my second shooter will make sure the exposure is correct by firing a test shot at the start of the action and then looking at the histogram. We bounce the strobes off the ceiling or back wall, depending on the conditions. This gives a soft light and evens out the exposure.

How I Would Set Up Strobes to Bounce Off the Ceiling to Fill the Back Ground

If I did want to set up strobes so that they popped the whole room, here is what I would do to set them up.

1. look at the ceiling, are there things up there that are going to interrupt the spread of light, like beams? Is it a high ceiling? Is it flat? It is painted white? A dark color is no good and an 8' high ceiling for a room the dimensions of a football field won't give the light enough space to spread.
2. Feather the light across this flat, light colored ceiling using a back ground reflector. This thing is also called a scoop sometimes. I put a link to it cause it is not super easy to find.
3. Set up multiple lights in the room. Coordinate the lights so they they hit the ceiling evenly and cast an even light throughout the room.
4. Meter the room and play with the lights till the room is evenly lit when the strobes pop
5. Test your flash in the room. You are going to want some on camera flash to fill in the eyes and the rest of the face. Without it, people's brows will cast a shadow and you will get the best pics of the Cro-Magnon wedding! You might need to go ETTL and pull back a little, or not at all. It depends on your camera. You might need to go manual on the flash too! This is where the fun is, I guess.

Now I want to make a little disclaimer here. I am not saying that my way is the best way and everyone else's way sucks. I am saying that this is what works for me, at the moment. I can aways change it if I need to. I am pretty flexible about things. Over time you want different things for different reasons.

When and How I Shoot with On Camera Flash

So when I am not shooting the portraits or hora, I use an on camera flash with a Stroboframe Stroboflip Flash bracket. Even with the Gary Fong Origami, I rock the bracket. I like the light coming from above the lens.

I like to have the build in diffuser panel down when I am shooting with the exception of between 135-200MM. But even then I just pop it up to save battery. I find that without it engaged I get too much fall off in the shot. I use the built in diffuser with or without the origami. I generally need to boost the flash +1/3 or +2/3 with the diffuser engaged.

The trick for me is to use a Quantum Turbo 2x2. I love this thing. It was the best $600 I ever spent. I think they are up to the Turbo 3. Either way, a big old battery like that works wonders. It changes so much about shooting with a flash. Butter. It makes it so smooth and easy. Except that the thing weighs a ton and you have it attached to your hip, but hey, what are you gonna do? Your flash will recycle better. You will get full power pops, rather than one full power and then the rest kinda gross. The thing is magic!

Two Tips that Make this Whole Argument Moot

OK so here is my solution that I teased at the top of this post. Instead of setting up strobes to pop the room, I lag the shutter!

I know! It's freaking amazing.

I will lag the shutter a bit so maybe 1/40-1/20 at 800 iso at f4. Be mindful that you can get some soft edges when you are doing this. Just a heads up. If that does not fit your aesthetic, then go for something else.

On a side note, sometimes I shoot with the flash on ETTL and the camera on manual and I let those kids figure it out, and it works better than P, even when I am not lagging the shutter.

Lagging the shutter brings in more of the background, but keeps the feel of the lighting in the space in tact. It is kind of the best of both worlds. Be aware of the colors in the background however. Blues and greens can cause a nasty look on the subjects faces when those colors spill around from the background to the subject. With enough green lighting in the background you can get a real bridezilla. I am sorry, I had to.

My second tip is to rock a Gary Fong diffuser, or something that will bounce off the ceiling and has a catchlight for the eyes. Gary Fong is a genius cause before him people did set up strobes in the room. Because of his inventions we really don't need to do that anymore.

I think that covers it. Let me know what you have follow up questions about and I will be glad to chat more. Also if you have a different way of doing things or you love popping strobes off of the ceiling, post a reply.

 

[Buckster]

TLDR = Gary Fong is a genius.

 

[ChristianGrattan]

I can't start to say how much of a genius he is. He is the reason I am eating dinner tonight. I learned how to make money as an event shooter from him.

Thanks Gary!!!!

 

[achua00]

HI Christian, oh my goodness! Thank you for such detailed description of your set up! I am trying to process all of this information...more than likely you will find more questions in the coming days from me! So for the portraits do you use at least 2 of the strobes or 1? Do you set it off to your side or directly in front of your clients? Do you ever use an on camera flash PLUS strobes for portraits? I don't know that all of that flash is necessary but I was just curious if you were ever in a dark, dark situation requiring that.

I have an Alien Bees 800, do you by any chance know if that "scoop" thing will attach? If not, should I use a softbox instead? Also, you said at the bottom sometimes you'll put the flash on ETTL and the camera on manual, then just to clarify, does that mean you only adjust the camera settings when necessary because ETTL is like automatic for flash right? Thanks again!