Thank you very much for your reply, that is exactly the advice I was after!
Would you be able to explain further: "flash in TTL and bounced straight up to ceiling with a fill card" I am very much new to lighting and am working with the flash on the d5000. I'm hoping to keep my role as unofficial photographer as subtle as possible, as I will hopefully be giving the couple a photobook of the event as their engagement present, so I am naturally nervous about getting it right!
Thank you for your advice!
well to do this type of technique you need a flash that fits into the hotshoe of your camera, the flash head needs to be the type that you can tilt up so it points straight to the ceiling. Then you attach a pice of white card or plastic to the flash so it bounces a little light forward to your subjects. You can buy all sorts of special card devices and some flashes even have a little business card sized flap that pulls out. But a small card will mean a small light source, which means specular reflections on your subjects, it makes them look shiny and oily. A better solution is a piece of white card or plastic or foam, about half to full size A4 and just attach it to the flash with a hair elastic or velcro or tape.
You put the flash in TTL mode which is an auto type mode in which the flash sends out a flick of light milliseconds before the actual flash, the light coming back through the lens (TTL=through the lens) is measured and the flash output is adjusted automatically to give the correct exposure. You can overide what the flash 'thinks' is right using 'flash exposure compensation' FEC. If the flash always looks a little hot, just dial in a bit of negative FEC and it will reduce what it thinks it should output by that amount.
If you have a flash that has a swivel head as well as tilt, you can bounce the flash off a wall so the light coming back has a nice directional quality to it. The reason for bouncing is a bigger light source creates less harsh shadows = softer light. By firing the flash into the ceiling or wall, the surface that reflects the light back effectively becomes your light source, much bigger than the little flash on your camera. The added benefit is your light source effectively becomes further away from your subject, so fall off isn't as severe (read the stuff on inverse square law), so the surrounding areas are lit behind your subject more and it looks less like a cave. It also takes the light source off the axis of the lens which causes red eye.
This shot was taken with an SB900 bounce over my right shoulder but almost straight behind me, it is a little flat because the reflected light is still fairly straight on, but a lot better than direct flash. It was extemely dark in this venue, an old victorian mansion lit with tungsten lamps and small spots.
I think I may have used a little bit of direct flash on the left hand one here, but I was shooting through a window and couldn't bounce it. It would have been turned way down though using FEC. The one on the right is bounce flash over my left shoulder, again almost directly behind me. I think I added a vignette to darken the people in the background but check the light on the girl, very soft shadows which gives a nice soft look to the light.
I'm probably not the best at explaining it so heres a link to a very good website with lots of info on bounce flash. Neil uses the camera in manual, flash in TTL method all the time and gets very good results
http://neilvn.com/tangents/
BTW I just realised these images are quire 'dark' examples, its the look I was going for and even added some vignette in post I think, but this technique will produce more 'open' images with a brighter cleaner feel too.
