First dance and flash

bastic

bastic

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Lukas
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Hi.
Quick question really..
I will be a guest at a wedding and want to try take a good photograph of first dance.
I am confident that d800 would take a great photo with no flash, but would like to take this opportunity to use it (flash) .
My head says to dial in 1/40th or slower, iso of around 400 wide open, and dial down compensation on flash ?
So couple would be nicely lit and I would get some background lights ?
Every venue is different but am I thinking right ?
Thanks for all advise
:)
Lukas
 
You'll need to raise your ISO to taste regarding how much ambient you want. Then bounce your flash to abound the nasty flash look.
 
Phil V said:
You'll need to raise your ISO to taste regarding how much ambient you want. Then bounce your flash to abound the nasty flash look.
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Oh yes, bounce from top or sides.
So higher iso for more ambient.
But was i right about slow shutter and dialing down ?
 
Hi, Instead of bouncing, I usually use off camera flash. Most bigger venues have High ceilings ( too far away for a good bounce), and folks will be standing in front of walls, so difficult to target the bounce. If you have a colleague who can direct the external flash for you, this will get rid of the on camera nasty flash feel. If you're external flash is compatible with rear curtain mode, then you can use a long shutter speed too, to capture ambient light.
 
bastic said:
Oh yes, bounce from top or sides.
So higher iso for more ambient.
But was i right about slow shutter and dialing down ?
Click to expand...
The ambient exposure is a trade off between ISO and SS, if you raise the ISO too much you get a loss of image quality, if you lower the shutter speed, you get too much camera movement.

Depending on the look you're after though, fortunately you probably want your background underexposed (this will need experimenting with).

Whilst I (and most pros) would shoot this with off camera flash, using multiple flashguns and various angles, as a first attempt I'd advise you to keep it simple.
 
Don't flood a first dance with huge soft bounced light, it's not appropriate to the subject/setting at all.

Don't overpower the ambient.
 
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Kris said:
Don't flood a first dance with huge soft bounced light, it's not appropriate to the subject/setting at all.

Don't overpower the ambient.
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Completely agree with this.

I much prefer the look of well-directed off camera flash for first dance than an unrealistically bright room. That said, if I was a guest I'd just leave the flash at home and stick on a wide-ish fast prime.
 
gary996 said:
rear curtain?
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It doesn't matter how many times we say it....:tumbleweed:

The interwebs is full of people who will repeat a theory enough so that it becomes a 'fact'.

For the OP though...

One more time - you don't need rear curtain sync for this. The only time you will see a benefit from rear curtain sync is covered in your manual (probably with a snooker ball)
 
Phil V said:
One more time - you don't need rear curtain sync for this.
Click to expand...

If I had a tenner for every dance shot I buggered up by using second curtain synch before I finally realised that I was wasting my time with it, I would be considerably wealthier than I now am.
 
Do a few quickies at 1/15th or 1/8th or slightly slower (because SCS only kicks in under 1/30th anyway) to experiment for a little dance/dress blur, but then go back to a safer shuttter pretty quickly.
 
Kris said:
Do a few quickies at 1/15th or 1/8th or slightly slower (because SCS only kicks in under 1/30th anyway) to experiment for a little dance/dress blur, but then go back to a safer shuttter pretty quickly.
Click to expand...
There's no need to fire the flash on the second curtain Kris. It's purely for movement in a single direction. Random movement like dancing creates the same visual effect using either 1st or 2nd curtain. The advantages to using 1st curtain are:
You can see what you're shooting
Your subject won't see the preflash and turn away before the actual flash thinking you've 'done'
 
I simply set the flash to SCS by default and leave it there to be honest, maybe flicking back and fore for HSS.

It will only pre-flash if you're TTL'ing it. And it doesn't bother me either way.

I tend to find that arty farty, longer shutter, spun camera, bendy lasers & blurred dancing shots (especially of the inebriated guests later) benefit from SCS actually, as the static lit portion is at the end of the shutter and thus the 'blur' doesn't tend to 'move' or cover into the face as it is moved. At an 8th, the effect is quite subtle yet still beneficial I find.
 
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Kris said:
I simply set the flash to SCS by default and leave it there to be honest, maybe flicking back and fore for HSS.

It will only pre-flash if you're TTL'ing it. And it doesn't bother me either way.

I tend to find that arty farty, longer shutter, spun camera, bendy lasers & blurred dancing shots (especially of the inebriated guests later) benefit from SCS actually, as the static lit portion is at the end of the shutter and thus the 'blur' doesn't tend to 'move' or cover into the face as it is moved. At an 8th, the effect is quite subtle yet still beneficial I find.
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Whether or not the blur covers is not affected by whether the flash fires on the first or 2nd curtain. Honest- try it out to see.
The trick is to make sure your light swirls never cross your flash lit subject. If a bright light crosses your subjects face, it's simply not possible for the flash lit subject to then 'overpower' that exposure, it's a very commonly believed myth, but a myth none the less.
You could test it out with just the overhead ceiling light.
 
I think what Kris is referring to is well illustrated in this link to Neil Van N http://neilvn.com/tangents/first-curtain-sync-vs-rear-curtain-sync/

It's true that a lot of photographers, especially night club shooters it seems, think that second curtain sync is a magic bullet with no understanding of what's goling on, or knowing that they could likely get a better shot without it. When people are waving those light wands around entirely at random at a club, second curtain has no advantages and a few downsides.

But when things are more predictable and controllable, and you know what you're doing, second curtain sync can make faces look better and less smeared by their own ambient blur.
 
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