Using off-camera flash to light the Bride & groom cutting the cake
A reader recently asked how to handle difficult lighting conditions after seeing someone else’s wedding photos that were a disaster.
Wedding photography is fraught with difficult lighting conditions. There are huge changes in quantity of light between photographing indoors and outdoors. Another situation often encountered is the contrast of light when combining light from indoors and outdoors. An example would be a window portrait of the bride.
The contrast is often greater than can be captured on a digital SLR camera. The photographer has three options; let the highlights go completely white, let the dark shadows go completely black or reduce the contrast.
One way to reduce the contrast is to add light using a flashgun – ideally off camera.
Here is a real life example from a recent wedding. The wedding cake was placed next to the window. Despite being an overcast day, the difference in light between the well lit function room and outdoors is too much to be captured in the camera.
There were only a few minutes to resolve the problem before the bride & groom were coming for their mock cake cutting. These test shots clearly show the problem.
Wedding cake exposed for window side the other side is cast in deep shadow.
Wedding cake exposed for room side the other side is blown-out.
Setting the exposure so that the cake and table cloth on the window side are correctly exposed causes the room side to be in deep shade. Exposing for the room side of the cake causes the window side to be completely blown-out to white. Just imagine what would happen to your dress if you were even closer to the window!
The problem is made worse due to the mirror. If an on-camera flashgun was used it would have ruined the reflection in the mirror. It could also have reflected on the bride & groom in a bad way.
The only real solutions are to use a very large reflector or off-camera flashgun. Large reflectors are only practical if the photographer has an assistant.
The off-camera solution requires a remote trigger on the camera – I use the Canon Infrared trigger to communicate with my flashgun(s). This means the power of the flashgun can be determined automatically and quickly adjusted. It is also essential for use outdoors at it can work at high shutter speeds, which is essential in bright sunlight.
With the camera set to correctly expose the window side of the cake and table cloth it only remained for the flash to be configured to reduce the amount of shadow. Too much flash would completely ruin the ambience of the scene. Two or three test shots determined the right setting for the flashgun to create a pleasing image.
Once the bride & groom arrived it took literally 60 seconds to pose them and take literally a few shots. I asked the bestman to hold the flashgun for me to ensure the flash did not appear in the reflection.
Testimonial from wedding clients
Testimonial from the bride's parents
Can you imagine how terrible this image would have looked without the knowledge and tools to do the job?
Pat Bloomfield
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