Lessons

Lesson Info

Discussion: Family Portraits and On Camera Flash

we're here right now we're talking about the ceremony and the pictures at the altar and this is where I think again panic is struck into the heart of photographers especially if you're in that mid or newbie range you know if you want better pictures again going to teach you the same way we teach our second shooters so anyone who comes to work for our team I'm not looking for you to put your flash in manual mode pull out your light meter get your ratios down your light fall off down oh my god my head wants to explode it's got to be quick easy efficient so get your flashes out get your cameras out and practice along with us I don't care if you're taking a picture of a soda can sitting on your counter you're going to see that this absolutely does work and we run through this part of the day in about twenty maybe thirty minutes the family formals just by themselves because it's the most painful part of the day no one likes to do those pictures but they know they have to so don't make it mo...

re painful than it has to be and that's a good point right first of all because of our style of photography again if you look at our website you see our style of work we don't have a lot of family formals in the album that's not y our clients are coming to us but they still want them they want them for eight by tens right as gifts for their family after the wedding so we still got to be diligent about grabbing these images now I also don't want it to look like you ever see those pictures with flash and it looks like there's just basically a flashlight firing on the person on dh then everything's black behind them there's no ambient light coming in that is again not understanding your flash not understanding the process so we're gonna break it down on again just simplify it because this is how we train our shooters so get your flashes out the first thing we're going to do is when I'm shooting family pictures at the altar my I go to my twenty four seventy that is the lens I want to use for the family pictures I then set my camera in new manual mode so I don't photograph he's in now peter priority a photograph he's in manual mode I dropped toe isso eight hundred er aperture is five point six and then I will typically be at a fortieth a sixtieth or an eightieth of a second what I'm doing here is dragging the shutter and what that means in english okay is your camera sink speed we've all heard that word is usually at about two hundred or two fiftieth of a second meaning the flash is firing at that pace to ensure that has a shot at first curtain goes up second curtain comes up right in between there somewhere it's getting that flash well if you photograph it two hundredth of a second to fiftieth of a second okay it's going to look like they're in just in a black closet and they have a flash light shining on them that's because no ambient light is getting through your overpowering that ambient light in the room and that's that yellow warm light that's the ambient light so we need to slow down our shutter speed drag the shutter so I'm gonna drag it to about a sixteenth of a second those are my starting points every single event that's where start that doesn't mean what that's what it's going to be but ninety percent of the time I'm spot on rarely do I have to make any further adjustment so let's right let's revisit this camera s oh eight hundred twenty four seventy lens for the family portrait right not a sixteen thirty five it's going to start skewing things on the corner nobody wants family portrait where things are just weird looking because of the lens apparition and the skew on the lens I've got my eyes so what five six sixty eighth of a second manual mode at home put your cameras in that now test this we're shooting an e t t l elektronik through the lens I'm letting the flash and camera determine how much power it needs I'm not in manual mode on the flash I'm gonna look up at the ceiling how tall is the ceiling in the church if it's a thirty forty foot ceiling bouncing light is going to be a challenge so I'm gonna have to look if it's a dark brown dark black ceiling bouncing light is also going the challenge color matters there's going to be color cast on all sorts of other issues well I'm looking up here I want to say maybe that's a twenty twenty five foot ceiling somewhere in that range and it's ah it's kind of a brown and a white in color so I'm gonna bounce off but notice I'm going to pull this little white card out there okay this is for your catch light we want this pulled pull this out this is gonna push a little bit of like forward so I want some light coming forward and I want some light bouncing from the ceiling with that being said if it's the ceiling is super high I'm going to go to plus one on my flash add more power okay so let's take one shot just in my bass settings remember this is how I I teach my own shooters you guys can just hang there get close to each other you could bump out for one second this is a test shot for me okay so right out of the gate it's taylor's mean mug right there right out of the gate I like the way that look let me go a little wider for them okay so I'm not blowing everything out in there I'm bouncing that light and that's giving me kind of what I'm looking for in you could see my settings there sixty eighth of a second five six eight hundred that has not even been edited right that's just coming right off the camera raw so I know that this is about where where I want to be I can drag this down too a thirtieth of a second and now you can see I'm letting in a little bit more ambient light and they're still tack sharp if you want to zoom in on that a little bit and so don't be afraid the flash is going to freeze that for them okay that's that's damn sharpen a thirtieth of a second okay so you don't be afraid to drop down there the flashes what's freezing the action okay so that's where I'm going to shoot this I'm gonna stay at a forty second I don't want to even move forward until everybody understands the flash part of this so ladies do we all understand what just happened and any questions about that I made it easy thank you very much because that is always my goal when I'm teaching my second shooters I don't want how many of you get nervous right as soon as you get in the church you start getting nervous especially if you're not comfortable with flash I would say in our industry right now in the world of everyone's a photographer and we all get started there something at some point all all that was given you got a camera and you shoot natural available light that's fine I'm not hating on you we just have to understand how to make a great image here without making it overly complicated so I'm using all the features in this camera I'm telling you what some of those settings are and I'm telling you I'm telling you that if you do what I'm telling you to do match it into your shooting style you're going to get the images you need and when you get nervous you just go back to basics you don't have to worry about what's going on you with me any questions from the internet on the flash just a question from uh picardo do you shoot verticals with on camera five I do not shoot vertical in the church I would shoot vertical with flash I love the question because here's what we don't do I've had to top my second shooters on the side of the head when they do this so what I don't know if I can get a camera on me here is the worst thing you can do if you go vertical yeah let's do it this way where is my flash going yeah I'm gonna light up you guys there and I'm going to create let's do it for argument's sake I'm going to create this ridiculous unfortunately that lighting looks pretty good uh what would normally happen here is you could see even on that picture it's somewhat directional coming in and that's not what we're looking for so when you go vertical okay you've got to get in the habit of now pivoting this flash up that's why they made it to turn right turn it up I can't tell you how many people have come work side by side with me and they still leave the flash they're firing at that way doesn't work doesn't make sense you've always got to go back to where you're reflecting from so but for family pictures at the altar I tend not to shoot vertical because they know my clients like him those eight by ten frames and we're going wider and wider so family pictures tend to be more about your subject and less about architecture so I'm going I really don't bring a whole lot of texture into the family portrait at the alter any other questions about uh well deasy photo boston would like to know if you're using front curtain sink or rear curtain um we're not messing with the current sink it all right so it's first currents sink not second curtain sink just leave it by default in your camera second current sink is gonna start doing a whole bunch of tricky stuff with your camera it's great artistically if you're messing around but right out of the gate keep it at you default settings which is the first curtain okay uh question from london girl to clarify why was it that you were setting the flash two plus one awesome so the only reason I would set the flash two plus one is because if the ceiling is super high and I'm using the ceiling to bounce light in what happens is this is when we're going to start getting a little bit more mathematical technical the further that light has to travel there's this ratio there's this fall off the light's not going to be is powerful when it goes up to the ceiling and starts coming down so I have to push more light up to get more like to hit my subject that would be the on ly reason or if the ceiling is a dark color right if the ceiling's black it's not going to reflect light so I've gotta shoot more light up there to get less like to hit my subject so I'm looking at what's happening up there above me and what lights hitting my subject and don't be afraid to take a test shot here but that's the only time you go plus one in this environment wait a couple more people are asking about brackets my personal photographer studio do use a bracket with flash to avoid shadows behind their head no no brackets oh my gosh that just takes me back to the nineteen eighties no brackets if I haven't imparted any knowledge on you at this point time it's I want to move and be lean I want to be quick efficient and I don't want to walk around with some contraption on the top of my camera so absolutely uh no brackets that's I've been shooting without a bracket for four years now okay and a question from forever photos in seattle why is your eye so what one at eight hundred instead of something lower in this scenario I could push it to four hundred I could push it to one hundred but where's that light right we all know what I s always I hope we do sensitivity to light so if I come down to four hundred down to two hundred what has to happen flash has to start working harder okay and that might be okay but I don't wanna wait on my flash to recycle so by having that so eight hundred which on the one d x eyes one hundred is beautiful uh there's not a whole bunch of problems there and so I can now make the flash work less which will give me quicker recycle time so I hope that not make sense there as a good question okay we'll ask one more this is from brenda are you using the flash just for catch lights in the eyes if you can shoot the entire ceremony without it why are you using it now let's take a picture without the flash so I'm gonna go in happens your priority right first of all without flash at aiso eight hundred I made a twentieth of a second there's my shot let's bring that up guy looks absolutely horrible let's bump up to ii so thirty two hundred get close together now about an eighty eighth of a second at two eight so I cannot get to five six and if I've got layers of people I cannot shoot a two eight because then they're going to be blurry so let's go here looking right at me so there's a very big difference between using flash and not using flash so when I'm using those family portrait I want them to look a little bit more polished I need tohave the everybody lit up across the board and in multiple layers flash is the only way to do that so I'm not using it for flashlight I'm using it to phil and give them a nice warm go now typically they'd be in an altar and there'd be all sorts of alter lights behind them providing that nice warm glow when you start getting into the big family coming up you know we've all had them where the family the big family that comes in are you upping the f stop are you saying at five point sixteen staying in five six for sure so I'm gonna photograph this entire thing in five six I might create two or three layers but if they get six layers deep I'm still photographing that five six but you go too f ate half eleven on your flash is just gonna have to work a little bit harder toe light all those those people but it's not impossible you're just gonna have to slow down your chute speed because there's gonna have to do a full dump to that point let's keep moving here can I just make a comment yeah katie winter fled says sal I have my camera out and I'm photographing my sleeping dog in my dimly lit home office and it looks great you're a genius so practice on whatever you have in front of you shoot a can of soda yeah in again when taylor was learning and she this is you know true story um this is taylor was sitting there reading this lighting manual and it's talking about ratios and f stops and light fall off and she threw the were laying in bed one night and she just threw the book next to me and she's I'm like what's wrong she's like why does this have to be so complicated and you know I started looking at what she was reading and that was when the light bulb went off for me I'm like it really isn't it's complicated as they're making it in the book it's just very technical but you can if you just do what I'm doing and I'm so happy to hear you're out there practicing because that's what I want I set the camera up explain to taylor concept dragging the shutter what's doing what she went downstairs and started taking a picture of a can on our counter just to get the sense of how it all worked I was more confused when I finished reading the book than when I started and I learned everything I need to snow after talking with cell for five minutes so this is what this is for for you guys uh don't be upset if you read the books and it doesn't make sense that's what we're here for and that's what we're doing today so hopefully this helps and you don't have to read as many books yes reading is good but sometimes write it slows us down and the truth is like taylor said we could be more more confused when we're done reading something so this process I just showed you is exactly how it trained my second shooters and the light bulb goes off for them immediately they're like ok I get it and there's rarely a scenario where this won't won't work rarely eso this will work so get out there and practice now in order to ensure that I continue to get good recycle time I do have a battery pack this battery pack is a cyclone bolt uh this is about three hundred dollars definitely encourage you to get something more than the four double a batteries inside your camera because they're not gonna recycle quick enough so if you've been out there photographing weddings and you get like one frame lit five frames unlit that's because you're trying to like this with double a batteries and when he does a full dump right meaning it does all full power comes off this flash it is going to take forever with four double a batteries to recycle that's another reason I'm upping my eyes so because I want the flash to not work quite it's hard I'm trying to help the flash out this helps even more so this battery pack er this is from being h it's like I said it's about three hundred bucks I love this thing so I just pop this on my hip it's got a little clip there plugging into my flash and now I'm off to the races and it's got a little led panel I don't know if anybody can see that there so I can tell how much charge is left on this thing and you know you can't feel it because you guys are out there but the weight on this thing it is super super light and that's what I love about it I'm not looking around this big battery pack now that's going to give me better recycle time