Few personal wedding photos + advice on using flashgun

DB_SamX · 23 May 2012 at 22:58

Thought I hadn't contributed anything to the forum in a while so here are a few photos I've taken at the last two wedding I have been to. Both of them were my friends' so was just shooting for my benefit and to share with our mutual friends. I've received positive feedback from my friends, which makes it more worthwhile.

Both times I was using my D90, Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 (most of the time), 50mm f/1.8 (for details), 50-150 f/2.8 (barely) and Yongnuo 465 flashgun (for dance floor). Shooting RAW, processed in GIMP. Just got LR4 yesterday though.

I'm finding it really hard to get to grips with getting the correct exposure when using my flashgun. I usually judge it from reviewing the image and the histogram, but more often than not, even though I am down to ISO 400, it seems to be down to luck or the image is over/underexposed and I have to recover a lot in PP, which makes the whole image appear noisy and ruining them, as below. I usually have the flashgun aimed up + bounce card and shoot on ETTL. Any tips on how to improve? Got Bryan Peterson's Flash Photography book but not got round to reading it yet.

Sam and Adam's wedding by *SM*, on Flickr

Dan and Joanna's wedding by *SM*, on Flickr

Dan and Joanna's wedding by *SM*, on Flickr

Next contribution should be photos from Dubai from March but not had time to sort those photos yet.

DB_SamX · 23 May 2012 at 23:56

Yeah, all of them were in AP. I can see what you mean about dof; I never really go down to the lowest f number just so I can get some better sharpness around f/4 but I can try going a bit lower and play around.

If I switch to manual shooting, is the power of the flashgun best controlled manually as well, and I check the metering myself before taking the shot? Also, if I wanted to allow the ambient light to dominate the scene for a more natural effect, would it be best to get the flashgun to provide less power (say 1 stop's worth)? I presume I would have to compensate for that by having a slower shutter speed to gain that extra stop?

DB_SamX · 24 May 2012 at 20:54

Thanks. A lot more advice than I was expecting so will have to digest it and get some more practice in.

In M with ETTL you basically juggle 2 things.

1 - Flash will light your foregound subject.
2 - Your M settings, includes ISO controls background ambient light.

That makes sense actually!

That debate about sharpness is interesting. In my case, I know my camera front focusses a tiny bit which is another reason I don't go wide open in certain cases. But I think I should stop worrying about it too much and think about everything else first.

P.s. Finally just realised how to do flash compensation on the D90; had looked for it in the manual before in vain.

Few personal wedding photos + advice on using flashgun

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

DB_SamX

DB_SamX