Easy peasy fill flash

Tue, Jul 6, 2010 It rained and rained at this wedding and suddenly, just before the formals we got a bit of sun, well cloudy sun. We count that as sun in Oregon. This bit of walkway was just off the building so a perfect spot to shoot. It was backlight a bit, but the surrounding light wasn’t enough to light up the eyes. So I knew I needed a bit of fill flash. How does one do this quickly and consistently on the fly? Thanks to modern flashes it’s easy.
  1. Take a meter reading off of the bride’s face and shoot in manual. Take a test shot. Perfect? Great.
  2. Dial down your flash. On sunny days you’ll dial it down less, on cloudy a bit more. On this day I used -2. I usually start at -1.5 and see where that gets me.
  3. Shoot away.
  4. In a test shot, I’ll often zoom in on the face and make sure that the flash isn’t too noticeable. If you can see the flash, then you probably have it on too high. Keep it simple, and keep it fun during the formals.

No shadows under the eyes.

Flash set to -2 ev

I hope that makes things easier, next time you need a little fill light. Fundy

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