Wedding Photography Lighting

© William Ceriale Photography

It is not unusual to see wedding photographers fretting over the lighting in pictures, some of them are so stressed out about the appropriate lighting indoors that they choose to shoot outdoors; another issue when shooting a church wedding is the usage of flash while some churches are willing to accommodate it others are averse to the idea of flash usage on the inside, since indoor lighting is such an issue lets start by discussing this part of wedding photography techniques

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #1

For the wedding portraits, the lighting should create a three dimensional effect of the subject, so the light should come from above the eyes of the subject and from the side - to one side. The shadow of the subject's nose should come to the base of the nose on one side. Here is a typical wedding photography lighting set up for a portrait that works very well. Use the main light to create the lighting pattern. If you are using a digital camera, expose the main light so that you can avoid over lighting the highlights. Apart from the main light, use a fill light this should be 2f/stops less than the main light. Also try using a hair light but ensure that it does not spill onto the face. Use a fourth light to bring out the beauty of the background. You can lighten or darken the background with this light.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #2:

For wedding photography lighting inside the church, try using a combination of the available natural light and a Quantum digital flash; use this one bare bulb without the reflector. Make sure that the couple poses as far away from the background as possible to make them the center of attention and keep the background secondary. A wide angle lens works well for this type of pictures and stay within 5 to 6 feet of them with a 17 -35 mm lens.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #3

Setting the exposure is also fairly simple; let the camera do its own job, set it on aperture priority so the automated sensors can pick the shutter speed for the background. The next step is to set the camera manually to the selected exposure and let the digital sensor of the flash complete the task. You can also use the Quantum sensor that can be mounted on top of the camera. This device helps to set the balance between flash and ambient light between 3F stops below or 3/f stops above the ambient light; for a natural look, set the flash at 11/2 stops below.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #4

Make sure that the color of the flash matches the color of the ambient light. For this, you will have to create a blank layer on top of the picture. Use the overlay mode and select the most suitable color from the background and fill the top layer with it. The next step is to set the overlay capacity to 8 to 10% so that the images look natural.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #5

There will be times in a wedding ceremony when the photographer will have to move outdoors to take the pictures, when shooting outside you have to look for two primary things a background that has depth and a cover or shade from the overhead light. A favorite spot with many photographers is the under cover of the church's front walkway. Make sure that ambient light comes from the side at the spot you pick. Set the exposure for the ambient light before using a flash. Now set the Quantum bare bulb to the right if the ambient light is to the left to achieve the same light pattern as on the indoors. Use 1_f stops below the ambient light so that you do not change the natural look.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #6

To set the white balance, point the camera lens towards the light source and cover the lens with an Expo Disc. Then let the camera set itself to the white balance according to the exposure made by covering the lens with the disc; and it should not take you more than a few seconds to get a near perfect white balance.

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #7

The light pattern for the window light is no different than the one used in the previous images. You can get the best effect when the subject is a few feet from the window instead of right next to it. A few feet away from the light source gives you a soft look as opposed to the contrast that you will see when the subject is very closer to the window. Use a Westcott silver reflector to open up the eyes and the shadows from below

Wedding Photography Lighting Tips #8

As you can see, you don't have to learn a lot of light effects to create a variety of perfect wedding pictures. Given above are several locations where the ambient light situations varied immensely however the contents of the images could be varied without changing the light pattern.

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