04 - bouncing flash
flash photography techniques
dragging the shutter 
bouncing flash 
wireless TTL flash
A single strobe gives hard shadows because it is a small sized source of light. The only way to soften the light, is to make the source of light larger. The most effective way of doing this with on-camera flash, is to bounce it.
If you bounce the flash off a wall to the side of you, or behind you, then the source of light relative to the subject, is much larger than if you had shot with the flash straight on. There is a world of difference.
By bouncing off the ceiling, you will also soften the light - if you’re using the correct angle. And here I want to stress something again - shooting with an omnibounce at 60′ (or 45′), should not be a default way of using flash. For the best result, some thought needs to be put into how you use flash.
Remember, the angle of reflectance = angle of incidence. You have to be aware of how close you are to the subject, and how high the ceiling is, and the angle of your strobe’s head. Keep in mind that the intended result is to have no discernable flash shadow.
Let’s look at a few examples again:
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This was shot at f2.8, with flash bounced over my left shoulder into the wall and ceiling behind me.
specific settings: My camera settings were dictated by the available light. I wanted enough of the window light to register, and the bedside table lamp that is shining through the bride’s veil had to be bright, but not burn out all the detail in the veil. If the table lamp’s light was much brighter, I would’ve set my shutter speed higher, and just have foregone the window light, and just relied on the bounced flash to give nice light on her face. |
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If I bounce my flash by tilting and swiveling it, I get to bounce the light at an angle - away from the subject. Then the light that comes back, appears more directional. There are areas of shadow and light. Bounce flash need not look flat. By keeping the basic physics in mind of angles of incidence and reflectance, it is usually easy to figure out where to bounce from to enhance the available light, or how to make the bounce light soft but directional.
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| Flash bounced upwards into the church ceiling with just a bit of the white bounce card out. NO direct flash. specific settings: Even though the ceiling was high, I chose a high enough iso that enough flash would register to help lift the light levels. It is also important that I set my exposure for the ambient light - and just used a touch of flash. |
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I mostly shoot with TTL flash (whether D-TTL or i-TTL or e-TTL) when I shoot with on-camera flash. Off-camera flash is usually easier to deal with as manual flash. (More on this later.)
Since I shoot with TTL, I don’t often use the full power that the strobe is capable of, unless I’m using the flash at the extreme end of what it can push out. If your flash is your main source of light, it is important that you stay within the range of the flash’s output capabilities, with an appropriate iso and aperture selection.
Bouncing your flash also reduces your flash’s output considerably - but your flash will compensate for this loss automatically if you shoot in TTL or Auto mode on the flash. That is, if you stay within the flashgun’s power range.
The direction I bounce in, depends on:
- where is the nearest or most convenient wall, or
- which direction I need the flash to fill in from.
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Here I wanted to fill the shadow side, so I obviously had to bounce some flash in from that side.
There wasn’t a specific wall nearby, but I bounced my flash behind me into the room from that side, and enough light spilled back to reduce the contrast. specific settings: In this instance I wanted the shallow depth of field that f1.4 offers me, and I kept my iso lower to reduce the ambient light at that aperture. My strobe was in TTL, and gave me enough light to lift the shadow areas. |
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Sometimes during outdoors evening shots, I’ll bounce the on-camera strobe into an umbrella that is hand-held by my assistant. He then moves in tandem with me, as I move up and down, or forwards and back. Yup, I hate direct flash that much.
Specific settings: Nikon D100; Nikon 17-35mm f2.8
1/6th @ f4.5 @ 400 iso / manual; matrix metering / TTL flash: 0 exp comp
There’s another flash going off to the left and behind the couple that I triggered with a radio transmitter attached to my camera. So this isn’t entirely on-camera flash - the image was helped by the strobe kicking in some back-lighting. This was with a camera (Nikon D100) that doesn’t have wireless TTL - but even so, wireless TTL would’ve failed here, since it relies on line-of-sight.
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| For this photo I once again had my flash bouncing over my left shoulder, into the wall and ceiling behind me.
By bouncing flash this way, I was trying to emulate soft light from a large window.Bouncing upwards into the ceiling from where I stood, wouldn’t have given as soft and even light as this. specific settings: |
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Using wireless TTL flash to give you softer flash …
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Please feel free to e-mail me with comments & questions.
Neil van NiekerkIf you feel you need more direct help or instruction with this and other aspects of digital photography, I do present workshops and seminars.
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