Shot Break Down #4

#4 - Late Night Sparklers

So I’ll dive straight in. I’m using a Canon 5D3 a Sigma art 35mm 1.4 lens, three yongnuo 560IV speedlites one behind the couple at the start of the walk way, let’s call that flash A. Another one behind me at the other end of the walk way facing the couple, let’s call that flash B and third high up on the bank to the left. If I skip to this BTS image, I’m stood next to flash C high up on the bank, this flash is set to wide spread, 24mm and has no modifiers on it at all, you can see flash A at the start of the walk way on the left, and Flash B is just out of frame on the right at the end of the walk way shooting over my shoulder when I’m with the aisle with them. Flash A and B both have CTO gels on them, and both set zoomed in to 105mm but like I say, this one on the bank where I’m stood has no coloured gel.

Camera settings are ISO1000, f1.6 and shutter speed 160th/second, but I need to show you something about that next…

BTS shot - I’m stood next to Flash C on the bank. You can see flash A on the left at head height and Flash B is out of frame to the right

So let’s jump to the start of the walk through, obviously in this case I’ve set everyone up in two lines much like confetti, I’ve done my test shot and I’ve lit the sparklers then I just tell the couple to have fun, ignore me just have a laugh, walk slowly and stop half way down the aisle. Also I think I asked the groom if he wanted to put his drink down, I think I did - I can’t remember, but he’s still holding it so maybe I didn’t, or maybe he just wanted to hold it. Anyway, slowly I’ll move through each image and show you what I got, this is image 1, 2 and 3, these all have something wrong with them, not a major problem because I can crop it out but I’m glad I noticed because everything’s happening so quickly, sparklers are all over in one minute so I’m glad I noticed that my shutter speed was at 250th/sec which is too fast for them to sync properly with the speedlites can you see the black bar across the bottom of images 1, 2 and 3? That’s because my shutter is too fast.

Image 1 - Start of the walk (Click to Enlarge)

Then image 4 onwards I’ve slowed the shutter back down to 160th/sec so they are in sync. Not ideal but that happens occasionally, possibly it happened when I lit the sparklers, I turned the dial by accident. So I’ll skip through these next 6 images, the grooms is still looking at me, but it is what it is at this point. Then they stop, they kiss. I didn’t ask them to, but it works. I prefer the second kiss shot (image 9), kissing on camera can often look not quite right but in this second one it’s obvious they’re kissing but you can’t see it directly face on. It’s a funny one, kissing, I don’t ask couples to kiss often but if they do it on their own accord then that is fine by me just because it can sometimes look awkward, but here I think it looks good.

THE EDIT

You’ll have to watch the video for that…

I hope that’s inspired you in some way to try off camera flash during sparklers obviously if you have any questions at all about this video please let me know thank you for your time and your support, See you again