Is it Possible to Shoot a Wedding Without Using a Flash?
Now in the 3rd year of owning our own wedding photography business, at the time of this writing, we have shot quite a few weddings, and currently have another 20+ weddings booked through next year.
With all of this time being spent on fairly wedding-centric photography opportunities, we have shot weddings in a variety of different locations including outdoor venues with lots of natural light to more trickier indoor spaces with poor or minimal lighting. Maybe even the most difficult of these have been barn reception halls that have a mixture of the two!
The real defining attribute of a great photographer is being able to produce consistent and quality images no matter what the space looks like. No doubt, this can be a challenge – and even to well seasoned photographers, it can take a good deal of technical knowledge and legwork to take the right shot that your client will appreciate.
2 Stories We Have About Using (and Not Using) Flash
Like many photographers before us, we have been intimidated by flash photography.
While picking up a camera and taking pictures does have a learning curve, it’s not nearly as complex as trying to factor in the addition of artificially produced and triggered light.
No doubt, there are a lot of instances where flash can hinder a photo, and can really make it feel inauthentic to the real life experience. While the harshness of light on a person’s face might suit an editorial magazine piece, for wedding photographers – most of us lean towards taking photos that capture more natural feelings during the day. The look of our images reflect this, and it’s why moodier and more natural looking editing styles are becoming increasingly popular.
For ourselves, given our experience shooting weddings, we’ve been faced in situations where we’ve had to decide: do I (or do I not) use flash here?
The Cathedral Scenario
In the first case, we have a dimly lit cathedral where the wedding ceremony is being held.
Faced with capturing the best photos possible in this sort of space, we would prefer to use flash photography to fill in the dark shadows on our couple’s faces, and illuminate them in a way that can create separation between them and the otherwise dimly lit surroundings.
Unfortunately, often the case with Catholic churches is that flash is generally not allowed to be used during the wedding ceremony. While there may be exceptions to this dependent on the specific church or priest, in our experience the answer is consistently “you can’t use flash.” As a result, we are prepared to take photos without flash, even if we would prefer to use it. This is where having a good quality camera body becomes a necessity such as the Canon 5D Mark IV (see review here).
The Dark Dance Floor Scenario
In the second case, when we arrive to a reception hall, it’s often the case that the lights go down low – sometimes even close to total darkness just lit by dim ambient DJ lights.
Shooting in this environment would be very difficult, and lack a certain depth, if not for the use of flash.
For ourselves, this is probably the one environment where we are most comfortable with flash photography – incorporating even off camera flash techniques by shooting with our Profoto B1X. The way it illuminates the images and adds direction to the light can make for some quite interesting, sometimes even dramatic, images in a location that would otherwise be difficult to shoot.
The “Natural Light Photographer” Problem
Natural light photography is the art of using, well, natural light as the only source for illuminating the subject and scene. While this is our preferred approach, because why not use the natural light available if it is available, but what happens when the natural light that is present isn’t all that good? Or worse, if there is hardly any natural light at all?
These are pretty significant questions when you think about it.
We’ve come to find that the term “natural light photographer,” while it sounds pretty, can actually suggest a real lack of knowledge or fear of using artificial light to illuminate a scene when necessary. It has become a common keyword new photographers throw into their branding materials – we have even used it ourselves.
While there is something inspiring about making use of the natural light available, without knowledge of flash photography it can be impossible to photograph certain parts of a wedding day. While normally professional cameras can handle high ISO’s or use low apertures in order to increase the light in the image, you will be met with excessive grain after a certain point that would render an image unusable.
For example, we recently shot a wedding that ended with an outdoor reception around a bonfire. Aside from the light from the fire, there were no other lights to be seen. Practically speaking, we could only really see silhouettes of most attendees with our own eyes.
So how did we take photos in this sort of environment? Flash!
Is it possible to shoot a wedding without flash?
To directly answer the question: yes, it is possible to shoot a wedding without flash.
However, you need to consider what the image quality will look like, and even more importantly, you need to consider what the wedding venue(s) will be like. Some venues enable more flexibility in the area of flash – such as an outdoor ceremony site and a bright white reception hall. These are spaces where shooting with the naturally available light can be suitable!
Unfortunately, not every ceremony site is outside, and not every reception hall is bright and filled with white walls. The darker the venue, the more likely you will want to use flash to supplement your photography.
While you could shoot without flash in a space like this, and maybe some photos might even turn out to be usable, why would you want to?
The ultimate question here, in our opinion, is: Would you really want to shoot a wedding without using a camera flash?
If you shoot weddings without flash yourself, we’d love to hear your results and why you have decided to go this route!!
How We Actually Use Flash in Our Wedding Photography
“An aspect of flash photography that’s often forgotten is that it’s more than just something to use when needed, it can be used as a distinct part of your palette. You can use flash to create interesting light that did not otherwise exist. ”
Our thoughts towards flash photography in practice can be summed up pretty heavily by the above quote.
We don’t go out of our way to use flash photography. If natural light already exists, we aren’t the types to really try to supplement it further. We can totally understand those who really want crisp faces in every image by using a flash to overpower shadows and even the sun to get cool shots during the mid-day. For us, we’d rather just find another location to shoot without having to interject another piece of equipment into the mix.
We keep in consideration the comfort of our clients in all of this. Flash photography can be intimidating. We blink just seeing our own flashes go off. With clients who often feel anxious before having their photos taken and just being in front of a camera, adding a flash (and all the bells-and-whistles) could just increase this feeling. This is why, when it’s possible, we stick to the natural light.
But, when there is no other option – or accepting grainy images as a result of pushing our ISO’s too high is not an option, we shoot with flash.
Our flashes are a tool that we bring out when needed.
They supplement our photography.
When used correctly, they add a lot of value to our images that our clients take notice of, and help elevate our approach to photography as a profession requiring some technical expertise.
Flash Photography Setups
Given that we feel strongly that having a flash can enhance your photos in darkly lit spaces, we have put together two flash setups – both of which we have used in our professional careers.
If you are asking whether or not having a flash is necessary for shooting weddings due to budget considerations, we would urge you – before agreeing to shoot a wedding – to purchase even a low-cost flash option such as a Yongnuo YN600EX-RT II on camera speedlite ($60 on Amazon), at the very least.
Below we list a budget friendly setup, and a professional level setup that we use today. These setups would be capable of supporting a single shooter with both an on and off camera flash, so as to enable the most diversity in image lighting options.
Setup #1 (Budget: $1,000):
This was our first “real” flash setup specifically purchased to support our wedding photography. Early on into our business, we shot with just on camera flash techniques, and as a result only had a single speed-lite mounted to our camera bodies.
This setup is actually fairly common among wedding photographers, both because of the cost and because of the reputability of the equipment. Our reason for replacing it mostly came down to it being a little inconsistent from time to time, and time consuming to learn and get to work.
For the cost, it is a very good setup. Just be prepared to do some diving into the user manual for the flashes, and becoming well acquainted with how to use the gear. Unfortunately, it is not the most user friendly of setups, but with practice – you can still take excellent photos. Beginning with TTL mode (the auto flash mode), you should be able to start getting good flash photos pretty quickly.
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Manfrotto 368B 11-Feet 5/8-Inch Stud and 015 Top Basic Light Stand
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Panasonic BK-3HCCA8BA Eneloop Pro AA High Capacity Ni-MH Pre-Charged Rechargeable Batteries
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Neewer® Heavy Duty Photographic Sandbag Studio Video Sand Bag
Setup #2 (Budget: $3,500):
Our decision to upgrade to this more expensive setup was fueled by our frustration with our original setup. As one can imagine, the decision was not made lightly – considering this setup is 3x the cost. Fortunately, we were able to reinvest some of our earnings into better equipment – and as we have found – having easier to use flash gear makes flash photography less intimidating, and easier to put into effect during the hustle and bustle of the wedding day.
The Profoto flashes we selected have great user interfaces. We can never go back to cheaper flash options specifically because of this. In addition, the light that is outputted is nicer to look at in photos (it has a generally softer quality to it) – though it can be hard to put this aspect into words.
Given that we will be able to use these flashes for years to come, the investment into this area of our photography gear just made sense to us. It is highly recommended if you have the budget for it. If you are just looking for an on camera option to keep things a little more affordable, just go with the Profoto A1 as it is a beautiful on camera option itself!
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Manfrotto 368B 11-Feet 5/8-Inch Stud and 015 Top Basic Light Stand
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Neewer® Heavy Duty Photographic Sandbag Studio Video Sand Bag
Last Thoughts
In our wedding photography experience, shooting a wedding is a high-stakes game, with little to no margin for error. This is especially true during the really critical parts of the day, such as capturing the first kiss during a wedding ceremony. This means that there is a lot riding on your ability and skill to effectively capture the best possible images to be cherished for a lifetime of memories for your client.
This is hardly the place to gamble. While there are great camera bodies capable of shooting in lower light conditions, if given the option to use flash in these types of scenarios – we almost always do.
