In Part One, we talked about why flash is sometimes needed and the basics of how to use it. Now we will discuss bouncing & camera settings.

Why Bounce?

Pointing the flash directly at your subject is like shining a flashlight in their face - very unflattering and very uncomfortable. A nasty side effect is that you will have shadows behind them. Another side effect is shiny skin. Bouncing the flash spreads the light around and softens it.

The Ceiling Bounce

To mimic ceiling lights, you can point your flash straight up. A lot of people do this. The great thing about this is that the light will spread out and light the room. Your background will show up in the picture without having the drag the shutter. You will have some light hitting the top of your child’s head, effectively separating them from the background. The problem with this is that you get shadows under the eyes, nose & chin.. just as you see when a person stands under ceiling lights.

The 45° Angle Ceiling Bounce

If you are pretty far back, you can angle your flash 45° forward to bounce it off the ceiling halfway between you & your subject. I do this at school plays & graduation.

The Bounce Card

A great solution for closer shots is to use a bounce card. This lets most of the flash bounce off the ceiling, but reflects just enough of it straight forward to light your child’s face. The Speedlite 580EX  comes with a very small, built-in bounce card that can only be used in horizontal shots. You are best off substituting an index card. Pick up some velcro tape and wrap some around the top of your flash so you can move it around as you switch orientations.

The Diffuser

Gary Fong makes some great diffusers. I use the Lightsphere Cloud, which does the same as a bounce card but instead of sending light straight forward, it sends it all around. Most of it is bounced off the ceiling. You can put the top on if you need more light sent forward and less sent to the ceiling. You can use a tungsten top if you are dragging the shutter in a very tungsten room and want a less flash-y look.  (You would change your white balance to tungsten to make up for it or even better, custom white balance.)

Lightsphere Cloud - Vendor Image

Lightsphere Cloud - Vendor Image

He recently came out with a Whale Tail which I haven’t used, but am very interested in. If you have more than one Speedlite, a sync cord or a wireless trigger, you can shoot your Speedlite thru an umbrella.

The options are endless but no matter what you choose to do, you will need to compensate for light lost in the bouncing/diffusion process IF you are shooting in ETTL. Shooting in manual is even better. Check your histogram, always.

What Settings Should I Use On My Camera?

To keep things simple, I am going to talk briefly about this. There are many settings you can use that just don’t apply to baby photos.

The main rule is, you don’t want to go faster than your camera can sync.  If you do that, not all of your frame will be exposed. Most digital SLR’s have a maximum sync speed of 1/250. If you try to exceed that, say 1/320, and nothing happens, look at your screen. There will probably be a blinking 250. Sometimes, but not very often, our camera is a little tiny bit smarter than us. :) So… 1/250, 1/60, 1/125 are all safe shutter speeds.

If you want to see flash only, try “flash” white balance, ISO 100, shutter speed 1/250, whatever aperture you want and 1/1 flash. Check your histogram. If it’s way too bright, turn down the flash. If it’s not bright enough, raise your ISO. Repeat until perfect.

If you want to see some ambient light (such a Christmas lights), you will need to drag the shutter since they are not as bright as your flash. If you want the background darker (the sky for instance), you will need more flash than ambient light. In Part 3 I will cover mixing light, so stick with me. :)

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