Wow, so I did a wedding on Saturday and was running into some issues with my flash. I've been using a Sigma 500 DG Super without much problems lately, it's worked fine for me...

The wedding reception was held in a candlelit room... Which normally would be ok for me, but the ceiling was tall and BLACK! There was literally no place to bounce light at all. This was also the first wedding that I used my LSPJ that I just got. It seemed that using the combination of the LSPJ and the dark ceilings etc caused my flash to dump the whole charge on each firing! ( I do use NIMH rechargeable batteries) After struggling with it for a while, I switched to my Canon 420EX and did mostly direct flash with a Stoffen Omnibounce attached to it. That seemed to work out a little better, but almost all of the reception shots are not really that exciting.

So, what do you guys use for indoors / dark weddings? What ISO do you use? What camera settings do you use ( I generally shoot M and let the flash do the work). I'm betting a lot of people use the 550 or 580 Canon around here, but I've heard good things about the Metz 54, any input?

Any help would be appreciated, as I don't want to have these problems again!

-Andrew

We had a situation similar to this last summer. High, black ceilings. We ended up using the Fong Dong with the dome, pointed straight ahead, like you do for outside fill. Worked pretty well. We were using SB-800s. If you need more power (insert Tim Taylor grunt) go with a Q flash and a Turbo battery.

With the LSPJ, you don't have the dome, so it probably wouldn't be the best choice for that situation. You could use a combo: the LSPJ and the Sto-Fen. It might work a little better, but without any bounce-able walls, it would probably just eat up more light.

In a situation like that I use the flash straight on but in my hand so that I can have a little directional lighting going on without the deer in headlights look of on camera flash. I shoot a D70 at no more than ISO 640. Usually I shoot around ISO 400 and shoot as wide open as possible (usually around f2) with a 15th of a second shutter or so. I try not to get down to the 8th of a second or below range so streaks from the candles aren't cutting through heads. I always shoot rear curtain.

If you are bouncing in that situation your flash will dump all it's power because the vast majority of your light is getting sucked in to the black hole of the high dark ceiling.

I'm with Zack. I shoot at ISO 640 with a 1/15 or 1/20 shutter speed and fire my SB800 right at them with the diffuser on.

Those settings were producing shots like this:

If there's nothing to bounce off of then a diffuser of any kind is useless. Your only choice is to use direct flash - either on or off camera.

If there is any ambient light in the background at all I drag the shutter.

I disagree. A "baseball glove" type of bouncer (like an OmniBounce) works really well in this situation. Or the Fong Dong with the dome pointed straight ahead. You do lose a little light, but you lose it when bouncing, too.

Were the walls black as well? You can always bounce of the walls.