Amazing photographer and I thank you for your reply to others comments. I would love to come to your courses if you one day do it in Australia. Count me a fan of your art.
Hi Joe. I really love this video. I really hate that I don't get a good look at the flash in most of the set ups. :) Could you please answer a couple questions? I apologize if they were answered below. I scanned a few pages but didn't see. The light on the models looks so soft. Did you use any modifiers on the flash? Or, alternatively, was it just the dusk light evening out the flash shadows? I guess I also want to know if you only used one flash for these. Pretty please? Great work. I aspire to this. Thanks.
+Tanya Canam thank you! Some of the shots were taken using a Gold brolly to soften the light, the ones down by Tower Bridge and St Pauls. I think the ones on embankment were just using the ambient light from the streetlamps with an LED light behind them to backlight the veil. The ones in front of the London Eye I bounced the flash off a wall. I only used one flash throughout the shoot :) thank you again for your lovely comments
Fantastic work Joe, what time where these taken? I mean Tower Bridge and no people or cars? what did you do?lol. Can I ask about shutter speeds to get the amazing ambiant light and no movement? Im doing a shoot soon, cant wait.
Colin Leonard Thanks Colin, appreciate that! These were done at 4am on a Sunday - even London is a little sleepy then :P but there were some cars so we had to rush the tower bridge shots a bit. You can go down to about 1/15 hand held without it being too blurry, and if you're using flash for your subjects it will freeze any movement anyway
Joe, from what I see it was quite dark, how did you manage to get the right focus, especially with the lens wide open. GREAT video and shots by the way, scares the hell out of my upcoming wedding.
Jimmy Tjon Thanks Jimmy! Yep the focussing was tough and a few of the shots I had to ditch because they wern't focused right. Generally I'll zoom all the way in, manual focus (auto is a nightmare in low light on the 5Dmk2!) then zoom out again (and don't move!)
Fantastic work Joe Gilbert. I have been assigned to shoot a wedding aboard a USS Navy Carrier. The ceremony starts at sunset. Your method of shooting is what I need to pull this off. I shoot with a 7D and a JTL Mobilight 300. Do you think this is possible with what I have ?
What lights did you use, and id you have them behind the couple as well for a kicker light? Love these, I stink at flash outside. How did you get the ambient light in so well? Could you tell me your settings on one of them?
Stunning pictures. I wonder how brilliant you are to manage any noise in such a low light situation. As far as I know, there is not any good material teaching how to shoot in such a low light situation and come up very very beautiful and romantic pictures like you did. Truly, if you release any material or a book I WILL SUPPORT YOU. Cheers!
thanks Thipphasay Saysana that means a lot! I shoot on the Canon 5Dmkii, which lets you shoot with quite a high iso without noise. Also if you shoot wide open, ie 2.4, you can let in quite a bit of light. If your background is illuminated as it was here, you don't actually need too much light as they're pretty bright. Thanks again for your lovely comment :)
Thanks Logan Schellenberg - Never used the 700d, but I don't see why not. So long as your lens has a decent aperture and you're body can do about 800iso without a noise problem you'll be fine.
You've got a new subscriber! I shot some night landscape and long exposure time to the and also some portraits. Your method with the tripod for portraits at night are juat awesome. You've got to put some tutorials and share some of your setting. I love your video and thank you!
Joe thats some fine work, I,m surprised you haven't got 17000 likes. Did you use any modifiers on your flashes. Great work this inspired me loads. A very positive LIKE from me
you just got a subscriber..! :) great job… hope you share the settings you used on some of your amazing shots and how you post processed them …. cheers!
Hi joe, Did you use any editing software after? Or that's directly out of camera? Also the flash the one comes with the camera, is it enough to get like this pix? I have canon t2i would it do job? Thank you
Hi M ShaLBY - these were all edited in Lightroom after, using the shadows and highlights to increase the tonal range of the image, i.e. illuminate more of the background without over exposing the couple. You couldn't do pictures like this with the inbuilt camera flash, it would look horrendous lol
You seem to be able to keep a fairly reasonable shutter speed in these photos? How are you achieving this... Stuff Ive done previously Ive really had to drop the shutter speed down to bring out the background enough (mind you the background was very dark). Just curious as to what kind of shutter speeds your using and how you get the background to look so gorgeous? :) Also what WB do you use for night time while also using the flash? Thanks for the video, they are absolutely gorgeous photos!
Hi Jacob - thank you so much for your kind words - that means a lot! If your background is illuminated you don't need a very slow shutter speed - 1/60 will do the job fine. If the background isn't lit up, such as in this shoot with the Houses of parliament, I used 1/2 shutter speed on a tripod. Using a tripod keeps the background super sharp, and so long as the couple hold still you'll be fine. Using off camera flash helps too, as if the couple do move they've only been illuminated for a fraction of a second so they won't blur. It feels a little cumbersome using a tripod for wedding shoots, but trust me it's worth it! Joe
Thank you for the response I appreciate it. Most of the stuff I've done recently has zero illumination so I've had to go for really long exposures. Thank you again :)
Joe Gilbert Really enjoyed it as i am doing some weddings in london too and one will be there as well... flash wise, was it manual? what power, because you managed to get a very good ambient light there and the flash quite balanced when is actually dark... really good work :)
Bruno Conceição Thanks Bruno appreciate that. I do set the flash on manual, here's how: 1) Compose your photo and stand where you plan on taking the picture 2) Turn off your flash and take the photo - adjust exposure until the background looks perfect. 3) Turn on your flash, set the power (I normally start on like 1/4) and holding the flash next to you, take the picture until the balance is about right, adjusting flash power as necessary 4) Give your flash to your assistant (i.e. best man, dad etc) and instruct them to hold the light as desired. If your camera is on a tripod, which I would use for this kind of portraiture, you can walk with the assistant to guide them to the exact position you want 5) if the light is either too powerful or not powerful enough, the quickest and easiest way of fixing this is to tell your assistant to take a couple of steps forward or backward. As I was using a brolly for some of these shots, it's a bit different as moving the light changes the way it illuminates the couple. In this case stand next to the light, adjust power accordingly, then move yourself to where you want to be.
Appreciated for your input, for writing all that, I understanding the concept, just need to see it hands on, need to practice, haha.. I saw your video somewhere, on your work, other page and I saw you explained the context, being during the night and being sunrise and what day...magnificent initiative and for them to do that... All the best
Wow, this is absolutely fantastic. I was browsing and looking for some wedding photoshoot ideas until I saw this amazing video. I am an aspiring photographer and haven't had any experience on wedding photography and recently I was asked by a friend of mine to do a photoshoot on their upcoming wedding in September herein Calgary, this is really what I wanted to do. Thanks for sharing this and please post more videos like this or great even if you can share tutorials.
It's personal preference to be honest - I find the silver light quite cold and unnatural. I used the gold here as my subjects were quite pale, and the gold light just warms up the skin tones a little. However last week I was working with a couple with dark complexions, so I used a white brolly to keep the natural warm tones of their skin accurate. The white doesn't affect the colour tones, and if you WB for flash if will be pretty much spot on.
Hi Joe,. First of all Stunning pictures. At 3:43 did you shoot it with manual mode on camera, what settings did you use to balance the background ambient light with the sky, that looks beautiful. Using the the off camera flash is a challenge. Were you using a softbox or any modifier ?
