Fstoppers Tutorial: How To Light Wedding Reception Venues for Wedding Photography 

Fstoppers is raising the standards of photography.

It's amazing how far triggers have come compared to when this video was made.

Thanks guys! This is the only video on lighting wedding reception venues I've been able to find on the web. It was extremely helpful and I'm going to look to incorporate this in my wedding work soon. Much Appreciated.

My wife and I got the full tutorial a while back and it's helped us so much with our wedding photography. Thanks Fstoppers! You guys rock!

This video is GOLD!!! Just what I needed. I'm trying to learn event photography lighting.

Excellent Video, Just as a suggestion, during the barn demo by Patrick, he mentioned power cannot be increased or vaired of the flashes. i would suggest to use yongnuos yn560iv flashes along with a yn560 transmitter.. can change the power of the flashes without the use of an external trigger..

thank you for the video, guys!

Great information. It is my goal to become a wedding photographer and I'm still learning photography in general and appreciate every bit of information I can get. You guys explain things so understandable. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge and all of your efforts.

Thank you! I've been so afraid to use light because I didn't understand it with kickers, OCF and Umbrellas...but now I feel confident giving this a try! Thank you!!!

Fantastic! Very simple explanations and great examples. Thank you!

Really incredible video, guys. Thank you so much.

This was great. confirmed a few things I was already using and I learned some new tricks as well.

Alot of great information here. You are one of the first to actually online these methods on youtube. This was my biggest problem at weddings and I hated the pictures I got. I recently found the Light Stick kitbash w/ assistant and I think it will solve a bunch of my reception problems.

This is super helpful. Thank you!!

Great video! Thank you for all this information!

Totally appreciate every element of your explanations and demonstrations. Having recently purchased a Sony a6500, couldn't figure out how I was going to use my Pocket Wizard Plus III along with my manual LumoPro LP180. After a brief chat with one of the Sony Artisans, he mentioned using the pc sync port on the flash to fire the Pocket Wizard...and sure enough, just as I realize you show dangling from your camera, it works...hopefully as well as I'm going to be shooting a wedding this weekend with almost the same set up. Thanks for some really great tips and recommendations!

Thanks Fstoppers. I'm just getting started. Vital information to utilize.

Lo considero un excelente tutorial. Es sumamente práctico y actualizado, orientando a como resolver problema en diferentes situaciones que se presentan con frecuencia. Muy agradecido.

While I know much of the videos you make are good marketing and exposure for your business, still from an armature photographer, I say thank you so much for sharing you knowledge with us lesser skilled photographers. You have made it to a nice point in your photographic skill, and it is nice that you give some of that back to those of us trying to learn. Was happy to hear that you guys are based in Charleston, I live near there as well, and we are very lucky to live in a place as photogenic as our area is! :)

So much useful. Thanks buddies for your nice efforts!

Great video just what I need to know ,thank you for sharing your knowledge 😊

Thanks a lot! Very helpful!

One of the most informative videos. Thanks

Great Tutorial. Helped me out greatly.

Extremely helpful, I struggled a bit in reception lighting in the last wedding I did but this tutorial has sparked back so many options I can go with to improve. Thank you.

Wonderful. Took me ages to find this video on my liked videos but now I have finally found this video. Bounce Flash. Tomorrow is my first attempt to use this so hopefully this will work using a kicker light. Found the idea of the 'hair' light to just be perfect in principle. So looking forward thanks to your tuition :) Great video along with your relaxed tuition and attitude. A very nice and simple (but effective) professional production.

Great tutorial, thanks!

Guys. Really love your video! Great things to invest buying your dvd

Very knowledgeable and informative.

This is amazing... what a difference...

Wow your photos are amazing!

Very useful, thanks for sharing!

awesome tutorial Fstoppers

Soooo helpful!

Amazing video!!

Awesome video thanks a lot! I've been scared to use flash just because I have no idea where to start. This helped a lot

this was awesome!!!! shooting a wedding in a barn and this was it!!!! first wedding shoot !!! wish me luck!!!!

Thanks. Great tips.

Thank you for a pretty darned comprehensive video. There are a lot of ways to handle the many variety of on-location situations and I'm glad you were able to address so many ideas.

very good tutorial..thanks guys.

Lee, do you still hang the pocket wizard off to the side, or has this changed? Or has this changed altogether and you dont actively shoot weddings as much?

Very informative!

Good job guys. From Russia with love.

Very helpful episode thank you

Nice video Fstoppers! kickers and rim lights are alot of fun and create a dynamic effect to the images, but as a heads up, when and if you choose to go with that system, practice and learn your lights and lens combos for use with it and always be aware of flare artifacts when shooting with backlighting on more spread out dance floors, or when lighting is set lower in the background and no bodies are in place as natural gobo's. In many cases, flare can be a nice added effect depending on your clients taste, but no bride, groom or wedding guest would welcome having their faces perfectly obscured by the green zombie floating camera right at 17:56 Happy strobing!

I do wedding videogarphy so want to know where I can find setup when recording ceremony with 2 or 3 camcorder, where to set it up. thank you.

I'm familiar with these techniques, and use them all other than the studio strobes as I don't own any. With the last setup, once you move the strobes out to the walls where they should be, what do you do about the shadows created by the beams/columns in the room? Also, other than getting the lights up high and filling with on-camera or assistant-held lighting, how do you prevent weird shadows in general created by people, arms (such as the woman holding her glass at 19:11), etc. between the light source and your subject? This is less of an issue where you can bounce, but I've shot in a lot of dark ceiling venues. THANKS!

I use a very similar setup to the ones explained here.. I'll have 2 off-camera flashes, (set at manual power, around 1/32 power, and a bit of zoom) both on opposite corners of the room, basically pointing at each other or "center" of the venue or dance floor, and 1 on-camera flash, set to TTL but with a lower exposure compensation number. With that setup I'll try to always shoot perpendicular to where my off-camera flashes are pointing.. and the camera will be setup at about 3200 ISO, 1/80 shutter, 3.2 or 4 aperture. That particular setup is what I always use, and it gives me consistent look at all my wedding receptions.

can I use soft boxes cause I don't have the set up u have. only one speed light.

That was a great video tutorial. I have weddings for the next 3 weeks and I'm excited to try some of these techniques......I'll update you as to what happened

Great videos. Question for you. When your shooting with lets say 4 off camera flashes at 1/16~1/64 power and TTL on camera flash, do you use a light meter to get your initial settings for the area covered by the 4 off camera flashes?

Great !

Thank you Thank you Thank you!

Excellent

I'd be shitting my pants leaving a profoto on slight stand around stumbling drunk people!

Thank you guys ! Your video is very helpful! I have the strobe Flashpoint Xplor and 1 speedlight Canon 430. Is this enough for me to start? Do I have to place these two lights in different angles? Or flash on the camera, and the strobe in the hall?

You guys have seriously helped me with my photography. Thank you for your content. One question: If you cant afford the pocket wizards or secondary flash options, what can you use for low or no cost?

Thanks!!

What should the power level of the off camera flashes be set to? And your not bouncing them off the ceiling? They’re facing directly to the crowd?

Changing your aperture is a good technique to get bracketed exposures. I'm thinking of setting the camera to bracket mode anyway to use shutter drag instead, which will mix ambient lights in some shots. Experimentation is needed.

What kind of zoom do you put on the flash that is used for flare and lighting the back ( the kicker lights at 3.30 )

Thanks for the video, are you using TTL speedlights?

OMG this happened to me this last Saturday. My FIRST wedding at that! It was the venue was this HUGE church with wooden ceilings AND walls and on top of this I was as well. Plus they the church rep said that we could only use flash up until the back half of the church. And that we could not take photos from any other part but the halfway part of the church. It was crazy!

in the second part of the video, would the pillars cast shadows on the subjects?

I have a Canon,6D, using a 600EX-RT as my top mount flash and have my PLUS III connected via the PC connection. And I have PLUSX triggers on my other flashes. When I fire my 600EX it does not trigger the Plus III so that the other flashes go off. What setting do I have to go to to make this setup work?

If you fire studios into the ceiling will the lighting be flat resulting in the lighting not pulling the subjects off the background?

I've been looking at buying a Nikon D800 or D800e do you have any comments which is better for photographing people. Love this tutorial btw, saving for the dvd as I type

Great video! Please help... I have a canon 580exii/ w pocketwizard plusiii cable (ch17 ABCD all on) attached on hotshoe of canon 5dmarkii (dangling off like you do). I have another canon 580exii off camera connected to another pocketwizard plusiii (ch 17 ABCD all on). The test button on both pocketwizards fires both speedlights. Unfortunately when I press the shutter on camera, only the onboard flash fires... What am I doing wrong? what settings should I adjust? I know if I set the onboard flash to master and off camera flash to slave it will work if nearby (unreliable)- but I need the speedlights to fire at a distance w/ the pocketwizards? Any help would be appreciated.

Muchas gracias

What its the best aperture for wedding reception ? Thank yiu God bless

With new strobe systems that are available now not having to use pocket wizards I’m kind of interested in seeing if you’ve changed up systems? And if so are you going to update the wedding photography series?

Just what I may need for Daz Studio, I'll get back to this later. Back to TSFH, and CG 101 texture stuff.

Are you using TTL for all of these shots? If i had two "kicker" light set up at opposite corners pointing in at the dance floor as well as an on camera flash are any of those set to TTL or is everything in manual.

Hey, I loved the video and had a confusion where you said that you can gel the lights. So what do you mean by gel the lights ? Like you said gel my camera's flash red and leave the other light which will automatically produce a blue light on the other flash. The other question is how do you sync the Nikon flash and the Pocket Wizard ? Thanks :)

Thank you, ! So useful! And even better, He is using a D600, my camera! :-)

Are these flashes using ttl?

Sometimes there are receptions where a decorator team spent countless hours creating a certain ambiance. You certainly don't want to blast it all away with the flashes. Selective flash firing is key in these situations.

I have watched a lot of videos on wedding photography and lighting is always glazed over an the focus limited to composure and shot lists. I always worry and fuss over my lighting- always. I am glad to see a video, a great one at that, covering lighting at weddings as the primary focus.

Thanks for the Videos!!!! Hey I have a D5100 Nikon going to upgrade later on but I need your help !!! Im going to shoot a wedding recpetion at night in a white wedding tent. I like to know what kind of Flashes I need for my nikon D5100 just like your set up at the barn in your video. Thanks!

Hi can i ask whats the name of that big light that you are using ? Thanks..big bug help

Hey at 5:54 you talk about dangling a pocketwizard from your flash/camera, can you explain that abit more, i.e. do you change settings on you camera/flash to make it work, how do you exactly get this to work, i have tried this out but am unsuccessful with it. Thank you!

this is awesome . I have one question when to use strobe lights at reception?

What do you use that you can crank iso to 3200 on still images and not have it full of grain?

Thanks. I was thinking in terms of straight up. Have to make sure I watch the angle.

Thanks for this tutorial. Its very helpful but please help me a little .. Kindly link me to where I can get the studio strobe to buy Cox I'm into both photography and videography but lighting such location have been my burden for years and I know this studio strobe light will put an end to my lighting burden. thanks .. Please I will waiting

"Great video! Please help... I have a canon 580exii/ w pocketwizard plusiii cable (ch17 ABCD all on) attached on hotshoe of canon 5dmarkii (dangling off like you do). I have another canon 580exii off camera connected to another pocketwizard plusiii (ch 17 ABCD all on). The test button on both pocketwizards fires both speedlights. Unfortunately when I press the shutter on camera, only the onboard flash fires... What am I doing wrong? what settings should I adjust? I know if I set the onboard flash to master and off camera flash to slave it will work if nearby (unreliable)- but I need the speedlights to fire at a distance w/ the pocketwizards? Any help would be appreciated."

Anyone know if group C, from the barn set up, has a light modifier?

Where can I buy a kicker light? I've been doing photography for 2 years, and would like step up my reception photos. I don't have a lot of money, but I need help on figuring out what brand to buy and what equipment I need with it (like pocket wizzard)

brilliant just show the competition how to shoot like you this why most photographers are struggling

You guys produce some of the best videos thank you,

Thank you so much for this video! It was so informative! I am currently looking into getting a second speedlight flash, but the flash transmitter that I have now goes on top of my camera without a second hot shoe to connect my flash to the camera as well. Ideally, I would love to be able to have a flash on top of my camera while still having flashes that I can leave around the room to trigger, but I'm not sure how I would do this - especially in a way that is somewhat inexpensive as I am only starting out. I have a Canon DSLR. Any suggestions?

Thank you for the tutorial,but I have a question for you. Pls what is the watts of the Studio light use normally use.

Who is the guy teaching about how to handle lighting that barn? I like the way he thinks... I wish I had seen this one before we shot at Dubsdread in Orlando. I loved and hated that place. Better yet, the barns in Knoxville!! Gah!! Who is this guy...? He has changed my life.

Can you please show a link to all the lights & gears you're talking about? Thank you so much!

nice for me and all bro

Hi Guys ... that`s exc......Which cameras and lens are you using to record the hole film. ...

Hi you can put continue light also, colored light , it can give nice result , isn t it?

hi guys i enjoy your videos. i see you used umbellas difusers instead of umbrelas reflectors instead to light thst venue. what difference is t between the two? thanks

Hi, how about the ceremony with 2 or 3 cameras?

OMG! I can't for the love of God find someone who uses ON camera flash and OFF camera flash at the same time in the event. I've been searching how to do it. Can you guys please tell me how to setup ON camera flash and OFF camera flash. Do I need 2 transceivers? I just don't understand the hook up in the camera and how to trigger the others while my flash is in my camera hot shoe?