Flash or no Flash in christenings?

[A_SCY]

Hello! I’ve now photographed two christenings, both using on-camera flash.

The first church was large and quite dark, so the flash had to carry most of the weight. I shot around F4, ISO 400–800, with shutter speeds between 1/60–1/120. It was my first christening and priced affordably while building my portfolio. The results were strong, especially for a first job.

The second church, although much smaller and better lit, still wasn’t bright enough for a clean and polished look without flash. I shot at ISO 800, F4, and mostly 1/60–1/80, using TTL to blend the available light with the flash. Even then, I still got the flash look, but the skin tones came out beautiful and natural, especially on the baby. There were many red and yellow-painted surfaces that could have reflected badly into the skin, so bouncing wasn’t the best option. Straight flash allowed me to keep colors accurate.

I often notice other photographers in my area choosing to shoot only with natural church light. Their images have a more ambient, cinematic feel, but they also tend to look dull, low contrast, and lacking the vibrant clarity that families usually expect. Despite some hints of flash shadows or reflections, my images look bright, clean, and professionally lit. Honestly, when I compare my results to no-flash work, I prefer mine by far.

Outdoors, I adore natural light. Indoors, especially in churches, I feel that using flash thoughtfully is necessary to maintain consistent skin tones, crisp details, and that “finished” look. Many natural-light-only photographers keep the strong warm color casts from the environment. I personally prefer to remove heavy red and yellow contamination and keep the skin looking healthy and real.

I don’t criticize anyone’s style. Photography is personal and artistic. I simply want to understand what clients truly love: the cinema-style ambiance or the clean, joyful, high-quality lighting approach. So far, clients respond very positively to my brighter, refined images, even with a bit of flash character.

 

[BAK]

Thanks for your report on the success of your two projects so far. I remember you working hard to decide what to do before the first Christening.

I would vote in favor or bright lighting that makes the baby look good, instead of dulll lighting with no flash.

I think you'll find a lot of natural light photographers do not know how to use flash.

BAK

 

[A_SCY]

Thanks for your report on the success of your two projects so far. I remember you working hard to decide what to do before the first Christening.

I would vote in favor or bright lighting that makes the baby look good, instead of dulll lighting with no flash.

I think you'll find a lot of natural light photographers do not know how to use flash.

BAK

Hello Thank you very much again for your answers. I really appreciate your help and I remember your advice from before.

So, about my first christening. I was very stressed. I also set up a rim light, but for some reason I couldn’t make it work. Both flashes were in TTL, yet the rim light was giving too much light, so I quickly deactivated it. I didn’t have time to check what was wrong and change settings manually, so I continued only with my on-camera flash.

Another mistake was that at the beginning of the ceremony I was shooting at 1/60. My friend who used to shoot film told me I could shoot 1/60, but I was thinking “no way.” In the end, the photos at 1/60 were sharp, and I was surprised. I was using the 24-70 f/4. The outdoor portraits were not so good though, because the people were in shade but the background had bright sunlight.

Then I had a bigger problem. During the ceremony the camera suddenly stopped focusing. I thought it was the lens (24-70), so I changed quickly to my backup lens 28-300. It worked for a few minutes and again stopped focusing. Then I grabbed my other D700 very fast—maybe 10 seconds—and I continued. This happened exactly when the priest was holding the baby for the baptism, so if I was slower, I would have a big problem. Later I realized the problem was in that D700 body. Even though it passed my own test shooting continuously for 30 minutes, when using flash for long hours (1.5–5 hours) the AF stops responding and the camera needs to cool down. This made me feel not confident with my gear. One D700 working fine, and the other only for a limited time in real events.

So when the woman booked me for the second christening, I straight away bought a Nikon D750 from a local guy with low shutter count. She booked me after seeing my first christening portfolio and she liked the images.

The second christening was different. The church was very small and tight, and the baby was crying a lot. I used the D700 for outdoor portraits and the D750 inside. Everything went OK, only small mistakes that I must improve. Again, when shooting portraits, instead of choosing aperture like f/5.6–f/8 to be safe, I shot f/3.5 and some portraits are a bit blurry. Also during the baptism, my shutter was at 1/80 and because of stress and confusion, I forgot to raise it. I stayed at 1/80, but again most images came out sharp.

I understood that christenings are very demanding and you have to be careful in everything. I feel lucky that I made it without serious issues.

One more thing I forgot to mention. I do the editing on my computer which has a wide color gamut screen, and I also used a color calibration tool. On the screen the images look a bit warmer, but on the phone screen they look cooler. I am still trying to understand the best balance there.

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

Hello! I’ve now photographed two christenings, both using on-camera flash.

The first church was large and quite dark, so the flash had to carry most of the weight. I shot around F4, ISO 400–800, with shutter speeds between 1/60–1/120. It was my first christening and priced affordably while building my portfolio. The results were strong, especially for a first job.

The second church, although much smaller and better lit, still wasn’t bright enough for a clean and polished look without flash. I shot at ISO 800, F4, and mostly 1/60–1/80, using TTL to blend the available light with the flash. Even then, I still got the flash look, but the skin tones came out beautiful and natural, especially on the baby. There were many red and yellow-painted surfaces that could have reflected badly into the skin, so bouncing wasn’t the best option. Straight flash allowed me to keep colors accurate.

I often notice other photographers in my area choosing to shoot only with natural church light. Their images have a more ambient, cinematic feel, but they also tend to look dull, low contrast, and lacking the vibrant clarity that families usually expect. Despite some hints of flash shadows or reflections, my images look bright, clean, and professionally lit. Honestly, when I compare my results to no-flash work, I prefer mine by far.

Outdoors, I adore natural light. Indoors, especially in churches, I feel that using flash thoughtfully is necessary to maintain consistent skin tones, crisp details, and that “finished” look. Many natural-light-only photographers keep the strong warm color casts from the environment. I personally prefer to remove heavy red and yellow contamination and keep the skin looking healthy and real.

I don’t criticize anyone’s style. Photography is personal and artistic. I simply want to understand what clients truly love: the cinema-style ambiance or the clean, joyful, high-quality lighting approach. So far, clients respond very positively to my brighter, refined images, even with a bit of flash character.

Some thoughts and opinions, FWIW:

* Church lighting varies over a huge range, and can get weird e.g. if the sun is really beaming through stained-glass windows onto your subjects. So I don't think there's any single best approach.

* With any modern-ish camera, with a decent-size sensor, shooting raw or raw + JPEG, I would be fine going far higher than ISO 800 because of how well DxO noise reduction handles things.

* IMO unbounced on-camera flash often looks bad or at least 'too much', especially where not relatively well balanced with ambient. Obviously there's a large element of taste there. Obviously you can't bounce off the ceiling in most churches. In some cases, would an off-camera flash on a relatively tall light stand maybe given nice(r) lighting?

* Any ambient-lit photos that "look dull, low contrast, and lacking the vibrant clarity" may well be largely due to poor post-processing.

* As far as what people want, I think tastes vary widely, and many people can't really articulate what they want, or don't even know it without a range of example styles among which to pick a favorite. Would educating prospective customers about options in technique and results help your business?

 

[rumple]

In some cases, would an off-camera flash on a relatively tall light stand maybe given nice(r) lighting?

It would. Also 'strobe on a rope' or the radio equivalent works well if there is a lack of space for a stand. If using a stand, the CheetahStand C8 Auto Stand is easy to move around, and instantly converts (when you pick it up) into a strobe-on-a-rope pole.

Worst case use a bracket to get the on-camera flash higher.

* As far as what people want, I think tastes vary widely, and many people can't really articulate what they want, or don't even know it without a range of example styles among which to pick a favorite. Would educating prospective customers about options in technique and results help your business?

And that's the bottom line: what will sell better. Often this means images that customer's can't get with cell phones, which means adding light. When you can't add light, use fast lenses. And then be a decent photographer and get many emotional moments.

 

[gscotten]

* With any modern-ish camera, with a decent-size sensor, shooting raw or raw + JPEG, I would be fine going far higher than ISO 800 because of how well DxO noise reduction handles things.

If you are adding flash there is no necessity for high ISO. Keeping the flash and ambient in the proper ratios is the key to nice flash photos.

* In some cases, would an off-camera flash on a relatively tall light stand maybe given nice(r) lighting?

Most of the christenings I have been to have a room full of people who really don't want light stands, umbrellas, etc. blocking their view. I have used a hand-held flash to good effect. Hold it out, take a shot, and withdraw it. That assumes, of course, that you are close enough to the subject to get a decent angle. And have long arms. :-D

--
George
.
Feel free to retouch any photograph I post in these forums. It probably needs it.

 

[rumple]

and have long arms. :-D

hence 'strobe on a rope'

 

[NAwlins Contrarian]

* With any modern-ish camera, with a decent-size sensor, shooting raw or raw + JPEG, I would be fine going far higher than ISO 800 because of how well DxO noise reduction handles things.

If you are adding flash there is no necessity for high ISO. Keeping the flash and ambient in the proper ratios is the key to nice flash photos.

Those are two potentially-contradictory points. Sometimes you have to choose between adding substantial light with a flash and keeping the flash and ambient balanced within a reasonable degree. If the ambient light is really low, then you may have to use ISO 3200 or whatever to maintain any semblance of balance. With subjects that tend to move, like people, really slow shutter speeds are not a good option. In low light, if you set e.g. ISO 800 and use flash for the main subjects, the ambient-lit background sometimes gets quite dark.

* In some cases, would an off-camera flash on a relatively tall light stand maybe given nice(r) lighting?

Most of the christenings I have been to have a room full of people who really don't want light stands, umbrellas, etc. blocking their view. I have used a hand-held flash to good effect. Hold it out, take a shot, and withdraw it. That assumes, of course, that you are close enough to the subject to get a decent angle. And have long arms. :-D

There's a huge range of circumstances, and the best answer depends so much the particular ones. My experience is mostly with Catholic ones, with maybe ten to forty people attending. I've shot a couple for family members. I think that often the best effect might be to have an assistant with a flash on a pole, and a radio trigger on the camera, and use that to add some light but not really a lot relative to ambient. How practicable that is depends on a bunch of things. Also, what babies will and won't tolerate varies widely. And tastes about what looks good in photos varies widely.