Will Camera Flashes Ruin My Wedding Film?

Video Transcript

Hi, my name’s Dalton Young, destination wedding photographer, and videographer and I want to talk really quick about camera flashes, right? You’re going to have them in your films, right? And sometimes I have brides who have a problem with the camera flashes, they’re like, “Hey, can you …” Again, we’re not editing out, we’re not doing photo editing, we’re not doing Photoshop. And they’ll ask us, “Hey, can we get rid of these camera flashes?” And the truth is no, we’re going to leave them. The reason being, yeah, we could go in and get meticulous and remove all these things but we start removing frames and there’s certain software we could use to get rid of them but really if you’re going to have flash, that’s kind of an expected thing, right? It’s kind of an expected thing on your wedding day that there’s going to be a camera taking flashes, there’s going to flash happening, okay?

You could ask that your photographer does not use flash and it’s usually not during the day, right? It’s usually right at sunset, when it gets dark, and throughout the evening. The reason they use flash, whether it’s their own camera flash where it’s actually mounted to the top of the camera, flashing, or they’re using an off-camera flash standing off the side, bounce, and they’ll use a trigger to bounce light off the walls and other surfaces in order to light up the room, right? You should be okay with that because photographers have a job to do and with video, a lot of times, we use video light, right? And when we do photography, or someone else does photography, they need to have light. When it gets dark, we use some of the best equipment for low light capability but at the end of the day, we still need light because, without the light, your photos will become more, what we refer to as grainy, right? A little bit more pixelated looking and pixelated’s not really the word but it’s really grainy because pixelated means that that’s a resolution thing.

This isn’t a resolution issue, this is what we call a low light issue so when the light’s too dark, we have to adjust the camera settings accordingly to get the most light into our camera sensors as possible and in order to do that and achieve the right look, if we don’t have enough light, we’re going to have to crank up what’s known as your ISO on a camera and that’s basically the sensitivity to light and when we crank up that ISO, it makes a picture super, super grainy. The higher that ISO goes, the more we’re pushing that image past its limits, right? We’re really pushing every single pixel to brighten up, right? And the image will start falling apart and then it gets noisier, more grainy and that’s not what you want, okay?

Noisy’s probably a better word than grainy but you get what I’m saying. Just something to consider, be okay with flashes, it’s good, and it’s going to make a better photo. You need that. Now, with video, we don’t use flash, we’re going to use video lights in order to keep consistent, steady lighting through the event and, again, it’s the same reason because photography and videography are basically the same, just different angles, different purposes as well as different tactics, but we want the video light for that same reason and get the light coming into the sensor constantly because we’re not taking individual photos so we don’t need a flash, we need a constant light because we’re constantly recording. And we’ll take that light and the brighter that light, you may wonder why your lights are so bright when you’re in the ceremony. Well, the reason is we need all that light coming into our sensors on the cameras in order to allow us to shoot at the lowest ISO possible in order to achieve the same result and the same look without it getting noisy and grainy looking, right?

Just something to consider, flashes are normal and video lights are normal too. Without those, I would kind of be concerned with how your final products are going to turn out. Sure, you can do them without that but, again, it’s a quality thing. The reason we need light is for quality. It doesn’t matter what camera you have. Camera gear matters in this sense, the right camera and the right kind of lens that has a low enough aperture to let in enough light, right? If you don’t know how cameras work, the camera lenses work, a camera lens acts kind of like your eye, right? However much light, it kind of can, how your own eyes will reduce the amount of light coming in when they dilate versus when they whatever, I’m not the eye expert but you get what I’m saying.

When your eyes open up, they let in more light. When it gets really dark, that’s why it hurts your eyes when you’re in a movie theater, it’s really dark, and your eyes are fully open whereas when you come outside and it’s bright, your eyes have to adjust to not be wide open, right? In order to reduce the amount of light coming in because too much light is blinding. Your eyes adjust really fast, that’s what our lenses do, right? They let in a certain amount of light and not enough light and I can’t see and if it has too much light, it’ll blind it, right? This is why we use light. Lighting is the number one thing that most videographers and photographers don’t understand and you can usually tell it in their final product. The best of the best, the people that do this for a living and are fully committed to this craft, understand lighting and how valuable it is to have great light, even lighting, and constant lighting if you’re doing videos.

It’s such a powerful asset and without it, you can really tell that someone doesn’t understand light because the light is everything when it comes to photography and videography. Something to consider. If you have any questions while you’re planning your wedding and what equipment they should be using, whether it’s your photographer or videographer or you just have other questions, maybe you’re still planning and have questions about different vendors and venues and locations, whether you’re getting married out here on the Emerald Coast or somewhere else in the world and whether you’re working with us or not, that’s not the point.

The point is you’re planning a wedding, whether it’s your first one, your second one, or you’re just getting married somewhere you don’t know and you have legitimate questions and you just want someone to help, someone to not plan it for you but just bounce ideas off of and get general honest genuine input to help you kind of make the right decisions and someone to act as a sounding board and I’m here to help with that, no matter, like I said, if you choose to work with us or not. That’s not the point. I just care about you having a genuine and amazing wedding day experience and whatever I can do to help you achieve that would just mean the world to me because I know I’ve just helped another bride have a successful and amazing day. If you have any questions, get in touch. My name’s Dalton Young and I look forward to talking to you soon.

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Photography/VideographyDalton Young Weddings