Using a Flash bracket

I’ve never been much of a flash photography guy. I do a lot of nature and outdoor sports photography, so most of my lighting is geared around natural or available light subjects, and I spend a lot of time finding the best ways to shoot in low-light situations without flash.

Recently, though, I had to quickly become better acquainted with my flash system to handle some indoor event photography. One piece of gear that I found really helpful was a flash bracket.

If you tend to shoot indoors a lot, especially events such as family gatherings, weddings, parties, conferences, and so forth - consider trying out a flash bracket as well.

Not to be confused with exposure brackets, flash brackets are those gizmos you see old-school newspaper fellas using in the movies, usually right as a gangster comes down the steps of the courthouse with his entourage and reporters in-tow.

Not much has fundamentally changed about them over the years. They’re meant to be used with external flash devices or strobes, raising them upward off the camera body (usually by six inches or more). This does two things, generally. First, it greatly reduces the risk of red eye, because you’re not shooting directly into people’s faces. Also, it helps spreads the light around in a more natural way and really cuts back on shadows. This all serves to reduce the amount of post-processing required, which is why you’ll see a lot of wedding photographers use flash brackets. They’ve got to take hundreds or thousands of shots for a single event, and don’t have time to spend correcting redeye and shadow problems in Photoshop.

A major downside for some people is bulk and weight; a bracket with a camera and flash mounted on it can be a drag to carry around after four or five hours. It gets heavy. And for quick shoots - like a school play, for example - you might not want to drag out all that gear. Also, unless you purchase quick-release adapters for the camera to attach to the bracket, you may be constantly attaching and detaching the bracket - and this futzing around time can lead to lost opportunities.

You’ll need an off-camera TTL cord as well, which bridges the flash shoe on the top of your camera body to the external flash mounted at the top of the bracket. These cords are usually specific to your camera body type and strobe type, so check into it first to make sure you're getting the right kind. If your flash and camera support wireless communications, you can use that too instead of a cord; the distance is short enough that I've never run into a signal problem. But be aware that for wireless use, the camera’s on-board flash has to be up - it’s what sends the signal to the remote flash. But that onboard flash, even if you don’t specify that it should be powered for actual shots, generates enough light to lead to redeye. Anyways, if you do get one of these cords, keep in mind that they aren't cheap (although they should be), and they’re easy to break and easy to lose, so take care.

There are two main kind of flash brackets - flash-rotating and camera-rotating. They each do one thing: help you change orientation from horizontal to vertical. Flash rotating brackets are the more common type, where you can turn the camera vertical and then twist the arm around so that the flash is still above the camera, instead of on the side. With camera-rotating brackets, the flash always stays put at the top, but the actual camera - mounted on a special plate - rotates within the bracket.

I have a Tiffen Stroboframe camera-rotating bracket like the one shown on the right. So far, so good - although I haven't beaten on it that hard yet. One bonus with this type of bracket - you can set the entire rig down on a flat surface, and it'll all stand upright on its own. With flash-rotating brackets, you typically can't do that because of the wingnut on the bottom side of the bracket; everything must lay on its side in a very wobbly fashion.