First time wedding photographer requesting album review

<p>Greetings to my fellow photo.net photographers.<br>

I am making this post to ask your opinion on my very first shoot as a the solo wedding photographer. Prior to this my experience as a wedding photographer was limited to two events in which the B&G asked me to take candids at the wedding because they knew I dabbled in photography, but I was not paid and at both events there was a professional photographer whom took the majority of photos. I would like very much to make this a business and am looking to improve where I can, so please be honest and truthful. I am very used to creative criticism so don't feel like you have sugar coat it for me, I can take it straight.<br>

<a href="http://skyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=19316734&AlbumKey=XWbCWK">http://skyphoto.smugmug.com/photos/swfpopup.mg?AlbumID=19316734&AlbumKey=XWbCWK</a><br>

Gear used:<br>

Cameras: A pair of Nikon D3s's<br>

Lenses: Primarily the 50mm F/1.4 on one body and the 200mm F/2.0 on the other, occasionally a 24mm F/1.4 and the 135mm F/2<br>

Flashes\lighting: None<br>

This was a favor for a friend, at that time I didn't want to get into shooting weddings, but since I was attending anyways and I was able to borrow the gear, I figured why not? The day was mostly cloudy, making even a reflector next to useless, and I had no flash of any kind, not even in the camera. At this wedding the bride did not allow me to get into shoot with her while she was getting ready, and the couple shared no first dance (although the Bride & her father shared a wonderful dance which is in the album). This is also a Wyoming wedding where blue jeans, boots, & cowboy hats, even at a wedding, are perfectly acceptable (as long its your best pair of blue jeans :)<br>

I welcome any and all kinds of criticism, if you wish to talk about one photo, the whole album, a particular style, framing, post, technique, something I'm missing, whatever; I'm all ears.<br>

Naturally I'll be picking up an SB-900 or two & a set of Pocketwizards before my next shoot, my gear variation is very different as all the above listed gear was borrowed, but I can get comparable results with my present setup.<br>

Thank you all very much for your time, I look forward to hearing your comments.<br>

Sincerely,<br>

Skyler</p>

<p>Skyler...I was not signed in when I saw your post, but I did sign in just to let you know that I think you did a fantastic job! Others may offer more specific critique, but your stuff looks great to me.</p>

<p>Skyler,</p>

<p>This is a really good job overall, first wedding or not. My comments so far:<br /> 1. It seems that you shoot wide open most of the time. I have found that stopping down a bit more, at least in some images, enables increased depth of field, adding relevance and context to the image. Also, some of the images are a tad soft, I suspect because the DOF <em>is</em> so narrow. Food for thought.<br /> 2. The white balance in your evening reception images (outdoors) seems a tad off, with a definite green haze in most of the images.<br /> 3. In post processing, I think your B&W conversions could use just a bit more contrast</p>

<p>Your work already displays a high level of technical ability and a good eye. You used your tools well, and all sans flash, which is no mean feat. Looking forward to seeing more of your work... Well done, Skyler!</p>

<p>Agree, well done. Your composition, camera angle and framing is very nice. I have seen people who don't do half this good on their 20th wedding.</p>

<p>Mark's comments are good.</p>

<p>I think the cloudiness worked to your advantage here. For next time, be sure to practice in direct sun with fill flash or reflectors.</p>

<p>I too will agree you did a good job (and will second Mark's comments on the conversions - they need a lot more work). One thing which kinda kicked me in the face a bit were the indoor shots - I cannot see exactly how you did it, but I got the impression of a bare flash (or something) and that robs them a bit in terms of quality. With a couple of D3s and the lenses you mentioned, it's easy to take soft and nice images outdoors...indoors is a different issue altogether...</p>

<p>Work a bit on that and you will be fine...;-)</p>

<p>Well done...;-)</p>

<p>Martin: Thanks for the encouragement :)</p>

<p>Mark: Yes, I was so excited to shoot with a 200mm F/2 I got a little over zealous with F/2! Also since the lighting was so flat I was trying to give my images a 3D look, however for most of the shots I agree its way too narrow DOF. The ugly green is courtesy of a nasty street light shining in through the windows of the reception hall. Any tips how to remove one color in post? This is my first experience with B&W conversions, and I can see they are rough around the edges, any tips where I can find a good resource to read on making the conversion?</p>

<p>Matthew: Yes the cloudiness was in some ways a huge blessing. I was disappointed because I didn't want flat images, but the flip side it makes lighting real easy. Once I get those 900's I'll be sure to do some tests in nasty sunlight.</p>

<p>Marios: Yes, the indoor shots are weak aren't they? At least compared to the outdoors ones. I should have mentioned for those initial shots I had a Kino Flo Diva 400, which is a professional florescent light, but more for video work than photos. Its output is really weak compared to a flash and its a soft light. The museum was almost completely dark as it only had a couple of windows and it was overcast, which is why it has the on camera flash look to it.</p>

<p>Thank you all for the criticisms and the compliments, you've all been very kind :). I'm looking forward to working on my weak areas and shooting my next one!</p>

<p>Skyler</p>

<p>Nice work overall. Outdoor images aren't too hard to do especially in cloudy days. Indoor is another matter altogether. Perhaps a little more processing could help to recover some of the details in the bride's dress at the beginning of your set.</p>

<p>Skyler, you've done a truly beautiful job. I love your style and hope to learn from you in the future through this forum.<br>

My only criticism is that your cropping can sometimes improve. Sometimes you have cropped off shoulders, etc., where the photo would be better if you included the whole torso, etc. Pretty minor criticism, though, considering your beautiful use of light, technical ability, and the way you captured human emotion. Kudos to you!</p>

<p>Very nicely done, good clean compositions, and most of your exposures were right on. I did notice some blown highlights, which as was mentioned above can be somewhat mitigated by stopping down a bit and a little recovery in LR or Aperture. I love the outdoor reception, although that green color cast is a bit unsightly. I've had some luck working with a orange colored fill layer at a low opacity set to color mode sometimes, but those sodium vapor lights aren't full spectrum, so you may just have to go B&W with them. In a situation like that, I would suggest adding just a splash of fill flash to get rid of the color cast without spoiling the atmosphere of the shot.<br>

All told, a very good job.</p>

<p>For your first time out very nice work. I would suggest you learn to use a flash as just a little bit of fill make a big different in posed shots to be able to get the dark out of the hollos of the eyes. You might need to work on your color balance a bit as many of the images the dress appears blue in the shadow areas and thus giving the dress a blue tent. Your B&W are not that they look grey scale so you need to work on improving the quality of those images because they are the weakest in the entire grouping. It appears that you captured the main parts quite well with exposure, DOF and focus (very important) - I just reviewed some images on another forum where not one, yes not one, was in focus. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I just reviewed some images on another forum where not one, yes not one, was in focus.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In this day and age, how can you get OOF pictures? The only reasonable explanation is that people shoot wide open and let the camera pick the focus point, and the camera picked the wrong one.</p>

Green,

A dirty Fresnel lens can be a culprit. Shooting in low light with no af assist beam as well. Incorrectly executed

dragging of the shutter, or just plain picking too slow a shutter speed. These are just to name a few.

<p>Thanks, Vail. I am often astounded by how accurate the AF is in modern cameras. Sure, OOF will happen occasionally but the photographer should have enough sense not to show those.</p>

<p>Wow, stunning shots there!</p>

<p>Skyler, I have developed some custom actions in Lightroom 3 for my B&W conversions. Rule No. 1: never use the 'convert to grayscale :)</p>

<p>One of the most important lessons I learnt though, is to start off with a well-exposed/colour balanced image. Yes B&W can be used to 'salvage' a less-than-well-exposed image but by and large, the image should hold its own in colour to begin with.</p>

<p>Before I started using LR, I learnt a great tip from Marc Williams here on PN: if you start off with the Gradient map tool in Photoshop, you have a pretty good B&W baseline image which you can then tweak. I typically would then use the curves adjustment. I have also found that a slight vignette and a subtle dodge/burn in areas you want to highlight helps narrow down the focus of the image.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"In this day and age, how can you get OOF pictures? The only reasonable explanation is that people shoot wide open and let the camera pick the focus point, and the camera picked the wrong one."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes the shooter let the camera pick the focus point - sad but the B&G have sharp as a tack sharp church doors and the bridal party is OOF. <br /> This person was shooting with a Nikon DS3 - so just goes to show... the equipment is not smarter than the brain behind it - in this case the brain was not too smart.<br /> Bride couldn't "afford" a pro - so the "friend" with the fancy camera shot it.<br /> So congrats to our new shooter who obviously has a brain and talent... nice work</p>

<p>Very nice job.. esp. for a first wedding! Excellent job on capturing the emotion! <br>

I would just echo some of the other's comments about DOF and cropping (try to leave the a little space around the shoulders), but would also add watching your backrounds. There as a nice shot of a man and an older woman that was nice, but the backs of the couple behind them was distracting... same with the nice shot of the table all set up with a car in the backround. Sure, you can remove those things in Photoshop, but it would take a lot less time to get it right in-camera. <br>

Keep up the great work! </p>

<p>Very nice work - this may have been your first wedding but you seem to be no beginner. I have a couple suggestions for improvement - first, you may want to watch the background more carefully, in a few photos (most glaringly #10, but also #18 and 45) you have people/cars in the background that detract from the photos. In #5 and #9, which are both beautiful photos, I would try to move a bit to my right to get the white shed out of the background. Second, in my opinion/to my taste, a lot of your compositions are too tight, with arms and shoulders and/or head tops cut off. I understand the difficulty of working with a 50 and 200mm primes, but I would still try to take a couple steps back to give the subjects a bit of a breathing space whenever possible. And yes, I agree with other posters about the green cast in some of the evening outdoors photos.</p>

<p>Skyler, - in the pictures #1 and #2 and #5- the white is washed out, #4 is OK, #3 - cropped hand, I also find all the photos to be overcontrasty and over-saturated in green area with bad and narrow dynamic range, (use used super fine gear) no details on the white areas, color transitions and gradations over the faces are rough and harsh. The poses and composition are so-so...</p>

<p>For a first full wedding, I think that you did a fantastic job! I like your composition and the limited depth of field. What catches my eye, negatively speaking, are the pimples/acne that I see. I would recommend that you touch up any acne/pimples. I'm not talking about major touch up of the entire face/neck, just the spots.</p>

<p>photos are very interested to collect it. the nature photos are different looks for take it. then wedding ceremony photo album is very nice collections. The photographer is have more responsibility to take a wedding photos.</p>