Help! What F stop for low-light ceremony wedding??

<p>I am shooting a wedding for a friend this weekend. I have visited the church, it is low lighting, of course. I am semi-new to photography, and wedding photography to boot, and I want to know what F stop I should be shooting at.</p>

<p>The church is very low light, no flash allowed, no tripod.</p>

<p>I have a wide angle 12-24mm f4, 50mm f1.8, and a 50-150mm f2.8. I shoot with a Nikon D90.</p>

<p>When I went to the church I used the 50-150mm at around 80mm at f2.8 to get some practice shots, since the 50mm did not get me close enough to get detailed photos from where I am allowed to stand during the ceremony. I was able to get good enough lighting with ISO around 1600. Better at 2500 of course, but I don't want to go that high. I am considering +1 exposure with lower ISO and then reduce exposure in photoshop to help with shadow noise. But after looking at the practice shots, I am starting to wonder about depth of field.</p>

<p>I was shooting at f2.8 simply because it would allow me the most light on my 50-150mm, but at the same time, I am afraid that the shots will not be sharp enough. Does that make sense? Bare with me, this is sort of new. I always read that portrait shots, and shots where you want to get a good amount of detail in peoples faces should be anywhere from f5.6-f11. I don't think its possible for me to shoot at that though, since it would kill my light. Do you think it is possible to get good sharp photos of Bride walking down the isle, vows, Bride/Groom walking back down isle at f2.8 at around 80mm from about 15-20feet away?? I honestly don't understand how to figure out Fstop in regards to how far you are from the subject.</p>

<p> I also am unsure about what shutter speed I should be shooting at. In the church my practice shots where at 250 to make sure I got all the details in focus when my stand-in walked down the isle, etc. Is that too high?<br>

Thank you to anyone and everyone who can help me figure this out.</p>

<p>Please do not take this personally, but the fact that you are asking this question is Exhibit A when it comes to why you should not be the primary photographer at this event.<br>

This is sub-Photography 101.<br>

Again, nothing personal. You are simply out of your league on this.</p>

<p>Ashley, I would check with the church. Ordinarily, processionals and recessionals allow flash. If they don't allow tripods, I would bring a monopod to give you an extra F stop or two. The use of proper F stop depends on the ISO and the speed on the lens and your artistic intent. 2.8 should very often be OK if you use 1600 ISO. Groups should be shot with a flash.</p>

<p>Kurt is right - you should not shoot a wedding (at least not as the primary photographer) if you do not know the answer to those questions. No disrespect, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime event and bad pictures can surely ruin it. I have been photographing for over 30 years as a very serious amateur, but I would not dare to take on a wedding - it is one of the toughest job to take on as a photographer.</p>

<p>Hi Ashley: Pay attention to posts above. You are not ready to be the primary photography for a wedding. If you must, then shoot raw and set ISO at 1600, aperture at 2.8 or 4.0 and shutter at 1/30 or 1/60. Shoot Raw. Please do not shoot JPEG format. Use photoshop to process photos. . When are in church say some prayers. I do not know if you can do any better. Good luck. Sandy </p>

<p>Technically true, Kurt, others, but this is the Beginner Forum. The purpose of this forum is to offer solutions to beginners, not just discouragement. Those replies may be more appropriate to other forums. But not here. Specific, informative answers are welcomed here. This is the very reason why we have the Beginner Forum.</p>

<p>Needless to say, shoot raw. While I'm a big fan of shooting JPEGs only when appropriate (casual events I shoot for free, kids playing outdoors in daylight, or anytime I know I'll need thousands of rapid fire sequence shots for special projects such as animated GIFs), this isn't one of those occasions. You'll need all the data you can get to work with during editing.</p>

<p>Ashley, there's no specific relationship between aperture and distance as you've described it. Assuming the subject is consistently illuminated, an exposure of (as an example) 1/60th @ f/2.8 with a 100mm lens will be the same with any focal length. And the exposure will be the same at 1 foot away or 20 feet away.</p>

<p>I'm assuming you don't plan to use flash for the most important photos. That's probably best if either you don't have a fully compatible Nikon TTL flash (SB-600, SB-800 or SB-900), or don't have experience with flash in difficult conditions such as indoors under mixed lighting. You can use the D90's pop-up flash for casual snapshots before and after. Even with posed group shots it'll be okay, not great, but okay as long as you don't pose people with their backs against a wall. Get some distance and the direct flash photos won't look so much like mug shots.</p>

<p>Try to keep the ISO at 1600 or below. The D90 has excellent low noise performance at that level. Any residual noise - chroma and luminance - can be dealt with during editing with Noiseware, Noise Ninja or other specialty software. If at all possible, shoot at ISO 800 as long as you can manage handholding steadily down to 1/30th second shutter speed. But it's better to crank up the ISO for faster shutter speeds than risk a bunch of low noise, blurry photos. You can fix noise. You can't fix blur.</p>

<p>Your plan to use +1 EV at high ISOs is generally a good idea, but beware: dynamic range decreases at high ISOs and there's a greater risk of blowing out detail in highlights such as the bride's veil and gown. At ISO 1600 I'd suggest +1/3 or +2/3 EV with matrix or center weighted averaging metering and any of the auto exposure modes - program, aperture or shutter priority. That's what I usually do with my D2H, reserving the +1 EV exposure comp for ISO 3200-6400.</p>

<p>Count on shooting wide open with most of your lenses. Your f/2.8 zoom will be used mostly at f/2.8 - if you can get f/4, you'll be lucky. It all depends on the lighting at the venue, which can vary tremendously. And don't count on the lighting during the rehearsal to match the ceremony. I've been on the "oops" end of some unpleasant surprises when I set a custom white balance based on lighting during the rehearsal only to find the lighting during the ceremony was completely different and nobody was available to reset the lights.</p>

<p>Don't count on depth of field to compensate for focus accuracy. You'll need to aim for pinpoint focus accuracy on the most important person - usually the bride - in every shot and not worry about getting everything in sharp focus. Fortunately, an advantage to the DX sensor is greater effective DOF compared with 35mm film or FX (an oversimplification of what's going on, but good enough for our purposes). You only need to worry about getting everyone in sharp focus for posed shots of the couple and groups. For those, either use flash with the aperture set to around f/8, or use a tripod.</p>

<p>Your f/4 wide angle zoom will be tricky. Two problems: (1) flare from overhead lights and wall mounted sconces; (2) the meter may be fooled into underexposure by those same lights. You can't do much about the flare problem, other than use a hood and don't use any filter, including a protective or UV filter. Take 'em off.</p>

<p>Metering is easier to resolve. Meter off the faces of the couple. As long as the lighting in the church doesn't vary significantly, that reading should be good for all of your lenses. If you are in the same lighting as the couple, meter off your open palm held at an angle slightly back from vertical. Lock the exposure on that. That will be close enough to accurate and will minimize the risk of bright lights fooling the camera into underexposure. Compare meter readings for the same scenes between your 50-150/2.8 zoom, 12-24/4 zoom and 50/1.8. If you get a reading of, say, 1/60th @ f/2.8 with the 50-150 and 50mm, and 1/125th @ f/4 with the 12-24 zoom, you know your meter is lying to you. It's seeing the bright lights in the frame and compensating for them.</p>

<p>But most interior lighting can vary between pools of light and shadow up to 2 EV, sometimes more. So you'll have to either compensate quickly, trust the meter or shoot only when the people are in the brighter areas. Study the lighting, meter the floor to determine where the brighter and darker areas are. Don't trust your eyes. You may not recognize a 1 EV difference in illumination, but the camera will.</p>

<p>If all of this seems like information overload, use aperture priority. Set the aperture to wide open or no more than one stop down from wide open. Use three-shot bracketing in 1/3 or 2/3 EV, plus and minus, to improve your chances of getting one really good exposure per three-shot sequence. Take lots of three-shot bursts. Don't count on getting more than that in focus with moving subjects. In my experience with the D2H, which has very fast AF, three shots is about the most I can hope to get in sharp focus with moving subjects in rapid fire sequence shots, unless I'm panning and there's little change in distance. So stick with three-shot bracketing.</p>

<p>My simplest solution would be to shoot wide open and focus carefully. My top concern in these conditions would be to avoid camera and subject movement, and the fastest possible shutter speed (at the appropriate f/stop for the ISO and lighting conditions) would give the best odds of this. </p>

<p>I usually try not to go above 800 actually 400 ISO is my favorite for weddings. If you decide to use 1600, or above the pictures might come out OK if you want to make 4X6 prints, but when you start blowing them up to 8X10 and above you might run into some noise.<br>

The D90 is a very nice camera, but is not a champion of low-light photography. The good thing is that since the D90 is a cropped camera, the 50mm lens becomes the equivalent of an 80mm FF camera. That might be good enough for certain shots, but at ISO 800 your shutter speed still might be in the range of 30-60 seconds depending on the lighting, which leaves allot of room for camera shake and blurry pictures. Good Luck !</p>

<p>BTW, Ashley, you'll find some excellent illustrated tutorials for available light and flash photos of brides, along with some basic posing guidelines, on the <a href="http://ny.webphotoschool.com/"><strong>NY Web Photo School</strong> </a> site. It's one of the best sites around for illustrating how to accomplish these basics.</p>

<p>Another is <a href="http://www.planetneil.com/"><strong>Neil van Niekerk's planet.neil</strong> </a> site. Lots of nifty tips from a fellow who's got the hang of balancing traditional and trendy wedding photography, along with specific tips for techniques. I've borrowed a lot of ideas from his site.</p>

<p>I'm with Kurt on this one.</p>

<p>Call your friend, plead ``mea culpa,'' explain that you didn't quite realize what you're getting yourself into. Offer to split the costs of a pro photographer, perhaps.</p>

<p>And then take your gear to the wedding. Stay out of the pro's way, but stay close by. Observe what the pro does. Take shots -- especially keep your eye out for interesting things that the pro isn't shooting, like Aunt Martha in the fourth row dabbing her eyes with a hankie. But treat it as a learning exercise first, and any good shots you happen to get out of it a secondary bonus.</p>

<p>As to some specifics...low light will pretty much demand wide-open apertures and high ISO. Good stabilization and technique can let you stop down a bit or drop the ISO, but, if you don't know how, you're not going to learn in the next couple days -- not enough to get the critical shots. A monopod is good. You can use a folded-up tripod as a monopod if need be. You can lean against a wall or a pillar for support, or rest the camera on the back of a chair or a pew. you need good shutter release technique -- relaxed breathing, slowly and steadily squeeze the trigger, actuate the shutter between breaths. If you've got the space on your card, shoot bursts -- it's a poor man's IS, with the thought that you've got a chance of catching the camera at the extremes of its range of motion.</p>

<p>The ``right'' aperture depends on the end result you want, the equipment you're using, the distance to your subject, the light you're working with, and so on. The proper aperture for one shot may be a few stops different from the shot taken a few seconds earlier -- even if it's the same subject. Two photographers might be standing side-by-side and press the shutter at the same time -- and both get good or excellent shots -- and have different apertures set on their cameras.</p>

<p>That you don't know how to select the aperture...well, it all but guarantees that you (and the bride) will regret relying upon your (non-existent) skills to shoot the wedding. Simply reading some guidelines about what aperture to use for portrait photography just won't cut the mustard; you have to *know,* before you press the shutter, what aperture you want and why. You have to know what the end result will look like before you see it. And, the only way to know that...is by doing it. A lot.</p>

<p>Good luck...you'll need it, either way....</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>b&</p>

<p>"I have visited the church" ... you went there without your camera ? ... well, seems you are not a wedding photographer yet ? ... otherwise you would have known by now what aperture, shutter and ISO is needed there.</p>

<p>Go back there again with your D90 and shoot without flash and your lenses, shoot best you can and find answer for yourself if you need to rent faster lenses or VR lenses.</p>

<p>No tripod is allowed, but ask if a monopod could be used ? ...afterall disabled and older people do use canes or walking sticks in churches, so a monopod is not much different and coul possibly be allowed? If monopod is disallowed ask possibly what would be church "donation" to use a monopod - believe me it works sometimes. </p>

<p>Since flash is not allowed, do not count on it. You could possibly encounter wedding guests that will pull snap cameras out of a "hat" and start using flash. What will you do then ? observe if you could join the unruly guests and possibly get expelled from the church, and not being able to complete your work ?</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Ouch.<br>

Well, I guess I have to thank the people who have gone out of their way to give me some direction. I am new to photography, and while completely possible that I am not capable of shooting this wedding, the reason these friends asked me to is because they have seen other wedding images I have shot. Maybe completley by accident I have created shots that actual looked good in the past and have people, to my surprize as well, saying "wow, I wish she would have done my wedding". I have NO technical training with photography, only things I have read and tried on my own, and I am obviously CONSTANTLY learning. These people know this about me, I have let them know that I am NO PROFESSIONAL, and I don't know my way around a camera the way a professional they could hire would. Yet, even with knowing this, they still want me to do it.</p>

<p>I basically know what to do with this wedding, I have done them before, I spend hours preparing over the weeks coming up, but I turned to this forum because I do not have the formal training with a camera, and I thought "hey, its the beginners forum, maybe I will just ask this basic question to see if I am doing something wrong. Or maybe if there is a better way." Apparently, I got my answer.</p>

<p>I am an amatuer photographer (im sure most of you would say, "not even that!"), but I have enough people knowing this about me and still liking my images enough that they ask me to do this, and they ask me to post my photos somewhere. </p>

<p> My full name is Ashley Alice Elizabeth Soet. aliceelizabethphotography.com - I have a website sortof, you can look at some of the photos I have taken, maybe it will make me seem like less of an idiot for shooting this wedding...since I felt like one after reading all of these posts. My stuff is far from perfect or professional...perhaps even far from amature in your opinion. I am sure everyone who commented here could critique the sh*t out of my photos and make me feel even worse, and point out a million things that are wrong with them...but the people who have "hired" me have been happy. And I am constantly striving to get better.</p>

<p>And at the same time, I welcome everything here. Even the things that made me feel stupid for doing this...I am grateful to pretty much everything (maybe not EVERYTHING...) here because I came to this forum to get help. I have no technical training, I have been doing this for 6 months, and for some reason people still want me to photograph their weddings. Sure I could tell them no, I am not experienced enough, but there response is "here is your chance." And I say, "are you sure about this?" ...and they say yes. Somehow I have stumbled through and had "success" with the little knowledge I am working off of. I have been successful when it comes to my friends opinions I mean, so at this point, I am getting more serious about it, and I want to REALLY KNOW technically what I am doing, not just doing something intuitively with the camera. I know what I need to learn now.<br>

Thanks for any help.</p>

 

<p>Ashley, photo.net's Beginner Forum is the appropriate place for questions like yours. It is why this forum was created.</p>

<p>As one of the moderators (I'm only one of several on this forum), I apologize if you felt discouraged by some replies here. Not everyone is familiar with the <a href="../beginner-photography-questions-forum">guidelines for this forum*</a> so occasionally well-meaning experienced photographers forget to shift gears from dealing with experienced pros, where hard-nosed advice is often appropriate, to mentoring beginners. The latter demands a lot more patience and a different mindset. Since many photo.netters use the <a href="unified/">Unified Forum View</a> to access the forums, they may overlook the forum-specific categories into which discussions are conducted. So something may be lost in translation if the viewer forgets to check which forum they're replying to.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>*This forum is intended to be used by beginners who have basic photographic questions. For the most part, these should be about photographic technique or theory. "What should I buy" type questions stand a good chance of being sent to a forum dealing with that specific sort of equipment. Critique requests should be made in the <a href="../photo-critique-forum">Photo Critique forum</a> .<br /> Rude or unhelpful posts will be deleted, and rude and unhelpful posters will be suspended from the forum. Threads that don't fit the "beginner" designation will be moved to a more appropriate forum.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Ashley,</p>

<p>I just took a look through your gallery. Though it's not the best wedding gallery I've seen, it's actually pretty good. You have an eye for photography, which is something that perhaps can't be taught, and there's more that's technically right in your pictures than worng. If there's one piece of advice I'd offer, it's to pay more attention to the non-subject elements in the frame; more than one shot could have been significantly improved by avoiding or de-emphasizing distractions in the background. One way to do that is with a wider aperture, the question you asked about....</p>

<p>So, since you've been up-front with your clients and since you've got talent, I'd say you should go through with it.</p>

<p>But I'd also recommend hitting the books pretty hard, right away. There's a lot of ``Photography 101'' things you need to know if you're going to be serious about being a wedding photographer, and you'll never feel comfortable doing it unless you know them. (Of course, you'll want to break lots of rules on occasion, but you need to know what the rules are before you can break them intelligently.)</p>

<p>And, of course, practice, practice, practice. The book learning is essential, but it's useless without trying it out ``in real life.''</p>

<p>Submit a bunch of your pictures to the critique forum and -- most importantly -- specifically ask for brutally-honest feedback, especially about whatever it was you were trying to get right.</p>

<p>As for getting the proper exposure this weekend...well, in addition to everything everybody's already written, let me add: you're shooting digital. You've got instant feedback. Use it, shamelessly. (It's called, ``chimping.'') Two things in particular to look for: exposure and depth of field (focus). For exposure, rely on the histogram. You've got plenty of time between now and the wedding to Google everything you need to know about reading histograms, and even a bit of time to experiment with it. Focus is easy: zoom in as much as the preview will let you and scroll around. Pay particular attention to the eyes. You'll have no trouble telling if the focus is off, and you'll also be able to judge if you want more or less of the image in focus. If more, close the aperture (and slow the shutter or boost the ISO to maintain exposure); the opposite if less.</p>

<p>Also well worth working on between now and the wedding is camera shake. Take some pictures with almost-too-slow shutter speeds so you can quickly recognize what it looks like, and practice the shooting techniques I described above. You'll be shooting in low light, which means slow shutter speeds, which makes this particularly important.</p>

<p>So, all in all, I don't think you're in a very comfortable position, but I don't think you're screwed, either. As you're just starting a new business you really, really don't want to screw things up, especially not in a way that will drive away new clients. You should be able to make it through this wedding okay, and then cram, cram, cram before the next one.</p>

<p>You might also want to give some serious thought to seeing if any of the local pros would use you as an assistant. I can't think of a better way to learn, and you'd get paid for it as well!</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

<p>b&</p>

<p> Alice E., what a pleasant surprise your site was! Frankly, after your questions, I expected much, much worse. You <em>do </em> have a good eye for weddings. Watch your backgrounds and bright tones. Only six months? Not bad at all. Take a beginning photography class at the nearest Jr. college, and/or find a mentor. Dive into the technical, learn it until it's like breathing, then it gets out of your way.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

<p>"I always read that portrait shots, and shots where you want to get a good amount of detail in peoples faces should be anywhere from f5.6-f11."</p>

<p>Stop reading and start testing, practicing, and learning. See what <strong>your</strong> photos look like shot at max aperture. Have some prints made. Don't worry about the doom and gloom predicted by the legion of internet, photo-geeks. See for yourself. You might be surprised.</p>

<p> </p>

What Matt said. Most lenses are said to be at their very sharpest at f/8. That doesn't mean that you aren't going to get sharp photos at f/2.8. Find someone to pose and take some identical shots at f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8 etc. Compare the results at 100%. That should help to put your mind at ease.

 

1/250 sec shutter speed would be good to freeze action if the bride is running down the aisle to get there before the groom changes his mind. Otherwise, 1/60 sec should be good for the normal slow procession and standing at the altar. If using 80mm focal length, I would use 1/100 sec to minimize camera motion blur. Hold the camera very steady anyway and press the shutter gently.

<p>Lenses may be sharper stopped down but you wouldn't want to ruin a shot with blur for incremental lens sharpness. Motion blur or camera shake will destroy a picture with much more certainty than a little noise or shooting a lens at sub-optimal aperture. Same goes for noise--would you rather have a shot irreparably damaged due to insufficient depth-of-field, or do some additional post-processing to de-emphasize noise? This is not to say you should shoot everything at max ISO--just that these things should be considered when balancing risks.</p>