lessons from a sibling's wedding - Lessons Learned

The wedding for this thread:<br>

<a href=http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00Q41l>http://www.photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00Q41l</a>

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happened this weekend, so I thought I'd post up lessons I learned to help anyone else who is in this situation:<p>

 

- always take two shots because people blink their eyes too fast, even

though I'm not using e/i/p-ttl's double flash (I was running in auto-thyristor mode)

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- find a good place to keep your camera handy w/ flash mounted because

it takes too long to put it back together if you throw it in your bag

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- you can't always match white balance (the church had fluoro lights

but daylight streaming through the window and the banquet had incandescent

lights but the videographer was using his light on people) but you can convert these to B&W and Sepia

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- flashes can't overpower the mixed lighting in a big area, so it's best to match them to existing lighting

(wouldn't have worked too well in this case because the videographer was shining his lighting on the bride/groom)

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- count down to picture taking so people know to pay attention to you (I

didn't do this at the start and just raised my hand)

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- there is such a thing as groomzilla ("why didn't you count down when taking pictures of people so they wouldn't

close their eyes?", "why didn't you take pictures of the formals?", "why didn't you take more photos?" etc.);

this goes with "don't do a wedding if you're part of the primary wedding party". He blew off my comment that I

didn't want to mess up the paid photog's formal shots or screw up his schedule :-P

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- try to ignore it when the bride says "make sure you take lots of photos of meeeeeeee" instead of "us" :-)

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- take artsy shots (close up and portraits, which are hard for me because I usually do landscape photos) before

everything starts because you just don't have time to do them when everything gets going

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- practice more on groups of people before the wedding...I thought practicing on the our relatives' kids would be

enough since that's a good simulation of herding cats, but taking photos of groups of people involves different

dynamics

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- if you want to get a Tamron 28-75 for the wedding, do it a month or two beforehand...I went 0 for 3 (BF issues,

weird fuzziness, etc) and ended up using my Sigma 17-70 most of the time

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What I found interesting was the photographer used a 5D at a max ISO of

640 (I was running 800 at the church to get my 50/1.4 up to 1/60th of a sec)

and he didn't use a bracket. He just used a lightsphere w/ the top off and

aimed it in different directions (never pointing it at his subject). I'm still curious how well he did at the church

because I thought nothing would work short of lightstands/umbrellas placed

at a few corners and I used ghetto diffuser, direct flash (looked like a P&S),

bouncing off everything, light on a stick, etc. He only used one lens for

the entire wedding (a 24-70 L). The videographer lit up his subjects so the

5D could focus faster. And he did focus-recompose like I did.

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Here's how dark the church looks (the shot is interesting because the bride's sister was running all over the

place helping out during the wedding and the motion blur implies this):<br>

<img src=http://inlinethumb23.webshots.com/42134/2787232160030340207S600x600Q85.jpg>

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This was the best I could do using a single flash (the other shots were more blown out w/ dark backgrounds):<br>

<img src=http://inlinethumb24.webshots.com/23319/2401457440030340207S600x600Q85.jpg>

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I was able to use my Sigma 10-20 since the paid photog covered the portrait and artsy shots:<br>

<img src=http://inlinethumb43.webshots.com/41770/2520478480030340207S600x600Q85.jpg>

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Example of the weird mixed lighting at the church using my 50/1.4 (this image will be converted to B&W or Sepia):<br>

<img src=http://inlinethumb01.webshots.com/41728/2036155050030340207S600x600Q85.jpg>

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One of my favorite pics that I adjusted white balance on (the others haven't been PP'd). It has a cool

"Sopranos" feel to it:<br>

<img src=http://inlinethumb25.webshots.com/41240/2765925970030340207S600x600Q85.jpg>

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All photos are straight RAW->JPG conversion except the last one. I have to crop/tweak a bunch of photos to make

into a photobook as a gift for the couple.

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As for whether I'd do this again...I think I'd rather be taking photos of sunsets while being eaten alive by

mosquitos... :-P

 

I think you pulled it off technically with what you were trying to achieve. Will that be good enough for groomzilla? I gather you handled the interaction and dual roles well. I might have fancied telling the groom that his welcome for asking any favors in the future had worn out, but its not the time or place. If you get complaints later, well...

 

Good job!

So, sounds like you're saying that covering a wedding is alot tougher than it first may appear. Congrats on surviving the experience.

 

I would like to comment on a couple of things though. For me, nothing says non-pro more than counting down to take the shot....it takes more time and gives the blinkers a perfect cue to blink. A good pro shoots with both eyes open and can generally catch the blinks and routinely takes the extra shots to cover blinks that might have been missed.

 

Also, when the bride says to be sure to take lots of shots of her.....that's not a suggestion, that's often exactly what she wants and you need to deliver it. While it's importatnt to try to balance the coverage with both sides of the family, friends and guests, never forget that the bride is the star. OTOH, be sure not to neglect coverage of the groom even though the groom will often be less enthusiastic with the photo ops.

Dual responsibilities were a bit hard to juggle but the paid photog popped up at the right times. I did make it

clear to the paid photog that he should tell me to get out of the way if I'm in his way because I understand he's

paid and I'm not and I thought me doing this was a bad idea.

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And groomzillas also don't understand the professional etiquette issues about formals and how photogs usually

charge for them. :-P

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It was a learning experience and quite a bit harder than I expected. I think most people would need about 3-4

practice sessions before being "ok" at it, and a thinktank belt system would be very helpful if you need to swap

gear (my bag was just at the wrong place at the wrong time)...

LOL. I was thinking about the counting and blinking too. I'm a blinker and it's my cue as well ;-) I've never been able to shoot photos with both eyes open.

<br>The bride saying the "me" thing is not that surprising but there were family issues at play (another reason you shouldn't do your sibling's wedding unless you can emotionally distance yourself).

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For folks who have done really dark churches, what do you end up doing for lighting? I forgot to ask in the original post. The paid photog did all the formals in front of the altar as well and I never would have tried that w/o extra strobes...

You're under about two stops on the first image, one on the third and maybe 1/2 on the 4th. Looking at first and third your camera exposed for the highlights (chandeliers, sky) and let you go hang yourself on the rest. On the 4th shot the light from the window is correctly exposed I can clearly see the pop from the fill flash in the bride tapering off to the background, you still appear to be under exposed in the bride though. I think this might be a processing issue. Try upping the contrast a tad bit.

 

Looking at that church (high dark roof) I'd say the best bet would be bounce flash off one of the white walls with a white card to bounce light forward into the subject. Not sure what the range of motion on a 580EX II is. I'm guessing that for a horizontal shot a Gary Fong might be the only way to direct the light. Did you shoot with direct flash (possibly from an on camera flash unit)? That would explain the blown highlights.

For the church photos, I didn't use a flash except during rehearsal testing where everything pretty much looked like brightly lit people in a dark cave no matter what I tried (direct flash, flash on stick, DIY/ghetto diffuser, bounced off ceiling, etc.).

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For the wedding photos, the first one w/ the bride's sister being a busy bee was done w/ a sigma 10-20 without flash so it's no surprise it's pretty underexposed.

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The bride down the aisle was done w/o a flash using a 50/1.4; the light you see on her is the light from the videographer. You can see the wacky mixed lighting...incandescent from the chandeliers, daylight from windows, and daylight from videographer.

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The paid photog used a fong lightsphere, but never aimed the open top at anyone...it was nearly always pointed straight up. I think he was using it mostly as a fill flash though I have no clue how he can compensate for the mixed lighting. I'll post a few pics from him when they're available in a week or so.

Sigh, note to Stephen, don't assume that a light source at the front of the subject is coming from the photographer. Your camera exposed you for the window then. Let me guess ETTL metering? Try switching to a more classic center weighted scheme if you can. Did you try bounce flash with a white card to throw forward, using rear curtain synch with exposure set to allow for at least some ambient lighting (i.e. not up around f/8 to get more DoF since you're using a flash). Except for direct sunlight, a powerful flash will normally win out over any other lighting source when it comes to light intensity. I'll give you though that it sounds like you where shooting in a cave.

 

That 17-70 is a 2.8-4.5 right. That's a 1 1/3 stops from full wide to full zoom. The difference between ISO 640 and ISO 800 about 1/2 stop. I'm not familiar with all the characteristics of the 17-70 but the other shooter had about a 1 stop advantage on you through most of your zoom. Your 10-20 4-5.6 is, at the end of it's zoom, two stops slower then a 24-70/2.8. If your under a half stop under at 4 the guy with a 2.8 is going to be on and it's just going to get worse as you push through the zoom to 5.6.

 

Dark venue + slow glass = flash needs to blast to expose properly.

Nope, no e-TTL metering..it's a Pentax K10D using matrix metering. I did try bounce flash w/ white card but didn't use rear curtain sync (I'm using a Nikon SB-28 on the K10D so my only choice was auto-thyristor mode or full manual)...cave shooting.

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Thanks for the slow glass analysis...the 17-70 is 2.8 from 17-20, then 3.5 from 20-30 and 4 from 30-50, so it was probably sitting at 4 to 5.6 most of the time. That was probably the other big mistake I did...I should have let it run wide open as much as possible instead of stopping down by 1. Oh well...it was a learning experience...

Now you know why pros get paid what they do.......there's more to it than just showing up with decent gear...it's having the technical training and knowledge to instantly assess your lighting and make on the spot adjustments and having the proper equipment to make those adjustments.

George: I knew that already. I told my brother I'm a landscape photographer and am not good at the herding cats thing...my gear reflects that as well (weatherproofed, slow lenses, tripod, etc.)...people who don't understand just think you have a big camera and you can take good photos. As for knowing the proper adjustments, it's mostly experience IMHO, which is why I said I think I'd be just "ok" after 3 weddings...I think I understand how to fix the "shot in cave" thing but have to fire some test shots to confirm. My landscape photography is currently just ok as well but I'm pretty critical of my photos...