Shooting with Church Restrictions

Wow! What a great forum! This is my first post and I am looking

for your input.

 

I will be photographing my third wedding in April, the first was

outdoors, the second was in a bright church and this third one is in

a moderately lit church with a few restrictions..

 

Once the procession is complete, the photographer "retires" to the

rear of the sanctuary or balcony, and must stay there until the

signing of the register. Also, no flash is to be used until the

signing of the register.

 

I've been to the church once to do some test shots. I had my D70

and a Nikon 70-200VR lens. In order to get enough light into the

scene and be at a 40-60th of a second, I had the lens wide open at

F2.8, but found that I had to shoot at ISO640 or 800. I'm concerned

about noise, but have not used Neat Image or the like.. would

running the photos through this software eliminate the noise and is

it easy to use? Also, I'd prefer to shoot at a 6oth+ to freeze the

motion without the flash.

 

Can someone with more experience please shed some light (literally)

on the best way to handle these situations in digital photography?

 

Many Thanks!

No simple, quiet solution...

 

 

 

You might consider (zing) finding a way to acquire a Leica M6 (or whichever one you can locate) for a more stealthy way to shoot during the 'quiet time' needed by the church organization.

You will probably find that 1/40th is fine in most cases. During a ceremony there is little 'action' to freeze. As to the noise, neat image or noise ninja work well and once applied I go to the edit menu and fade to about 2/3 of the applied amount of noise filtering.

 

I have used a 70-200is and a 70-300DO IS with great results. Set up a mono or tripod and time the shots to be 'static' ones. It works great and I've shot at 200+mm with 1/30th and been acceptably sharp up to 8x10 in a print.

<i>"I'm concerned about noise, but have not used Neat Image or the like.. would running the photos through this software eliminate the noise and is it easy to use?"</i>

<p>Last I checked the demo version of NeatImage is a free download. Any particular reason you can't download it and try it for yourself, and draw your own conclusions?

Get a tripod and cable release for your camera. Also consider a small step ladder to get up

above the seated guests when located at the rear of a church.

 

Wedding ceremonies aren't an action venue, so just timing the shots will allow you to

shoot as low as ISO 200 and more like 400 most of the time. I'm shooting an identical

situation on Saturday with a Canon 70-200/2.8 IS. It'll be on a tripod and I'll use a cable

release like I've done a hundred times in the past. Works every time.<div></div>

Mandy, if you go to my portfolio, the B&W shot of the back of the bride's dress was shot with a D-70 with 70-200 VR lens at 200mm, ISO 1250 at 1/25 F2.8 on a monpod. I don't think you'll hvae any problems. Good luck and post your results so we can all enjoy and learn. Paul

PS. During rehersal, I shot some test pics with this setup hand held and was able to get very sharp results. I used the monopod during the actual wedding for insurance, belt and suspenders, so to speak. Paul

I never quite get this. In Australia almost all weddings have no issues with photogs during the ceremony. You are almost always allowed up past the front pew, and if you establish rapport with the minister there is generally only one rule. No flash until they kiss. I shot a baptism yesterday in a Coptic Orthodox church where the priest waved me into the altar area behind a curtain, hidden from the congregation view. Just me, the priest, both parents and child. I think they want religious elements of ceremonies to be recorded perhaps in the hope it will become more a part of the individual's life.<div></div>

I would say if this is your 3rd wedding that you may need to be prepared for most of them to be this way. Almost all churches I have dealt with require no flash during cermony and even in the ones that will, I do not use it during the service to be less distracting. I shoot 800-1600 at 1/60th. With 1 to 2 stops of exposure compensation to work with, I tend to get great exposures and if not, I correct with photoshop. I clean my noise up with noise ninja's photoshop plug in which is wonderful and yes it really cleans it up.

When I have to shoot at 800 ISO with my D100 I use imagenomic's noiseware profesional software.

 

I usually set it up as an action in photoshop. So that it opens the file runs the noise reduction and then sharpens with PK sharpener. Then the action saves the file in a new folder and then closes it.

 

Works well for me. If I have a bunch to do I will set up a batch action and get it started and then leave my computer alone for an hour or so.

 

Michael