Problem with wedding pictures

[darlene_taylor]

I was the photographer at a wedding last Saturday. At the rehearsal my flash

(540) worked just fine. (I have the k10.) However, at the wedding I couldn't get

it to work right so I ended up just using the on camera flash. It was sooo

frustrating. I didn't change any settings, that I know of! Anyway, there was

flourescent lighting only. On several pictures I have blue lines that look like

a ghost of the overhead flourescent lights. How do I avoid it next time? Now I

need to try to fix them.

 

Also, I was doing this as mostly a gift and they knew I had never done a wedding

before. They paid me $300 and will get a cd of about 150-200 edited photos,

possibly more. They were pretty worn out by the time we got to their after

wedding photos. Beforehand we had done a bunch of pictures separately, so that

was good. I had so many more ideas, but the bride and groom seemed worn out so I

didn't get as many. They had a receiving line of 250 people to get through

before we did these pictures. So, my questions are: As a photographer, do we

have any input in the order of events at the wedding? And, if your bride and

groom seem tired by the time you get to pictures do you just do a few and let

them get on with it or do you just "force" them (nicely) to get them done?

 

I will be doing the bride's oldest brother's wedding in June so I hope to have

some of these things worked out. It was such a long day. I was worn out, ended

up with a migraine that lasted sooo long, and had to buy an external hard drive

because I ran out of room on my computer!

 

Okay, I'm going to try to upload one of those pictures I was talking about.<div></div>

[jim nichols]

If you could reduce the image size to 500 pixels in width, we might be able to view it all at once and offer comments.

[rose_duclos]

the large picture looks very 'noisy' - what iso were you shooting at?

[shambrick007]

Were you using a filter? If so, take it off next time. This can occur with strong highlights in the back ground under high contrast situations.

[cadman_cherry]

I'd use a lens hood to try and reduce the ghosting effect.

 

You can also manually fix those lines with the Burn Tool in Photoshop.

[jgredline]

Darlene,..What lens where you using? I checked the EXIF on the photo and the reason the image is noisy is not because you where shooting at ISO 1600, but because it was still underexposed. My guess is that you where still about +.7 to 1.0 away from having noise free images...None the less, all is not lost. That image you posted can be saved...You can always soften up some of the images..Soft images in wedding photos are pretty normal these days anyway.

[jgredline]

Darlene,

Here is a real quick edit. Before and after. Let me know if you want me to remove them...Great composition by the way, which is so important...

[jgredline]

<a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/'><img src='http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/3999/00p7om42830384ra4.jpg' border='0'/></a>

 

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[mcmanamey]

</a>

[mcmanamey]

ok - PEOPLE - PLEASE make sure you don't drop your anchor when linking files into the

thread! (</a>)

 

Darlene - on the flash: what do you mean, exactly, by "not working right"? Was it not

firing? was it under or over exposing? Was the zoom motor not working? I may have

some answers regarding that if I can get a little detail.

 

as for the bride & groom being tired: yeah, if they're tired, I will not force every picture I

really really want. I'll push it as long as I think I can get away with. (I hate receiving lines).

 

Do we, as wedding photogs, have input into the order of the day? I try to. That is, I will sit

down at some point, and discuss the day. Hopefully when they're making their final

payment 2 weeks earlier. Otherwise, I will try to stop them at the rehearsal and do this.

Really - the 1st time I mention order of the day is when we're signing the contract, and I'm

trying to get all the details that I can.

 

First thing is, I'll suggest we do all the formals first, and get it out of the way so the

reception isn't being held up waiting for them. If they do not want to spoil that "first

glimpse" I'll suggest that we do the girls and guys seperately, then chase everybody out

and have a special moment for the 2 of them that I just happen to be shooting. If they

INSIST on not seeing each other before the ceremony (thank goodness this is falling out of

fashion!) I will get as many pics as I can out of the way before hand, so that the only thing

left to do is the full wedding party & the bride & groom together. This means I'm telling

them "Have EVERYBODY ready by x:xx"

 

I now am giving a "prepared speach" to the wedding party & family at the rehearsal about

"Look at me, only at me. Stay in the area, and DO NOT LEAVE until you are specifically told

you can" We've had 2 chaotic weddings last year where members of the wedding party

would just up and vanish. I spent more time chasing bridesmaids and groomsmen than

taking pics, and i'm THROUGH.

[andrewg_ny]

Javier, bride and groom look improved, but the officiant (?) looks like wax & plastic now. What did you use for noise reduction--maybe too much?

[jgredline]

Andrew, I spent all of Five minutes on the image. Had I been really trying to save it, I would have approached each person on his/her own.

As for noise reduction, I used Photoshop CS2 with its noise reduction feature. I really focused only on the Bride.

[darlene_taylor]

Sorry about the file size.

 

I was using the 18-55 lens with a filter. Didn't think about the filter causing the problem. I have to say that I felt a little stupid for not changing the iso. I think I had it that high from taking pictures of my husbands band in a bar. I even bought 400 film as backup for the thing. Although I had a 2nd photographer as well.

 

The flash wasn't firing and it the zoom motor wasn't working. It had been the night before. I haven't tried it since.

 

I know how to get the blue line out. I'm bummed because its in so many pictures. I have photoshop elements 6 on my mac and the old regular photoshop 6 on the pc side of my mac.

 

Javier, thanks for the compliment on composition. I had my 2nd photographer get some pics from the same view of the groom. I also have a few good shots of the groom when he first sees the bride and my friend got the shot of the bride when she first saw the groom.

 

Your edits look good and no need to take them down.

 

Maria~Thanks for all the input. I just plain didn't know exactly what details needed to be worked out. I did do the groom's and bride's pictures separately with their family and wedding party side. So I felt like I didn't have much to do afterward, but it was chaos and half the time was spent looking for people. I'll keep in mind giving them a time to be ready for pics again. I didn't have any sort of contract with them because I was doing it as a friend...mostly. I didn't even have a dslr when they asked me to do their wedding. They did pay me $300 and I'll be giving them a cd of edited images. I'm charging her brother $600 since he and I aren't really friends, but acquaintances, and I don't feel the need to give them a gift. They agreed to it, but I'll be more formal about it. I still need to write up some contract.

 

Okay, its late and this is a long response. Probably because I homeschool my 4 kids and don't talk to grown ups very much! LOL...pardon if there are any typos I'm typing without my contacts in and can't see a thing.

[mcmanamey]

Darlene - I asked about what problems, exactly, the flash was having, because the 540

does have known zoom motor problems. SEND IT IN!!! for the not firing... that can be

caused by nearly anything from batteries not recycling fast enough to the camera catching

a reflection off something and shutting the flash down, thinking enough light has made it

back to the sensor. But, I'd still mention it to the warranty dept.

 

Warning: when using P-TTL and being in a room w/ a disco ball, expect FREQUENT

misfires. I mean seriously send you over the edge, frequent misfires. But anyway, send

the flash into pentax for warranty service quick. It should be back to you in 3 weeks.

 

As for the blue lines... yeah, use the lens hood and try very hard to keep ceiling lights out

of the frame (good luck!)

[darlene_taylor]

Maria~ Thanks for the heads up on the flash. I'll look into that righta away.

 

And yes, I knew those horrible lights in the background were not good, but the bride and groom are a good foot taller than I am so my camera was angled up...next time I need to wear platform boots like KISS. (Only leave the KISS makeup off!)

[photo_dark]

All things considered, I've seen worse. As far as the ghosting, those look like internal reflections from the lights... Not much you could have done considering the venue, aside from changing the composition. You can probably quite easily clone those out with a little bit of work.

 

As far as being underexposed, I am a firm believer now that 'exposing to the right' is a valid technique, especially in poor lighting situations and high ISO numbers.

[jgredline]

''As far as being underexposed, I am a firm believer now that 'exposing to the right' is a valid technique, especially in poor lighting situations and high ISO numbers.''

 

We / I can thank Justin for this!!!

It works very well..

[darlene_taylor]

This will show my ignorance of such things, but what is 'exposing to the right?'

 

Yeah, I think next time I take pictures in a room with tons of overhead lighting I'll grow a foot so the lens won't be angle up so much...or maybe I'll make sure I only shoot people 5ft. tall. Fortunately my next wedding will be outdoors...

[mcmanamey]

It's your histogram on the camera, darlene. It shows a nice, overall luminance levels.

Blacks on the L, Whites on the R. Typically, you'll want to see a nice bell curve in the

middle of the chart. BUT - when using 1600 ISO, it's better to have that curve nearly all

the way to the right. This way, when you're playing w/ the RAW files (or even Jpegs), you'll

still get nice whites... you want to be to the point of nearly losing your highlights. If you

underexpose an image at the high ISOs, you're not going to be able to save it by "upping"

the exposure or taking the shadows down in your processing. The 'whites' in the picture

just aren't there. But if you overexpose by what your meter & your histogram say, you'll

actually get good pics.

 

BUT - when shooting in normal to bright light... lower ISOs, you really really want that

histogram in the middle to the left. ESPECIALLY since, with weddings, you're going to have

HUGE amounts of white dress to accidentally blow out. And if you blow out the highlights

in that dress in low ISO/normal light, you can NOT save the pic by taking the exposure

down or pulling highlights down in your post processing. I'm fighting that in our last

wedding (outdoor) right now. And I could just about smack our intern. It was a cloudy

day (nice, diffused light) and the wedding was under a shelter, so it was kind of dark

under there.

 

you'd have the wedding party exposed well, but outside of the shelter was, of course,

showing overexposed because it was in full natural light (but cloudy). Our intern shot the

OUTDOORS ceremony shots at 1600. WHAT?!?!?!?! Making it very hard to save some of

his shots, because they're so durn grainy. AAARRRGGG! I'm going to have to give him

some kicks in the rear. He's gotten lazy, and isn't watching his metering. Instead of

metering for the B&G, he metered for the scene, forgetting that of course the grass &

trees & sky need to be blown out, exposure wise.

[andrewg_ny]

Javier, no offense intended, and I understand that people might not spend more than a few minutes on something like this. My question about NR was partially because I've found the effects of Lightroom's noise handling pretty <i>subtle</i>, and obviously what you used at least has the <i>ooomph</i> to smooth things out even if it can be overapplied.

[maxfx]

I too are new to this arena. 4 (2 as 2nd or 3rd photographer) weddings in the last year (3 in the last 6 months). I have had several incidences of misfiring flash in the reception areas. Thanks for the comments about light onto the sensor stopping the flash firing! Also relate to Maria's comment about getting wedding party before the camera! The last wedding had no 'leadership' whatsoever! Wound up 'chasing' a bridemaid ( the sister of bride)at each of the 3 formal shoot areas. We had specifically discussed the issue of someone 'marshalling the troops' on the day. Earlier the whole wedding guest group photo was similarly an exercise in patiences (sheep hearding is easier!!). Yes to the day being stressful/headache producing anyway without uncooperative wedding party memebers. Equipment and technique aside you can only photograph how the wedding guests are prepared to present themselves!!

[jgredline]

Andrew, I took no offense.. :) I have CS2 and CS3 and the noise reduction filter it comes with can really be fine tunned. Perhaps I will spend a little more time with it next time, but looking at the bride, I think she came out pretty good. Perhaps a little overexposed?

[darlene_taylor]

Maria~Thank you. I do know about the bell curve in the histogram, but now I understand it more. And hey, I'll smack your intern. I don't get to smack anyone!