On the Beach Wedding - Advice needed

[sudol]

This will be my second wedding shot coming up in June. My first was in March

and honestly, it came out ok. For a beginner, I made a lot of mistakes, but I also

leanred a lot that I will bring to the table this second time around. Now, I have a

question for any advice anyone has to give me. This second wedding is on the

beach. It also is a lrager endeavour than the first (100 vs 50 the first time). I am

friends with the family and they love me, so anyone who says hire a pro, please,

keep it to yourself. My biggest concern is a lisy weather day since it is on the

beach and I hope will be brightly lit and sunny. Has a cloudy day ever happened to

anyone before? I'm shooting with 2 DSLR cameras: A Nikon D80 with a Nikkor 28-

200mm AF-D with SB-26 and a Nikkor DX 18-70mm on a D200 body with an SB-

600. I also have the Fong and Joe Demb Diffusers for inside the hotel reception.

Any advice anyone can give, I'd much apprecaite it so I can bounce ideas.

 

Mike

[dave_shilling__sacramento_]

NO, a cloudy day has never happened to anyone here =) You are definitely going to want to master fill-flash. Find some hot girl you're interested in and take her out to the beach for some practice.

[picturesque]

My advice is to do a search re beach weddings--lots of previous posts. I'm surprised you would be unhappy with an overcast day. Most people dread bright and sunny on the beach because of the extremely harsh light and extreme dynamic range--blowing highlights, etc.

[markonestudios]

Mike, overcast is good :)

<p>Search the forums.

<p>Note to admins: I think a well-publicized Wedding FAQ page is in order. Many of these questions keep being asked by posters who were either unwilling or unable to search the forums before posting...

[l_e]

Bright sunny days on a beach are really annoying. As some one else pointed out you will have blown out spots and very dark spots (usually in the eyes). To compensate you will probably need a bit of fill flash for larger groups and either fill flash or a reflector for couple shots.

 

I assume when you say large endeavor you are referring to the number of guests. My opinion, and my philosophy, is that the number of guests is most irrelevant. So don't let that through you off or concern you.

[steve_c.5]

I'm gonna take Dave's advice above, find a hot girl I'm interested in, and go out on the beach for some "practice"! Oh, he meant for photography? Well, that's a great idea, too! :p (thanks, Dave!)

[kio500]

I pray for overcast days ;)

[Jerry_]

...you could try to "borrow" a Nikon D50 body....it will 'sync' at 1/500th a second, and on a bright beach more shutter speed is better.

 

 

 

You might consider going to the beach a week ahead of time and practice on someone in a white shirt *before* trying the wedding-in-progress.

[jeff_keplinger]

Mike, I shot two beach weddings the last two weekends. The first was overcast and the second was sunny. I prefer the overcast day. Sunny days, dial in -1.3 on your SB-600 for fill flash during ceremonies, gives it a little more pop and should help in eliminating racoon eyes. I shot with a D80, ISO 100, and a Tamron 28-75 2.8 at f8 to f 11 on the sunny day. Anything more wide open and I washed everything out. Cloudy day you can pretty much shoot whatever you like with fill-flash too.

Just have fun and don't drop your cameras in the sand.

[kaiyen]

What time of day are you shooting?

 

At a few of the weddings I did last year, the sun was so intense that I had the flash straight on, no diffusion, at full power (well, it wasn't manually set but it wasn't set for negative compensation) and that provided me with fill.

 

Pray for clouds. Not rain. Just clouds.

 

An FAQ would be awesome for this forum. I'd be happy to put up a wiki for such a thing , but everyone has to contribute.

[duncanholmes]

Other big problem with bright sunny days at a beach is bright sunny people crashing the wedding in their swimming costumes and throwing balls across the wedding party as you take that crucial pic. IMHO

[hughmiley]

I am a wedding photographer.... Pray for a cloudy day. They rock! There are two kinds of cloudy days, boring plain white overcast, and stormy patchy interesting cloudy days. Both are are great to photograph.

 

If you get the first kind, boring and white overcast, just try to cut out the sky in as many shots as you can....wide open apertures to emphasize your subjects, and go for lots of Bw conversions. You will get heaps of well exposed evenly lit and contrasty exposures....Just cut the sky out, not just because its boring, but also because it tricks your exposure meter. If you cut it out your foregrounds/subjects will be exposed properly.

 

If you get the second kind, stormy patchy and interesting....fill your frame with the drama occurring in the sky, Make the power in the sky a symbol of the couples love! This is the best of all days...I love stormy days!

 

Also.....if it is bright and sunny, shoot in RAW low iso - 100-200 (tis very important for PP), overexpose a little, +.3 or +.7. Then in PP boost shadows and darken highlights, Also if you like just go into the blue channel and darken it to get the nice blue sky back. You can set this up as a default in CS3 RAW, or lightroom. If you do this then you don't really need to fill flash....Try this before the wedding to get confident.

[sagephotoworld.com]

Take a stepladder so you can get the party looking up at you!