How would you have handled this lighting situation?

[stephanie_w]

<p>I shot a wedding for a couple that didn't have a lot of money to spend. I don't have much wedding experience, shot a few here and there for close friends or family (trust me -- I stress the importance of hiring a true professional, but some people just don't have the money, period.) but everyone has always been extremely pleased and I've never encountered anything too out of the ordinary. I'm rather limited in my resources as far as technical components go, and the B&G was fully aware of my experience level. Also they were informed of the fact that I am a nursing student and health insurance minon-- not a pro photographer. My gear consists of a Canon 20D, 50mm F.4 (also an f1.8), kit zoom, and a 420EX speedlight. I enjoy shooting minor events and portraits as more of a hobby than anything. Well, the day before the wedding I shot, I visited the church the day before around the same time of day that the wedding would take place, got some ideas as far as proper exposure and such, chatted with the minister a bit about their wedding routine, etc. He said, "Yep, it'll look just like this" and pointed to a few lights around the chapel, in addition to late afternoon light streaming in the windows, which made for a nice, even, pleasant light. So....</p>

<p>Ceremony time: All lights in church go off. Spotlight on the B&G... A spotlight?! they are ON the "stage" in the chapel, not standing before it. Could not get up on the stage per minister request. Groom standing halfway outside spotlight during prayers and other parts of the ceremony. I don't think even the B&G knew this would happen, I doubt they cared much though. Man o man. This is causing some interesting late editing nights for me. We've got raccoon eyes and shadows galore. I guess my question is.... has anyone ran into a spotlight situation? How did you handle it? How would you have handled it if it was a last-minute surprise? I shot in raw and am trying to increase the fill light and highlight some of the eye and face areas.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Before the ceremony starts--try to find out if you can get the other lights brought up and/or the spotlight to go off, or move them, if you have the time. If not, if you can use flash, use flash fill so at least the shadows on the couple are not so dense. Try to balance with the ambient, but this will be tough if the spotlight is very bright and the ambient light dark. Don't blow the spotlit parts but shoot 'to the right' and work on lifting shadows in post processing. If you can't use flash, just expose for the spotlight and lift shadows in post processing.</p>

<p>You could bracket, so you expose one frame for the spotlight, and another that favors the surrounding, so you can blend them in post processing. Obviously, try for parts where the subjects don't move a lot, and obviously, you can't do every ceremony image this way.</p>

<p>After the ceremony--if you exposed 'to the right' for the spotlight, lift the shadows, but don't lift them so much that it looks unnatural. This is the way the ceremony was. Use noise control software judiciously and remember that noise looks worse on a monitor than printed.</p>

[savagesax]

Were you able to use your flash during the ceremony? If so next time try a more powerful flash and try to get a bit closer, perhaps 15 to 20 feet. A flash such as the Canon 580, on full power would be strong enough to "Balance," the spot light with your flash and will get rid of the dreaded raccoon eyes. Closer shots would require you to set the flash to 1/2 power. If you are within 10 feet I'd probably go TTL.

 

A lot of times the minister doesn't set the lights. It's done by someone else, so you could always ask the wedding person to help you with the lighting.

 

I think we've all had issues such as yours. I actually have a heck of a time with outdoor weddings when the sun is blasting the faces of the B&G. Even worse is the sun hitting half of their faces; side lighting. There is also back lighting, when the sun is behind the B&G. If done right it can be a magical image, or it can be your worst enemy with lens reflections, also called lens flare. There's no easy way to deal with something like this other than trying to match the light with your strobe. I carry a pretty powerful strobe just for situations such as this and I fire the strobes on manual, not TTL or Auto, because almost always the strobe will be under exposed and I'm pushing that 15 to 20 foot range.

 

More and more places you work at don't even let you use your flash units anymore. With the newer cameras you can often set your ISO/ASA to 1600, get a color reading (balance) and you are set for the inside ceremony.

 

As far as your 20D and your lenses go, you are in good shape for pretty much any wedding. A lot of pro shooters still use 20D's as their main or second camera. It's a wonderful camera. The lenses you have are fine. Sometime you may wish to have add a wide angle lens, 10-22mm, perhaps a prime or another zoom in the 70-200mm range.

 

For now I would ask Santa for a 580 flash. Be sure to practice with it, mainly in these harsh conditions. It has lots of toys built into the flash, including added accessories that can fire your 420 for multable lighting.

 

Shooting RAW is great. It's the only way I shoot.

[daverhaas]

<p>Okay - so it was a surprise to you and maybe to the couple - so no amount of pre planning could have prevented it - maybe. </p>

<p>1) I would have asked the minister if flash was an option during the ceremony - that way I could have balanced out the spotlight - somewhat. That is a standard question for any wedding I do - Do you allow flash during the ceremony? </p>

<p>2) I would have tried to get 2 shots of each scene - one exposed for the spot and one for the shadows - then merged in ps. </p>

<p>3) If time permitted - I would have ran to the spotlight operator and asked - What the heck is going on? And asked if we could get the spotlight off or other lights up a bit. </p>

<p>If the B/G didn't look surprised - then they knew about it in advance - My experience with weddings tells me that if ANYTHING is not as they discussed it - they will notice and someone from the family will get it fixed ASAP. So - I would have also asked the b/g if they are doing anything different or special for lighting - attending rehearsal would have been an option - but most b/g's don't want to pay extra for that. </p>

<p>Dave</p>

 

[ianivey]

<p>Definitely would have made a beeline for whoever had his or her fingers on the light controls. A polite question, with an explanation that the pastor promised normal lighting, and a gentle comment that, while dramatic, a spotlight will strongly impact all of the ceremony photographs for the worse has a good chance of eliciting some changes to the lighting. </p>

<p>And if not, then that's why I carry a taser. Bonus if the light console is big enough to hide an immobilized body behind. </p>

[pete_s.]

<p>I would try to use as low iso as possible to get as high dynamic range as possible. The exact iso depends on the camera but on the 20D the breaking point seems to be iso 400. Then expose so the spotlight is as close to clipping as practically possible.</p>

<p>The image will look underexposed and you keep it that way and raise the shadows and midtones wile compressing the highlights with a curve that looks something like this: http://www.sns.ias.edu/~jns/images/gamma_curve.jpg</p>

<p>If the shadows will become too bright add a point to the curve so the left sections is a straight 45 degree climb for a bit before it goes uphill.</p>

<p>This will give you high contrast in the shadows and midtones but lower contrast as it gets brighter. The effect of severe shadows is minimized. And it will look much better than trying to add a large amount of (digital) fill light as that is a local adjustment for shadows.</p>

<p>Finally you can use the highlight recovery to get some more contrast in the dress if needed and other adjustments to taste. Just remember that curve will do the heavy lifting.</p>

<p>PS. You could also try to just raise the exposure and basically clip a lot of the image then use a good amount of highlight recovery to bring it back. How well it works depends on what raw converter you use.</p>

[john_alexander_whyte]

<p>I use a Nikon D7000 and take the shots at ISO2500 never needed to depend on lights, I would say stick to available light and let Photoshop help you out.<br>

The bride and groom are looking for just snaps, thats why they are happy to go for non pro photographer ... if your photograph shows you were clearly in the correct church and did photograph them ... then thats them happy.</p>

[picturesque]

<p>Forgot to add--you can re-create the highlights after the ceremony, where you have total control over the lighting. Just the highlights, though.</p>

[matt_needham]

<p>The only solution is to anticipate and solve the problem before it happens. Once the ceremony starts you've just got to live with it. I try to see what the lighting is going to be like ahead of time, and I make suggestions and explain the limitations of the camera if need be. If the lighting is changed without consulting me I do my best, but to some extent they're just going to have to live with it. I know a lot of tricks to deal with too much dynamic range in a scene, but spot lights in a dark chapel or stage is about as bad as it can possibly get. Most of the time I'm not allowed to use flash during the ceremony, and even if I were my speedlights can't balance a powerful spot light.</p>

<p>My experience shooting weddings and live music in small, local joints is that the person in charge of lighting was hired for a different job, such as sound man, but lighting becomes their responsibility even though they have absolutely no training in it. Unless they have experience as a photographer they have no clue that a camera doesn't see like the human eye, and they don't notice lighting differences that seem extreme to me. Even if they have training in stage lighting they are probably used to setting it up for eyeballs and not cameras. I let the couple know the limitations of the camera, and give suggestions as to how to even out the light. </p>

 

[greg_mccroskery1]

<p>Stephanie,<br>

Of all the responses so far, I think John Wyte's makes the most sense -- given that the lighting situation was not what the minister had originally indicated it would be. All the suggestions about flash and recreating parts of the wedding are generally not practical in most wedding situations I've ever experienced in 25 yrs. of wedding photography. Most churches I've shot in do not allow any flash during the ceremony, and generally the wedding schedule is so hectic that there is no way you are going to get the bride and groom, and wedding party, and minister to recreate parts of the wedding to correct lighting issues!<br>

I think you did what was reasonable, and your best bet is to try to recover a bit of shadow detail, pull the highlights down a bit, and trust that the couple doesn't think you can work miracles. I bet you will be surprised at how much the bride and groom like what you captured during the ceremony.<br>

I wish you the best.<br>

God Bless,<br>

Greg</p>

[kerryharrison]

<p>Hi Stephanie,<br>

First off it sounds like you did the right thing by checking out the church and lighting beforehand and at the same time the ceremony would take place. I think this was really important, especially because shooting weddings is not something you do regularly. I also think it was good to tell your friends that you are not pro.<br>

I think many people believe being a photographer is easy. You push a little button and magic happens! (That's kind of true- the magic part but not the easy part!). I shot 33 weddings this year, which definitely gives me lots of recent experience. I also shoot professionally for a large corporation. I'm quite often surprised at the astonishing number of difficult situations that one encounters and how you need to have a solution with in minutes. In my trunk I carry around a lot of lighting equipment (just in case) but the best tool I have is my Nikon D700 (or Nikon D3s) for low light situations so I can simply crank up the ISO.<br>

I know not everyone can justify purchasing those cameras, but they do certainly make your job as a photographer, so much easier.<br>

My last wedding of the year was in mid November and a situation similar to yours. The church had a policy of no photographers in the church, no flash and all the lights were out. They were steadfast about it. No bartering, no other options. The only lighting we had was about 20 candles and some sort of completely dimmed down overhead single light above the alter. (I must admit, it was really beautiful, but a photographers nightmare!). We were allowed to shoot from the balcony only. (Try shooting walking down the aisle photos from above and behind!). We shoot at ISO 6400 and 1/40 of a second, 2.8.<br>

As a photographer you need to be ready for anything, people expect it. I also think your friends will most likely be thrilled with the photos you took of them. Weddings are a huge amount of work, responsibility and stress. I would recommend asking people in the future for a small sum of money toward your efforts. You can take the money and purchase better equipment, so when the next wedding rolls round you have better tools.</p>

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