timberwolf1

Jason,

Consider shooting the wedding for free. Go take 80 shots, and make them the most

important 10 shots of the wedding: formals, cake cutting, garter throw, ceremony

pictures.

It will be good experience for you. You don't have to wear a suit, just wear black pants

and a white shirt and tie; or wear all black. I wear all black, no suit jacket.

It will be an experience for you. Just don't have them rely upon you wholly. Tell them

you'll go and "try". They will be thrilled. Give them something from your heart, they will

respond with a gift or at least the right to use their pictures as part of a portfolio. It could

be a start of something for you. I just didn't want you to become liable. Don't take any

money from them. If they want to donate $$$ to you later, fine.

Jason,

I like to encourage people to do weddings. But I would not take this wedding from a

stranger. Fashion and glamour photography only share alittle knowledge with wedding

photography. You will be overwhelmed by demands. I think this couple equates "fashion

photographer" as instant qualification for wedding photography. I don't think so. Some

commercial photographers think they are qualified to do weddings. I think we wedding

photographers leave them all in the dust with their slow reactions and thinking. I think

you could find yourself in trouble. I would advise you to turn it down; but investigate

wedding photography under non-pro conditions. People have a habit of suing wedding

photographers without qualm whereas they would simply ask for a re-shoot of a fashion

photographer.

I think you should take the conservative route this time.

95% of the time: 100 ASA

5% of the time: 400 ASA Portra

I don't need speed very often because I have large amounts of flash power available to fill

up most any situation. 400 ASA is fast enough for full shade situations.

35 weddings a year is not unmanagable. By using a slower method of ordering, this

forces family members to "batch order". By using an easy "buy one at a time" you may be

mailing out more frequently, even to the same person.

I would simply take checks. You just don't have the volume to make such a sophisticated

system necessary. I give my jobs a number, and they order for that customer order #:

very simple. Some people don't have a purchase order, but if they have the customer

number, and the picture number, we can do business unless I require they use a purchase

order.

I agree with Nadine on the matter of the professional photographer taking some control

over the situation. The couple really wants a perfect product for a few photos. Candid

photojournalism does not protect violation of these moments. Sometimes the

photograpaher just needs to stop/start the action to get it really right. Sure, I am

"unobtrusive", but I can instantly take control of the situation for brief moments to get the

perfection I need.

Nadine,

I like the picture you have posted very much. So, I don't think that using a black screen in

this particular photo will do much to improve it, if at all. Reason: You want attention to

be pulled to the lighter areas: the couple. Photographers do darken edges in order to

create attention to the lighter subject matter: the couple. So, in this way, the slightly

darkened background works great for you!

But increasing exposure of the "main light" whether it is near sunset or not will simply

make the sides of their faces lighter, and possibly lose detail. We are getting into artistic

waters here. Let's just say that sometimes a darker background works, sometimes it

doesn't. I just wanted to expose a alternative tool, the use of a black screen that could be

used to alter the lighting ratio on the couple, and as a side benefit, lighten the

backgrounds at the same time.

When you use fill flash, you may be adding, oh, 1/2 f stop (finessed) or 1 full stop to their

faces in addition to the sunlight. As a result, you compensate your exposure to their face

by dropping down about 1/2 f stop or whatever you chose (artistic choice) . As you do

this, you drop down the background lightness with your exposure change.

I know that you know this. However, I am being detailed for the readers.

Therefore, since we are getting into "finessing" flash fill, we are treading into artistic

waters and it becomes,....an artistic decision. At any rate, there are 4 ways to do this shot:

all natural light;

natural light with flash fill;

natural light with flash fill and use a black screen over the sun light hitting the couple;

natural light and use a black screen over the sun light hitting the couple;

The last, the 4th way, "use natural light and use a black screen" will give you the lightest

backgrounds. this procedure will force the photographer's exposure to be opened up to

allow for the effects of the black screen reducing the main sunlight on the couple.

Crystal Durr:

I recommended to you to use a incident flash meter. It is there in my original post.

Take readings at a 1/2 body shot distance for your lens

(hopefully 35mm) and a full body shot. Use only ASA 100 film (like Portra 160 rated at 100

ASA). You may find that your flash is 1/2 f stop more powerful than my recommendations.

In which case, you could use f6.3 for the full length shot, for example. But look at your

incident meter, it knows best.

If you have direct clear noon sunlight, and the sunlight hits any partial part of

the front of

the person, you must balance for it with a strong flash power.

It appears to me that the light in your picture is coming from a cloudy day light situation.

As a result, your settings need to be adjusted. You need to adjust these settings by using

a exposure meter. This adjustment is likely beyond your experience at this time when

using flash fill. My recommendation was for only one

situation: daytime clear direct sun on the subject ( at any angle ). It was not "optimum"

for the other situations that can apply:

twilight

near sundown

full shade

partial shade

partial shade with fill from an object ( like a garage door)

multiple flash usage

cloudy day sun

foggy day

rainy day

and so forth on and on.

When I use fill flash, I make an exposure meter reading for the continuous light, such as

the Sun, and then select an exact fill-flash power to counter balance WHATEVER THE

CHOSEN LIGHT I am to counterbalance.

In my recommendation to you, I acknowledged the difficult of giving a person a

recommendation for a situation that I could not be "on site" and seeing what are the

conditions of the lighting.

I think that if any photographer needs to have lighter backgrounds, they should take

control of the situation, rather than leaving success up to auto modes that are

documented to have wide variations in exposure, especially for important pictures.

If you want lighter background, I would just use natural light. But you would need to read

that situation, too. There is a time for natural light, and a situation for fill-in of clear

direct sun. You have to know when to use which.

Al Kaplan is just a man after my own heart: Manual.

It is very simple, you pre-focus on a pew edge. When the bride or bridesmaids get to that

point, you shoot. If their expression is not perfect at this exact place, you simply walk

backwards at the same speed they walk hoping to capture a better expression. Giving the

bridal party some instructions before they walk down the aisle helps. You see, if you start

getting frustrated and wave your hands to "smile" they may look MORE CONFUSED and

think their dress is ripped or something. So, you explain to them beforehand that you

may wave your hand to remind them to smile or whatever you want to explain to them.

For me, they don't have to smile. If they look demure, that is fine. If they look like

zombies, then this is not good; I want to "break them" out of the zombie look.

I would not "leave it up to Photoshop" as was suggested above. You could "run out of

color" and fail to achieve neutral tones in your darker areas. This statement needs

qualification.

I think that digital, however, is a good choice. Whereas the color temperature in the

church may be alittle warmer than the settings on your camera can stretch to, this tiny

difference can be compensated for in Photoshop. What is not a good idea is using

Photoshop as a replacement for a 3200 degree setting on the camera or using 5500

degree daylight

film, scanning it, and then expecting photoshop to tune you into a neutral position of skin

tones. A 300-500 degree change is small. A 2,300 degree change is too much of a

stretch.

If you wound up with alittle warmth of 300-500 degrees, it would not be objectionable,

especially if their were candles shown in the picture.

Go with the digital camera.

Regarding Nadine's Comment:

"E-TTL is unpredictable, in my opinion,..."

And further comments regarding:

"Bracket it....."

And further:

"Add +2 compensation...add +1 compensation...subtract with -1 compensation..subtract

with -2 compensation"

"Point at the mid tones, the face... etc."

At some point you auto mode people should give up the ghost and admit that you cannot

rely upon auto mode to give you a proper exposure 100% of the time...and that you are

simply guessing. Auto mode has given you a new game to guess with. And it would be

fun to guess with this bit of electronics except that the Bride will be rather angry if you

under expose her features because you pointed your auto mode at her dress. Even if you

point at her face, her face has make-up on it and it is no longer an 18% reflective gray.

Therefore, you will be 1-1.5 f stops off anyway, and you could underexpose her, oh, .5 f

stop or more using the "point at her face" technique.

Melissa, weddings frequently have white things and black things to be photographed. And

frequently, weddings are very important to the client. Therefore, frequently you have a

continuing problem with auto mode/TTL. Until the bride and groom give up white and

black and use gray, 18% reflectance wedding dresses and gray tuxedos without a white

shirt, you will have problems with reflectance based auto mode systems. The only way it

could end is if the auto mode system were linked to your distance focusing system, and

your exposure were based upon DISTANCE.

In order to create this kind of accuracy, you need to have a system that determines

exposure based upon DISTANCE. Flash illumination falls off PREDICABLY and without

guessing when you can determine distance. Whether the subject wears black, white or

even a dull metallic substance for clothing, you can expose properly for them using the

function of distance.

To use distance, simply realize that you will be doing alot of photographs of the bride and

groom and her family in full length. Put your camera on about 50mm or 40mm setting for

a 35mm format camera; set your flash to MANUAL; using a flash meter, take a reading of

this full length situation at ASA 100. Let's say that you get a f5.6. OK, every time you take

a full length picture of anyone, anyone, dressed in anything, anything, doing anything for

any reason, you use f5.6. Place a notation on a piece of sticky paper and stick this to your

flash unit.

Sure, you can always use auto mode if you want. But if you find yourself wanting accuracy

and staring at white dresses and black tuxedos, you want accuracy, right? You then look

at your white piece of paper stuck at the flash head and you read: f5.6- full length.

Do this for a 1/2 body shot of 2 people hugging, dancing: You will probably have f8 1/2.

If you want to "round this off" to f8 because it is easier to remember, you can! Why?

Because your color negative film can accept some overexposure without problems.

Then do this again for a group shot of 5 people in horizontal format: maybe this will be f4

for you.

Then do it again for a big group wherein you are about 40 feet from them, measure it.

This will allow you to photograph 12 people with a 50mm normal lens. I know, I have

done this test and I have measured the distance. You may have a f2.8.

My f stops are not exact recommendations. But if I had to use your unit, I would use these

without testing. They are conservative numbers. I would have you get an incident

exposure meter such as a used Minolta III flashmeter (not the auto meter) and test these

distances. Then stick your f stop results to the head of your flash.

As a result, you need not have any fear when you are doing those important shots of the

cake cutting, the formal pictures, the group pictures, the picture of the bridal party in their

home, etc... If you want to take the risk and use your auto mode for other less important

pictures of people chatting, then it is your choice. The people chatting are not likely

wearing white and competing with the bride for attention!

Black suits can cause your auto mode system to over expose. Overexposure is not a big

problem, it just reduces sharpness alittle when you get to about 2 f stops or more of

overexposure. It is UNDER EXPOSURE that will give you the big heartache. And this is

when you will be pointed at the person in white that underexposure is the problem. If she

has brown or black hair, the detail disappears. If she is a black bride, her face disappears.

So, by having a "back-up system" using a semi-calibrated manual mode operation that

you did yourself, you have accuracy within about 1/3 - 1/2 f stop! You could even get the

accuracy close to 1/4 f stop by using another method which I am not cluing you into here.

Accuracy is far more important to the Bride and Groom than speed. They are using you

because they want results, not speed and inaccuracy.

Learn how to be accurate. After you learn the above simple procedure, you can break the

procedure and be inaccurate and fast.

Oh, I like Jeff's picture above very much. Really, it is an unusual view of a bride and the

diagonals are very striking. And of course, fill in light would have spoiled the view. But

this is black and white. He doesn't have to care about light color mixtures here.

Dimitrije,

Just so you don't become frustrated by Marc's comment, let me say that I agree with you

from a business and technical lab point of view. It has been a long running comment from

lab's all around through the decades that the "craftsmenship" of the photographer really

matters when it comes to color balance. In the days of Ektacolor, Vericolor I, it was really

quite an issue with color proofs and the lab's policies. Lab's made personal statements

that directed the responsiblity for color balance on the photographer's shoulders. They

wanted photographer's to quit mixing amber ambient light with flash, and to use a proper

amount of outdoor flash fill to eliminate bluishness. If the photographer created these

mixtures of ambient colored light with flash, the lab flatly told the photographer that he is

not adhering to "good craftsmenship". Naturally, the lab doesn't want to be rude and lose

business to these so-so average photographers with unverified abilities and average

equipment. So, they had to give this message to the photographers in their

literature with a velvet padded pillow fist.

Marc's artistic attraction to ambient light, however, is a high standard and all well and

good in my mind. I like ambient light, too. But I always ask myself whether it is really

necessary, REALLY NECESSARY, to mix amber light with "white" flash light. Out of doors,

you have fill in to eliminate blue sky light. Blue sky light leaves a very cold look to skin

tones if not filled-in with flash.

And then I understand the lab's problem: if the photographer is partially filling-in

sometimes and others he isn't, the skin color of the person is varying from alittle

bluishness to more bluishness, for example. This means that the lab has difficulty in

keeping the skin color of the person consistently the same. I think that those who will be

using digital retouching will be more aware of these subtile color changes, and the

subsequent time it takes to adjust the coloration for partially fill-in scenes with flash. It is

time consuming and someone has to pay for this work. Or to put the challenge out: "Is it

OK to give your customers prints with bluish faces or amber faces because the

photographer doesn't want to take the time to filter it out or to use fill-in flash?"

I disagree with Marc that a heavy fill-in of flash will create an unacceptable look. It is

acceptable to the customer. And I agree with the lab guy that says that customers aren't

so sensitive to care about these details. Rather, I believe that the customers are caring

more about their expressions and their general appearance during their activities.

Lighting is sort of secondary issue to them. Photographers may o-o-o and ah-h about

ambient light, but customers don't. They may complain about too much oil on their face,

that's about all. And I am talking here about photojournalistic pictures, not portraits, only.

LEGAL

I would never state that all of my photographs are going to have a "certain look" of

ambient mix with fill flash." I would not make this a style issue or a reason for them to

hire me.

RANGEFINDER

To further answer the rangefinder question: If you place a small rangefinder on a good

bracket, like a Stroboframe, the camera is so small that the whole combination may feel

unbalanced. This forces you to use a smaller bracket. When you use the smaller bracket,

you will have shadows cast against walls because only the Stroboframe R7, Pro, R4b have

the vertiflip function; and a few other brands have a camera flip feature.

To me, seeing black shadows cast by a side mounted flash unit is alittle ugly. If I do not

use a bracket, then I may get "red eye" with the close to the camera body flash unit. So, if

I were to use a rangefinder, I would want some weight to it, and I would be using it more

for natural light pictures. It would be a camera to use during the ceremony when all

cameras are generally banned from flash useage.

As for "being less obtrusive"; I don't think that at other times a rangefinder has any

advantage. why? Because the way to be unobtrusive is to simply walk away from the

subject immediately after you have taken the shot. As a result, they don't know what you

have taken a picture of; they have only heard the "click" of a camera doing something.

You cannot be totally transparent at a wedding or event. The taking of pictures is

expected! And then there is the issue of getting the right angle. To get the right angle

probably will require the photographer to make his presence quite known. So, what is you

choice: a bad angle and sneaky procedure; a great angle and expression and picture, but

they know you were there?

I came across a solution for these outdoors shots, and a solution for decreasing the

sunlight on the couple, and for warming up the light of the shot; all at the same time:

Use a polyester net in black or white or tan to reduce the direct sunlight. Then, sewn to

this netting is another piece of netting. This additional netting is in white color. Cut a

hole through the netting for your camera lens. What you have is a 2 color screen. On the

one side you are reducing light from the direct sun; on the other, you are filling in. The fill

side could also be some sort of diffusion material instead of white netting.

I shopped for the materials and netting sells for about $1 a yard.

Steve,

I am not going to tell the readers to try to duplicate what you do. The reason is that the

reader's equipment and abilities and patience vary. I would rather tell the readers to

overexpose alittle and to be consistent indoors or out with exposure. In this way, they

won't have failures and lose a friend of the bride. What you are doing is so precise that I

wouldn't want someone to have failure by making a small error of underexposure. I am

writing to a general audience here. Sometimes I get perfectionistic and throw out ideas in

that vein; othertimes I get conservative and keep the reader in a "safe zone" that I know

they will have success in even if they make some little errors. Now you know.

Steve,

Let me qualify that a "fraction of an f stop" is nearly nothing in this situation.

Steve,

What you are doing is scientifically tight. The "kiss" of extra fill will result in a darkner

background, but it is so unnoticable, that the viewer can't tell. The viewer can't tell

because the viewer doesn't have any other choices to compare with! Your backgrounds

will only be darker by a fraction of an f stop in other words. And I like your close

tolerance technique.

I will add that I used a Mamiya Press Super 23 6x7 for a decade. The Mamiya 7 is certainly

in that category of camera. It had a f3.5 aperture; very simiilar; and all manual.

The one shot that could work with macro: a picture of a single rose which could be placed

in the porthole of the front of the wedding album.

F4 is not a problem for a wedding.

If you are a "zone" focuser, you won't have any problem with rangefinder. If you aren't,

buy a Rollei 6001 or 6003 with a fast focusing handle. The handle can be memorized to

be at "o'clock" positions for your 2-4 major zones, like a gear shift on a Corvette. A much

faster camera is a Rollei 6003. It reloads film in under 8 seconds or so; leaf shutters up to

1/1000th!

Sorry, I don't have experience with Mamiya 7. I thought I would throw some thoughts in

regarding usage of rangefinder cameras in general and a recommendation to a known

speedy film camera.

Long ago, I gave up the idea that all candid shots have to be "real" and unmanipulated in

any way. This was newspaper journalism procedure. But now I know that newspaper

photojournalists move furniture around and change things too! In my procedures, I am

thinking like both a portrait or fashion photographer and a photojournalist at the same

time.<p>

You see, I have accomplished hundreds of thousands of candid pictures. I have seen all

the ways that people react to the same situations of a wedding. At some point, I decided

that there were about 5 ways that people could react to a situation, and not many more.

So, having memorized these reactions to the situations, I decided that there were maybe

only 2 great ways to look best in my documentary from a choice of 5 ways. So, whether

they are walking down an aisle or doing a toast or cutting a cake, I know what looks good.

I give instructions to the bridesmaids jsut before they walk down the aisle, for example:

don't stare with a "zombie look", use a lowered chin, but tilt the head alittle to the side,

and smile. I know that if the groom starts swinging around the cake cutter, that this

could be symbolic of something not attractive to my customers. So, I give them freedom,

but I wait like a sniper until they do what I want them to do from a choice of perhaps 2-3

things. I remember what complaints and comments that my customers in the past have

said, and I apply them in real time at the wedding.

<p>

I have seen many wedding books and seen many photographers photograph at weddings.

I am always very critical of myself and them. I like being perfectionistic in wedding

photography. Rarely do I agree with what they are doing because they are missing the

nicer background just steps away. This happened a weekend ago. It is very hard for me

to not start commanding them to look at the nicer background. I don't want him/her to

think I am taking over! Or, they are distorting the couple with a fisheye lens, or they don't

see the klunky hand or arm or shoe position in the picture. The people's feet may make

them look like they just got off a horse.... whatever! The guys pants are sloppy around his

shoes! His hand positions look like a Neanderthal man!

I don't use dark shadows to foreshadow gloom and doom like is done

purposefully in "film noire" or in many fashion photographs (industrial look).

I use some "art photography" influences to sometimes treat the portrait as a mystical art

portrait. Think of Wynn Bullock, for example, This is not symphonic romance, either.

<p>