urbanek

<p>A leaf-blower ... oh, that will do. Great idea.<br>

I used (up to now) a reasonable big and stable cardboard. A desk or floor-fan never did it for me.<br>

Alternatively let your models throw their dress up in the air themselves. Works also very well.</p>

<p>My 2ct:<br>

Karim is completely right:<br>

1) Practice (most imortant)<br>

2) Looking at a lot of pictures of others---and then trying to find out, how they were taken. That gives you an eye for what composition might work, what apperture to use, the focal length, the background (and how well it needs to be controlled) ...<br>

3) And then, sometimes, read about it. The most helpful thing was for me: Do not center the subject, unless you know better (aka: "Rule of Thirds").</p>

<p>In contrary to Dan Christian I can say, that my Sigma 24-70 EX DG Macro is a little sharper and has less CA than my Canon 24-70. BUT the sigma has focussing issues at 70mm and is more prone to flares. So, in the end, I'd say they are very similar.<br>

Focussing issues annoy however, but disappear if you stay below 70mm. Might be that I've got a quit good Sigma (except focussing) and Dan Christian had a very bad one. Sigma QC seems to be not the best ...</p>

<p>I second Itai Danan. IF you are intending to do photo-work on the laptop, then it should have something better than a tn-panel ... PVA or IPS are the (better) alternatives.<br>

The high-end ThinkPads (w700) or, if I'm correct, also some from HP and Dell exist.<br>

As far as I know, all Mac Notebooks only use tn displays (correct me if I'm wrong ... sadly Apple is not clear about that in their specs on their webpage). This rules out MacBooks (even the Pro) for any serious photo works (as it rules out most laptops and all cheap desktop monitors).<br>

tn-panel means: strong change in colour depending on the viewing angle as well as only 6bit/channel brightness resolution.<br>

Flame-proof suit is on :-)</p>

Same suggestion here: If you plan to use the 580 in an umbrella outside while it's day: Forget it. It's by far underpowered.

Else wise: It's possible. But I wouldn't count on the ebay-triggers to work reliably. I made my bad experience with them -- now I've some elinchrom skyports. They are by far better (but also more expensive).

For the umbrellas: I also have the double-collapsible Wescott ones (43").

For the bright sun, better use reflectors. And/or large diffusor-sheets. Or trees. ;-)

Well my 2ct:

What reflectors do you have? Is one of them perhaps a 5-in-1 type? Then it most probably also has a diffuser-sheet, which you can use to diffuse the sunlight.

Use some of the guests to hold the reflectors (golden one give a nice shadow.color if used as fill).

Also, a rented flash might be useful in the party afterwards, but try to bounce it, since on-camera-flash normally produces ugly results (or: only use it as a weak fill manner).

Oh yes, and definitely have a second camera-battery (especially if you're using the built-in flash) and (if you rent a flash, also a second pack for that too).

For party-dance-pictures: Drag your shutter (use the flash as a weak fill flash). That gives a nice effect.

And another advice: IF you find any time, grab some friends and practice using the reflectors. When the wedding is running, you don't have much time. The pace is very fast (at least for the photographer). Also practice your flash-usage.

I completely understand your worries -- I'm also being used as a no-cost opt-in by friends ;-) (just make sure that they KNOW (and understand) that you're not a professional wedding-photographer, and therefore you're no way near the quality of such).