wedding pics

[biggin]

I am shooting a friends wedding next week and need some help. What white balance setting would I use to take indoor shots under flouresent lights with 420ex flash,flash mode or flouresent mode or??? Also

[WestFalcon]

I use flash mode and adjust color later if needed. the flash exposes the picture and is the dominant light source. Fluorescent lights may cause some color problems however dependent on your shutter speed.

[tpinchback]

neither, you shoot raw and correct in photoshop.

[Aylwin]

Yeah, shoot RAW and correct later would probably be best. Also, if you have a gray card, you can shoot it and use it for reference later.

[tpinchback]

Are you the only photographer? What camera and lenses will you have? I hope you bring lots of memory. I'm assuming this is your first wedding?

[WestFalcon]

I'd like to shoot raw but I don't have time to correct 400 images since raw takes a lot longer...at least it does for me. The books I have read of some big time wedding photographers all use jpegs. I'm not saying it's better, just quicker and I have no problem with F' Light corrections with jpeg images. Aylwin and Tpinchback....How many weddings have either of you shot and how many pictures do you shoot at a wedding? How much time do you spend in post processing corrections? I am answering this a
pretty experienced wedding photographer(about 15 per year). Do you both shoot a lot of weddings?

[tpinchback]

I'd like to shoot raw but I don't have time to correct 400 images since raw takes a lot longer...at least it does for me. The books I have read of some big time wedding photographers all use jpegs. I'm not saying it's better, just quicker and I have no problem with F' Light corrections with jpeg images. Aylwin and Tpinchback....How many weddings have either of you shot and how many pictures do you shoot at a wedding? How much time do you spend in post processing corrections? I am answering this a
pretty experienced wedding photographer(about 15 per year). Do you both shoot a lot of weddings?

I have not even dreamed of shooting a wedding, except for some shots here and there.
Have friends that shoot weddings, and have heard of all their horror stories,which has scared me away for now, until I am confident with my camera and lighting rig.
Weddings as you know, are once in a lifetime (ok, maybe 2 or 3) and I am no way going to take the responsibilty for screwing one up.

[Dans_D60]

IMO … If you want to do your friend a favor … then so be it … but if you REALLY want to shoot a good wedding … then RAW is the only way to go. Particularly if you’re an amateur or pro-am. Remember the articles on shooting JPEGs are from pros that have a keen understandings of the challenges of shooting a live event with no chance to “redo”. These seasoned professionals can adjust for balance and exposure from experience. I suggest if this is your first wedding shoot … shoot RAW that at least gives a fighting chance to recover some images.

Our studio only shots RAW for weddings or any live event. Yes, there is post processing but this is the nature of a good workflow and it’s not that much time to get the job done right!

A 5-7 hour wedding shoot usually yields 1,500 images so have lots of memory on hand!

Here is a link to a few weddings done this year. And good luck!

http://www.danpettusproofs.com/sample

[filo_roll]

i once photographed a wedding by keeping everyone outside in the daylight, so as to prevent any disasterous wedding photos

[Adam Hicks]

Hey DansD60... what flash setup were you using for those weddings? Do you use a plastic diffuser or something like the pocket bounce? Just wondering how you had the flash setup.

Do you ever use an 18% card? Ever meter outside the camera?

I'm preparing to shoot a wedding myself, but I'll be the 'backup' photographer for the first few. That way I can safely get the hang of it and learn the ropes.

Thanks!
Adam

[WestFalcon]

Adam Hicks(I know you didn't ask me but I have shot over 400 weddings and this may help you)....In my experience, I try to shoot in the open shade outdoors. The bright sunlight is too much contrast for digital cameras. The only time I put people in the sun is with their backs to the sun for a hairlight and then I use a flash to brighten faces(need a good lens hood too). I heavily depend on the histogram for blown out highlights. I usually don't use a meter at all at a wedding(just the in camera one). When I shot film, I used a meter all the time.

[Adam Hicks]

Gotcha... the last wedding I shot was just before I went DSLR and was shooting Minolta SLR equipment. The wedding was on the beach in Florida, and I shot with Portra 160NC which did a great job. Hindsight I might should have tried VC, but the NC did the job very well.

I'm looking forward to shooting some weddings with the digital equipment... just not going to get into anything too far over my head yet.

Adam

[Aylwin]

Aylwin and Tpinchback....How many weddings have either of you shot and how many pictures do you shoot at a wedding? How much time do you spend in post processing corrections? I am answering this a
pretty experienced wedding photographer(about 15 per year). Do you both shoot a lot of weddings?

Let's see... :roll: by now I've shot zero weddings. :oops: Okay, at least none as a pro. I simply assumed biggin is an amateur like myself and therefore might benefit by having his shots in RAW. That way, there's more room for correction if he messes up a bit. :wink:

Anyway, it works for me. Of course, I don't take hundreds and hundreds of shots and I'm never under any time pressure to hand in my work.

[Adam Hicks]

For $150 after a $40 rebate, you can get a Lexar 80x 2Gb Compact Flash card from buy.com... from there I get ~220 RAW images. A couple of those and you'll stand a fighting chance :)

Adam

[robertwgross]

We were going to shoot a church wedding, so we went to check out the place in advance. Not only were the overhead lights fluorescent, but they were a really bad fluorescent, kind of dim and green.

If you shoot a flash shot in a fluorescent-lit room, then several things could happen. If you get mostly ambient fluorescent light in the shot, then you'll have to either set a custom white balance for it or else take a chance that the camera's fluorescent white balance setting will be right. This is chancy.

If you shoot it with mostly flash in the shot, then you'll find it much easier to get white balance correct. As a result, we kept our distances low and cranked our camera settings with flash to be pretty bright, and that way it overpowered any residual fluorescent background.

---Bob Gross---

[cmM]

I was shooting a wedding just a couple weeks ago (my first) as the second shooter. I shot RAW (so did the main photographer), and we shot about 8GB of pictures. What are the advantages? White balance & exposure flexibility. Is processing time really a drawback? God bless batch processing. correcting all those images takes half a day, but Capture One does it by itself.

[Dans_D60]

Hey DansD60... what flash setup were you using for those weddings? Do you use a plastic diffuser or something like the pocket bounce? Just wondering how you had the flash setup.

Do you ever use an 18% card? Ever meter outside the camera?

I'm preparing to shoot a wedding myself, but I'll be the 'backup' photographer for the first few. That way I can safely get the hang of it and learn the ropes.

Thanks!
Adam
Use fill flash when it’s appropriate. For sure try and shoot under a tree or in the shade if possible. You cannot dictate the actual ceremony venue and that’s where experience pays off. I use the 550EX, bounced if possible, or if outdoors I use a Quantum T4d in manual mode with a double diffuser.

Dan

[Adam Hicks]

I just added a 550 to my 420 (arrived today) so now I have to figure it out. It's scary when the 550EX manual is the same size as the 20D manual (and more difficult to master and use correctly!)

Oh well here we go again! Now to figure out the Master / Slave deal and get the ratios working.

Adam

[robertwgross]

At the last time I checked, the 550EX manual was only about 3/4 the size of the 20D manual, so I don't know what you got hold of.

---Bob Gross---

[Belmondo]

At the last time I checked, the 550EX manual was only about 3/4 the size of the 20D manual, so I don't know what you got hold of.

---Bob Gross---

Canon is a screwy company, and their manuals are sized in inverse proportion to the complexity of their content.

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