shooting weddings with 20d

[biggin]

I am learning to shoot weddings on my new 20d and have a dumb question. When I shoot the bride ina white dress next to the groom in a black tux what would be the best settings on the 20d using flash and without flash? the camera I was using would always underexpose with flash and so I tried FEC and got blown out whites! What am I doing wrong and how should I meter to correct this? As I said I am only learning so I really don't need advice on should or should not be shooting weddings! Thanks for all advice!

[drisley]

My best advice... shoot RAW.

[tim]

Read this (http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/210041). It's not at all simple, and the best advice is to try it for yourself. Get a friend to dress all in white, and another to dress all in black. Take pictures with each of them filling different amounts of the frame.

If my understanding is correct (and I wouldn't put money on that), the more white in the frame, the higher you'll have to set your exposure compensation. This is because the camera tries to average the brightness of the scene to 18% (or so) grey, so it makes the dress darker. If the frame's mostly of the groom, you might need to dial the EC down.

Practice, and remember to check your histogram after a shot, and you should be ok.

My best advice... shoot RAW.

Definitely, but also try and get the exposure as close to correct as you can, because it saves time in post processing. If you get the exposure wrong by 2 stops (which is not unheard of in these extreme examples with white dresses) RAW will help recover the picture, but the quality won't be good as if you got it right to start with. Also, if you blow out the highlights on the dress, you're probably screwed, highlight recovery is more difficult than fixing underexposure, and is sometimes impossible.

[robertwgross]

It is almost impossible to discuss 20D settings for wedding photography with a flash. There are so many variables, especially with the difficulty of a white dress and a black tux.

1. Which lens?
2. Which flash?
3. What distance?
4. What ambient lighting?

Your best bet is to read the available material that is already here in this forum and elsewhere on the web. Then practice some more. Then get a book on wedding photography. Then practicse some more. Once you start to converge on the solution, then ask a few questions.

You really want to understand the fundamentals of how your camera is working with its flash. Without that, you will be just thrashing around.

---Bob Gross---