wedding portrait, white dress black bride!!

[johneric8]

hello guys. I need some real expert advice here. I'm doing some wedding photography for a friend who doesnt have the money to pay for a pro. (She is african american with medium to dark skin and her dress is pure white)... This coming friday I will be heading to her house to take some pictures of her by her staircase hoping to get a decent wedding portrait of her in her dress. I will be using a 20d and most like the 50mm prime. We have some nice proffesional lighting (soft boxes, reflectors) so proper lightning shouldnt be a problem. My main question is what is the best way to make sure the exposure is the best it can be for such a hard to meter situation? I will be doing my white balancing with a gray card. Should I just do the same for the exposure? Or, should I meter off of her skin?? I was thinking of setting the aperture in av priority first and then take a reading and see what I get for the shutter speed. after I gather the info I will switch to manuel and dial those in. I know this isnt perfect, but I dont have many other ideas in my head. any info that you know is helpful and tried and true please help me out. I would love to be able to give this very special friend some nice pics of her in her dress that look decent.. She is very understanding and isnt expecting much from me. But, I would like to give her something she can be proud of.

Blessings

[Panza]

Could you bring a laptop too when taking the pictures ? Then you can take a few pictures with different exposure and examine them in full size on the screen and decide what exposure to use, before you go ahead with the main shooting. Since you're a friend she probably won't mind the extra time, and besides it's to make the best out of the pictures.

[johneric8]

Could you bring a laptop too when taking the pictures ? Then you can take a few pictures with different exposure and examine them in full size on the screen and decide what exposure to use, before you go ahead with the main shooting. Since you're a friend she probably won't mind the extra time, and besides it's to make the best out of the pictures.


I wish I had a laptop! thanks for the suggestion. Anyone else have any ideas?

[pierrot]

You have a 20d... with an bracketing function, uh? ;)

[Andy_T]

Shoot Raw and look at the histogram :D

Best regards,
Andy

[SkipD]

Use the histogram to determine the range of the exposure. Just make sure you aren't blowing the highlights, but keep the left end (shadows) inside the box too. By shooting in raw mode, you can tweak white balance later.

I would suspect that your lighting will be critical. Soft overall lighting would be what I would try for so that there aren't hotspots on the dress.

[malcolmx]

if in doubt underexpose by bracketing and also by bracketing the white balance generaly detail is in the dark not in the light.in my experience(limited) africanamerican skin tones are hard to get he auto exposure correct i usaly use exposure compensation until i get it right experiment with kelvin numbers as well you have lods of scope to take lots of pictures and discard rubbish good luck hope you dont cause a divorce

[Maureen Souza]

It's not as complicated as you think or are worrying about. Try not to use the flash if you have good lighting and use a good lens. My favorite is the 50mm/1.4. When I did have to go to flash, I used the omnibounce and aimed about 75% at the sky as to keep the flash off the wedding dress. See photos here.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=71045

and here http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=71650

[Streetshooter]

With Photoshop it's really easy. Shoot in raw mode and meter for the skin tone. The white balance should be on auto (AWB). The camera does a good job of getting it really close. In Photoshop you can adjust the image using the sliders in camera raw before going into the full program. I use the shadow slider for the shadows....exposure for the high values and brightness for the mid tones.....works great for me....I have some samples on my new site...(still under construction)... www.donspringerphotography.us good luck..don

[tim]

You have a 20d... with an bracketing function, uh? ;)

You think there's time for that at a wedding? Taking 3 photos instead of one isn't a great idea. Get it right the first time.

Personally i'd expose for the highlights, and depending how much white is in the frame i'd adjust the exposure compensation between +0.5 and +2. The camera's trying to make the scene 18% grey, so you have to tell it to make it brighter than it thinks it should. The challenge is getting the wedding dress to be properly exposed and still being able to see the brides face.

Given you're doing it for free, and she's your friend, get her to dress in white and go take some test shots from varying distances. If possible get the groom to be there in black. Try it with 25% of the frame white, then 50%, then 75%. Watch your histogram and tweak the EC until you get the exposure right.

[jimsolt]

With Photoshop it's really easy. Shoot in raw mode and meter for the skin tone. The white balance should be on auto (AWB). The camera does a good job of getting it really close. In Photoshop you can adjust the image using the sliders in camera raw before going into the full program. I use the shadow slider for the shadows....exposure for the high values and brightness for the mid tones.....works great for me....I have some samples on my new site...(still under construction)... www.donspringerphotography.us (http://www.donspringerphotography.us) good luck..don

BTW, the white balance has nothing to do with skin color. White balance measures the color of the light, not the subject.

Jim

[snibbetsj]

If you have the time, I'd meter with a light/flash meter and go from there. Otherwise, use the grey card for metering.

[johneric8]

Thanks everyone for your feedback it is very helpful!

[PhotosGuy]

I personally wouldn't use Auto WB on the 300D as it sucks big time. See:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54281
Hopefully the 20D is better, but if I was you, I'd run a test to be sure.

Re: "The camera's trying to make the scene 18% grey,..." I agree with that IF YOU'RE SHOOTING FILM, or using an incident meter, but not with a digital cam using a reflective meter. The above link will show you what I found out about that issue, too.
I prefer to use white paper for checking exposure & chimp to the right since half of your pic info is at the right 20% of the scale and, if you get the exposure for the FLAT whites right, the rest will follow. See:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=58677

If you shoot RAW & use RawShooter for the conversion, you'll have noticed that it has some good controls for contrast control. If you aren't planning to do that, I suggest that you do some comparisons now & see what you think. ;)

Whatever you do, good luck!

[CyberPet]

Here's a thought: Meter on the white dress. Meter on her face, or the groom's black tux. Then you have the darkest and the brightest areas. Calculate to get the middle ground. You could also bring a greycard to meter the exposure on (and that will help you correct the WB later too). One shot with that and you should be prepared for most problems occuring, at least give you a ballpark figure. If you set your camera on a "ready to shoot" setting for that particular light, just take new readings if you find yourself under a differnt type of lighting.

[lkorell]

I like Tim's idea and I would have done the same. Since she's a friend, do an engagement type shoot with her in a white outfit or at least a white blouse. Practice your settings for different looks and you'll see what they will need to be on the wedding day. I'm sure she will be glad you did. ;)

[JaertX]

Yeah...meter off a gray card. Hold it next to her, lock AE and go with it.

BTW PhotosGuy, almost if not all SLR cameras, film or digital, use reflective light meters.

[ron chappel]

Meter off this ,meter off that...
if you're not checking the histogram you will very likely be wasting your time!!-no matter what kind of convoluted theories you follow.

Start by setting the WB from the grey card as you say. -this is so much better than AWB and can be abit more convenient than correcting every image in RAW editing.

USE RAW -this will give you an increased useable brightness range -especially in post editing(exactly what you are needing)

Start by taking a few shots in Av (as you wanted to) ,then ****check the histogram*** and change the settings so as not to blow the highlights (...or not blow them by too much,a little usually is unnoticable).
If the dress is close to blowing out but the dark skin/black tux,etc is still burried in shaddows,then you have to fill in the shaddows somehow.It sounds like this should be easy enough with the lighting you have.
Once you find the best setting ,switch to manual as you were going to.
**But keep checking the histogram occasionally !

[PhotosGuy]

BTW PhotosGuy, almost if not all SLR cameras, film or digital, use reflective light meters. Really? ;-)

[BobbyC]

Jaertx is correct.

I think your best bet would be to use and incedent meter and measure the actual light falling on the subject instead of reflecting off of them. If you don't have one then the advice of others should suffice, particularly taking readings from the darkest and lightest tones and average. Then tweak using the histogram in the camera. Even if you are slightly underexposed, if you shoot raw you can bring that back, but if you blow out the dress, it's gone.

[Longwatcher]

While you may not be able to do it for the wedding, if there is anyway you can put more light on her face without also lighting up the dress, I recommend doing that.

If not the best advice I give is get the histogram as far over to the right as you can get it without blowing the highlights. Meter at the location of the bride's face and then depending on how dark the skin tone, you need to up the exposure by 1/2 to 1 stop based on my experience, since less light is reflected back.

I love taking pictures of Black models, but I never ever trust my camera to get it right.

[mbze430]

actually this is easy shot. Just like shooting zebras. The black and white will even themselves out, if you use evaluative metering. Depending on lighting it will only be +/- 1/3 difference.

If you use partial metering, make sure the center is on half of her skin, and half on the dress.

[photodd]

Better yet, shoot color neg film for an extreme latitude, and let her pay for film & processing.

[KurtKuhn]

BTW, the white balance has nothing to do with skin color. White balance measures the color of the light, not the subject.

Jim

Jim, I have to respectfully disagree. I would say the white balance has to do with perceived skin color. Have you ever seen a photo where people have blue skin? Improper white balance with the use of flash will yield this result.

Also, in *Real World Color Management by Chris Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting, they discuss "The Color Event" in which there are 3 participants involved: the source, the subject, and the observer. I agree with you up to this point, "White balance measures the color of the light..." I do not agree in your qualification to say that the subject is excluded from the event.

BTW, *this book is a good read for anyone interested in the subject of color management.

Finally, I found this thread a bit confusing since exposure, dynamic range and white balance well all commingled. I had to read it a couple of times through to understand everyone's intent.

Respectfully submitted,

-KK

[Jon]

Jim, I have to respectfully disagree. I would say the white balance has to do with perceived skin color. Have you ever seen a photo where people have blue skin? Improper white balance with the use of flash will yield this result.

Two different things here. The camera's white balance functions are/should be tied to the colour of the light alone. That's why you set a CWB with a colour-neutral white or grey card. The perceived colour of the skin (and everything else in the picture) is affected by the white balance setting used. But blue (or other) skin is a consequence of the WB for the light being miscalculated; the skin doesn't affect the white balance.

[jimsolt]

Jim, I have to respectfully disagree. I would say the white balance has to do with perceived skin color. Have you ever seen a photo where people have blue skin? Improper white balance with the use of flash will yield this result.

Also, in *Real World Color Management by Chris Fraser, Chris Murphy, and Fred Bunting, they discuss "The Color Event" in which there are 3 participants involved: the source, the subject, and the observer. I agree with you up to this point, "White balance measures the color of the light..." I do not agree in your qualification to say that the subject is excluded from the event.

BTW, *this book is a good read for anyone interested in the subject of color management.

Finally, I found this thread a bit confusing since exposure, dynamic range and white balance well all commingled. I had to read it a couple of times through to understand everyone's intent.

Respectfully submitted,

-KK

A while after I posted, I regretted not saying "perceived." Of course the white balance affects the way everything looks including skin color, BUT in fact the white balance if set correctly will show skin color, dress color, carpet color, and flower color accurately, and it will show them accurately no matter what their color is.

As I understood the problem, it was more of a problem of exposing the "black" skin which contains many colors and variations and the white dress properly so we could perceive them as they actually appeared. In my opinion that is an exposure question much more than a white balance question -- given the white balance should always be set correctly.

As to your confusion about co-mingling of exposure, dynamic range and white balance, you are absolutely right. It was this that triggered my response. I don't think the white balance issue contributed at all to the original question. One could have injected the advice, "make sure it's in focus", and while very true, it would not have been answering the question.

Also, respectfully, what a nice word :D,

Jim

[Adam Hicks]

I want to see a camera that can meter incident light :) That would be cool. And tricky. Actually the ExpoDisc claims to provide the same results of metering incident lighting vs. reflected... although I just wish we could spot meter.

I 5th the 18% grey card recommendation though. Shoot RAW and use the grey card. You might have a little blowouts on the dress in order to get the facial features properly exposed, but that's not the end of the world! If you actually DID have time you could meter off the face, shoot the shot, meter off the dress, shoot the shot and make sure it's not blown out, and then combine later. But that requires the luxury of time!

Adam

[DocFrankenstein]

If you have lights and softboxes...

Take a small softbox... put a 10-20 degree grid on it and blast it a stop or two brighter than everything else and light the face up.

Can't help with anything else.

[karusel]

I don't get to shoot blacks very often (no pun, seriously), since I'm from Slovenia and their population here is like, 0.0something%. Once that I did was in a gym, black guy, white t-shirt. When it was exposed for highlights the T-shirt was really beautiful. However, 'Phil's' face was underexposed and just not appealing, so I wouldn't reccomend you expose for the highlights... Just keep checking the histogram and make a few test shots as soon as you see the bride.

[johneric8]

The Bridal shoot went great thanks to everyones suggestions. I'm very new at using SLR's so I was a bit nervous. I have taken lots of pics but doing ones for my friends bridal portrait was scary! She was so happy. thanks to everyone who gave me suggestions. the photos havent been touched up yet, they are just raw to jpeg. I got about 120 shots and more the half were very good.

[blue_max]

Think you nailed it buddy. Good job.

Graham

[Arty]

I'd go with that comment too John - Top job mate!

[Streetshooter]

and you were worried....geeze........

[tcaran]

Wow. I'm sure she's going to be thrilled with your work.

[eastcoast909]

Been following the thread, waiting for the results.

What a couple of great shots!

It would seem that you have answered your questions on this.

Congratulations to the beautiful bride on her day.

[KurtKuhn]

Well done.

-KK

[PhotosGuy]

Those look great to me, too! So, out of curiosity, what was your workflow for these? Raw or JPEG? Exposure set by gray card, averaging, or what? It looks as if you used at least 2 lights for those shots. How did you manage the set-up?
'Cmon, spill it! ;-)

[CyberPet]

Great work!!! So what did you do EXACTLY?

[johneric8]

Wow, you really made me feel good about the pics! thanks a million really. I will do my best to explain the setup. What I did to was left the camera to automatic white balance and shot in Raw to start with. To be honest, The 20D was set to Manual the whole time. What I did was set my aperture at about f4 and set the ISO to 200. I really wanted to shoot at ISO 100 but I would have had to change the Aperture to about F1.8 . I was using the 50mm 1.8 $60 prime on most of the shots. What I did for the exposure was take a reading of her face with the cameras meter and made sure it was was giving me a center reading. Then, I would take a reading on her dress to see the difference between her face and dress. It was only about a +1 in exposure difference on the bright side. So to be honest, I just felt in my mind that the dress wasn't getting overexposed and that her face was about perfect according to the meter reading in the viewfinder.I was getting a near perfert histogram. If I needed to make a change before I took the photo I would shift the dial next to the shutter button to change the shutter speed while keeping the aperture at a constant F4 . I think the slowest my shutter speed ever got was about 1/60th I also used the manual focus for the shots. I'm not sure if that was the best way to do it but I decided to give it a try. Now for the lights. I had one medium sized softbox in front facing her to her left about 4 feet away at a diagonal. Behind her right shoulder about about 4 feet away off to the side I had a small adjustable barn door type pin light? I guess that is what you call it I'm not sure. I know we could adjust the size of the light from a small beam to a large circle. Last but not least, I had the same barn door pin light on the top of the stair case applying light from overhead. We really had to keep messing with the lights because the shadows where very bad. In the end, she was very happy. Now I need to find a place to get a 16x20 by next Sunday.. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm in a pickle because she needs it by the 22nd of this month because that is the day of the wedding. Yikes!! I have to get this before next weekend what should I do?

[JaertX]

Now I need to find a place to get a 16x20 by next Sunday.. Do you guys have any suggestions? I'm in a pickle because she needs it by the 22nd of this month because that is the day of the wedding. Yikes!! I have to get this before next weekend what should I do?

I've been extremely happy with MPIX. I've heard good things about A&I.

Anyway, great work. Very impressive!