taking the happy snaps

[4-ever-blessed]

i my mums friends is getting married and has asked me to take the guest happy snaps and I'll take a few of her for sure as well, wouldn't be able to help myself :D

I'm no photographer at all, still trying to master the basics of my camera.
I dont have a great lens just the kits and the cheap 50mm

Just after any hints at all on getting some nice pics of the bride and groom. Not how they stand.. the photographer they are paying will be doing all that. But with my 50mm what settings should I stick around?

And When I take pics of my kids and they are in shade they always turn out too dark and want to avoid doing that with the guest photo’s thanks

[frameworks]

Indoors? Flash or no flash? I would say minimum you need to have a flash unit and hopefully have it off the camera (bracket) or get a tripod and use something like 1/30 to 1/60 shutter at f/1.8-2.8. If you don't know the camera very well I would stay away from the wide open f/1.8 due to the very shallow DOF. It will be hard if not impossible for you to get both the Bride and Groom in focus together. I would suggest that you stay, at a minimum, in the 3.5 to 4 range to help with the DOF. The other thing that would help is to just practice those settings with someone and try to simulate the lighting conditions you'll face that day. Have fun!

[4-ever-blessed]

ok thanks that helps so much. I wouldn't know anything about off camera flash
yes indoors which is a bugger for me, not sure if the lights are fluro or not.
my children are over havign their photo's taken so I'll have to ask around for help from friends.

thanks again.

[4-ever-blessed]

for goups do you add f stops like 4 people ='s f/4 and 6 people ='s f/6
just something i read somewhere just cant remember where

thanks

[egordon99]

for goups do you add f stops like 4 people ='s f/4 and 6 people ='s f/6


If only it was that easy ;)

But seriously, Depth-of-field depends on the selected aperture, distance to subject(s), and focal length.

Obviously, the arrangement of the people in the groups affects the distance to subjects. If everyone is in one row, you'll have a better chance of all of them being on the same focal plane. If you have two rows, the people in back will be farther from the camera than the people in the first row.

Bryan Peterson's "Understanding Exposure" is a good book that covers some of the basics of photography, including how aperture affects DOF.

[4-ever-blessed]

well it's this weekend and I have updated my camera to a 7D lens to a 24-70 and a flash cant remember which one as I'm not home and cant go look lol 530 something maybe

well I think I will get to have a good play with my 7D the old camera is just about history, will fire everyother time (it's pretty much broken)
egordon99 I have ordered that book still not in.

I'm going to try a few settings in AV and TV see how I get on. have to remember in TV to set the ISO higher or keep an eye on the shutter speed the camera takes.lol well I hope that is it haha???

[ScullenCrossBones]

With so much new equipment, I would set your mode to P (Program) and let the camera figure out the exposure. Set your flash to ETTL. You will have a lot on your plate -- too much in my opinion, to handle the exposure settings you're not familiar with. Also set Auto ISO.

Generally speaking, a wedding is not the time to try new equipment. In some cases though, it's unavoidable. Keep everything as simple as possible and have fun.

[4-ever-blessed]

thanks for that I will pretty much do just that

[Bearmann]

Instead of Program mode, set your camera to portrait mode (on Canon cameras it's a pictogram of a face). Let the camera do the thinking ;)