17-40 f4 for wedding portraits on 1.3 crop

hello, i have a question and i understand the answer might be subjective.

mid august i will be attending my aunt's wedding. i am not the photographer but i would like to fire off some shots all the same.

i have just bought a 1d mk ii so money's a bit tight. i want the 35 or 24 1.4 but cannot get the money together before the wedding, so i was considering the 17-40.

my question is, is this lens going to be too slow? the wedding will be at sunset and the area is a tad shaded by trees. i don't know how the noise is on the 1d ii yet but i know that on my 350d i am not fond of shooting at iso 1600. 800 is fine, and 1600 can be a nice B&W shot but i would like a few color shots.

currently i have a 50 1.8 and a 100 2.8 macro (i had to sell a 70-200 2.8 for tuition money.. i really regret it) i'm just looking for opinions, i know it is hard for anyone to offer an answer without seeing the place i'm going to be shooting at.

40mm or wider may be a bit short for anything other than group shots and full length. F/4 w/ flash should be fine outdoors. You could always use your 50 and 100 for tighter portraits.

Although I don't own that specific lens I do have experience with what a f4 lens can and can't do. It should be fine while there's sufficient light out but once the lighting starts to drop you may have trouble balancing your flash to the ambient light. While your subject may be properly exposed, the background may be quite dark.

yogibear wrote in post #8273294
Although I don't own that specific lens I do have experience with what a f4 lens can and can't do. It should be fine while there's sufficient light out but once the lighting starts to drop you may have trouble balancing your flash to the ambient light. While your subject may be properly exposed, the background may be quite dark.

Just bump up the ISO. How do you balance flash and ambient indoords when you need to shoot mutiple rows of people? When using flash, f4 is not that restrictive.

its a great lens on the 1.3 however i sold mine for the "quicker" 24 1.4 which is really 32mm on a 1.3...... f4 is struggling indoors.....

ingr0032 wrote in post #8273127
hello, i have a question and i understand the answer might be subjective.

mid august i will be attending my aunt's wedding. i am not the photographer but i would like to fire off some shots all the same.

i have just bought a 1d mk ii so money's a bit tight. i want the 35 or 24 1.4 but cannot get the money together before the wedding, so i was considering the 17-40.

my question is, is this lens going to be too slow? the wedding will be at sunset and the area is a tad shaded by trees. i don't know how the noise is on the 1d ii yet but i know that on my 350d i am not fond of shooting at iso 1600. 800 is fine, and 1600 can be a nice B&W shot but i would like a few color shots.

currently i have a 50 1.8 and a 100 2.8 macro (i had to sell a 70-200 2.8 for tuition money.. i really regret it) i'm just looking for opinions, i know it is hard for anyone to offer an answer without seeing the place i'm going to be shooting at.

Without knowing exactly how much light is available its hard to say if it will be too slow or not. You can always use something like Noise Ninja if you really have to bump up the ISO to make exposure.

But, unless you're doing group shots I think the 17-40 is going to be a bit wide, too wide for any single or double head shots. IMO, the 50 on the MkII will be nice for groups unless you're dealing with really large ones, the 100 on the XTi should be great for individual or couple portrait shots.

On a wedding is a lot of people and a lot of unpredictable movement. So get the 17-40 and add a 430exII to it . A great combo.

oh yes!! i forgot one crucial detail... i don't have a flash.

ingr0032 wrote in post #8273444
oh yes!! i forgot one crucial detail... i don't have a flash.

You may want to look at a flash unit - even outside and on sunny days the flash is useful for filling in the shadows. Look to rent, buy, or borrow one.

Also, I just noticed that the time of day is sundown. F/4 without flash will be a real struggle.

I recently rented the 17-40L for a wedding, found myself using it the majority of time and fell in love with it. So I just bought one. Indoors, combined with my 430EX it seemed to perform great, outdoors, even better. I agree with above though, you need to rent a flash, f/4 is just not fast enough indoors without.

I think f/4 is a bit to low...

save a little bit and get the 16-35L!

While the 17-40 is a great lens for group shots, it will not give you the typical subject isolation that you usually expect from a portrait.
This being said, you could use your 50mm for that.
I would advice against the 16-35. It is twice the cost of the 17-40 and it is just 1 stop faster.
17-40 + flash is another good option. Just don't expect a completely blurred background