Shooting friends wedding!

Hi guys

Ok , I want to shoot my friends wedding...not as the MAIN photographer but I really want to produce some great pictures.

I shot the engagement already and I got some nice pics , here they are :

You should be able to get a 50 1.4 and a 85 1.8 for under a grand. You definitely need a back up of everything if you are going to be the main photographer, but since you're not, that may not be a big deal.

It depends; what's the ceremony going to be like? Outside or a dark church?

well actually , im just going to shoot the party , not the church.

the party will be in a function room lit by tungsten lights.

Another question : Can I set the white balance to tungsten lights or should I always use a white sheet?

I agree with the 50 1.4 and 85 1.8. Those are both good lenses. If you are going to use a white balancing aid, I recommend the targets from Photovision. Good Luck!

You're going to be using flash anyway so don't worry about a fast prime. My recommendation would be to pick up either the 24-70 or the 24-105 IS and learn your flash technique (bouncing off walls, using a bounce card, etc.). Part of learning should include geling your flash with a CTO gel (do a search here and Google). Just leave AWB on and shoot in RAW. Make sure you have enough memory cards, though.

Hi Rob ,

Thanks for your advice ,

I have lots of practice with the flash , bouncing it off walls and I have a nice diffuser for it , but from what I have read and experianced , the flash dissapates rather fast , so if I try take a picture of the function from one end of the party with the flash , the people closest to me will land up being over exposed , people a bit further away correctly exposed and further down it will probably land up being pretty dark...


what is the aperture of the 24-70? ***nvm found it

thx for the advice guys , Im going to be attending a 3 day wedding photography course within the next few days


I think this one would be good....http://www.amazon.com …TF8&qid=1300547​534&sr=1-2 its a fast lense (F4) and has a nice range 24-105?

If you can budget for sigma 30 1.4, canon 50 1.4 (sigma 50 would be better), canon 85 1.8

hmmm , wouldent that limit my shooting capabilities with no zoom?

porky101 wrote in post #12049657
hmmm , wouldent that limit my shooting capabilities with no zoom?

That kind of thinking will limit your shooting ability a lot more

well can you explain to me why F4 24-105 is too slow?


obviosly I want the best for my camera but your answer is not very helpfull.

Your gear is not the problem, spending 1000 or 100000 is not going to help much. It'll help some, but you'll just be another uncle-Bob with expensive gear.

If these are your best shots, I'd suggest you read up, practice a lot more with your current gear first. First shot is too heavily edited that it gave them halo, at the same time blowing out various part of the shot. Second composite there are too many inconsistent exposures that it makes the whole thing look snap-shotty. Remember that post processing should be an after thought.

Hi Viet,

Thanks for your reply...

About the Halo and blowing out her hair , I was aware of them both....I wanted lots of blur but with my minimum F ratio of 4 I dont get much so I did that in photoshop , I slightly over exposed the image aswell.


About the inconsistent exposures.... every shot I shot was on manual and I metered for each shot on my own by taking a picture and then looking for a balanced histogram.....but I did that with every shot.....are you saying that I must shoot 1 exposure setting shot and then leave it.....? so I dont adjust the exposure again to get them "consistent" all of those shots were in the SAME room at the same time.....

http://www.photoshop.c​om …39b1b4e7da8f7db​31a828c8a2 -------------Here are more shots all on manual I think i did pretty well...


thanks for the feedback...keen to learn.

porky-

Exposure fail...

porky101 wrote in post #12055029
Hi Viet,
Thanks for your reply...

About the Halo and blowing out her hair , I was aware of them both....I wanted lots of blur but with my minimum F ratio of 4 I dont get much so I did that in photoshop , I slightly over exposed the image aswell.

Next time, pick a better location, under the shade somewhere. To start out, always put them in the shade, that way you don't blow their faces. The rest can blow, but not the faces, especially for portraits.

F4 is fine if you want your heavily out of focus background. Think about it for a moment, it's called "out of focus" or bokeh for a reason. If you don't have a long lens, then put them somewhere with the background further back. With the right focal length vs subject distance, you can "blur" as much as you want. Keep in mind, pp should be an after thought unless you know what you are looking for.

porky101 wrote in post #12055029
About the inconsistent exposures.... every shot I shot was on manual and I metered for each shot on my own by taking a picture and then looking for a balanced histogram.....but I did that with every shot.....are you saying that I must shoot 1 exposure setting shot and then leave it.....? so I dont adjust the exposure again to get them "consistent" all of those shots were in the SAME room at the same time.....

Manual doesn't really mean anything if you can't get it consistently. Consistently for your level right now, means that you should try to get them to look about the same in every shot, not too bright as to blow it out, and not too dark. Consistent doesn't mean keeping your settings the same everywhere, but knowing where, when and how to tweak it to make everything looks good.

Histogram is a continuation learning process, there's no *right* way to look at the histogram until you know what you are doing.

porky101 wrote in post #12055029
http://www.photoshop.c​om …39b1b4e7da8f7db​31a828c8a2 -------------Here are more shots all on manual I think i did pretty well...


thanks for the feedback...keen to learn.

porky-

Most of those are ok exposure wise, but composition & lighting need a lot of work.

I think you should get the Understanding Exposure book and read it over a couple of times, then practice, a lot. You are heading in the right direction, but lacking practice & experience.