Wedding shots my first attempt

Hi All,

A relative of mine is getting married very soon and although a professional photographer has been hired, I thought I will use my camera as well just to take the odd shots.

I have a Canon 500D with the following lens:

Canon kit lens
Tamron 17-50 f2.8
Canon 50mm 1.8 prime lens
Canon 430ex Flash

The first part of the wedding will be in a hall with very high ceiling and the second part of the wedding even has a higher ceiling, a hall with ceiling as high as that of a cinema.

What I want to ask is as follows:

• Out of my 3 lens, which is the best one to use. I dont want to have to change frequently.
  
• Will external flash still be required.
  
• Any other tips and tricks.
  
• Kind of aperture setting to use
  
• Full manual/aperture mode or shutter speed mode ?
  

My suggestion is to stay out of the way of the photographer they hired. You don't know if they'll have an attitude and cause issues. That said, use the 50mm 1.8 since it's your fastest lens, then you won't require flash. Maybe use that for the first part of the wedding. Use the Tamron and flash for the second part of the wedding.

I always shoot on full manual, don't use Av or Tv.

cabinajm wrote in post #15049482
My suggestion is to stay out of the way of the photographer they hired. You don't know if they'll have an attitude and cause issues. .

Agreed!

Low Light in Situations Always shoot in Manual for consistency on your shots.

erikfig wrote in post #15049588
Agreed!

Low Light in Situations Always shoot in Manual for consistency on your shots.

Definitely will stay out of the way of the pro photographer, also with the 50mm 1.8 I find that its only useful for portraits which is what its for, and most of the time people want to take photos as a group, which means for the 1.8 you have to go really far back to capture any shots.

Do you still suggest shooting in only manual, and the lens can do 2.8 all the way through, any advantage in doing this or perhaps move up to 3.2 or 4. The hall is very well lit and the lighting can be increased/decreased, I always struggle with shutter speed especially when people are not steady/still.

platforminc wrote in post #15049678
Definitely will stay out of the way of the pro photographer, also with the 50mm 1.8 I find that its only useful for portraits which is what its for, and most of the time people want to take photos as a group, which means for the 1.8 you have to go really far back to capture any shots.

Do you still suggest shooting in only manual, and the lens can do 2.8 all the way through, any advantage in doing this or perhaps move up to 3.2 or 4. The hall is very well lit and the lighting can be increased/decreased, I always struggle with shutter speed especially when people are not steady/still.

It depends. If the light is good, you can use AV if you feel more comfortable. If they are back-lit, you need to use manual mode, otherwise you will end up with a silhouette. Just make sure that your shutter speed, is at least 125 or so, if it gets to low, increase your ISO. Also I would recommend to use spot metering.

Use the 17-50 for the group shots at F-4 or so everybody can be in focus. Hope that helps!

Depends on the size of the group and the posing really. I wouldn't go under 5.6, maybe even keep it at 8 to ensure everyone is in focus. I would also use a flash for the group shot, unless you're pumping up your ISO.

erikfig wrote in post #15049708
It depends. If the light is good, you can use AV if you feel more comfortable. If they are back-lit, you need to use manual mode, otherwise you will end up with a silhouette. Just make sure that your shutter speed, is at least 125 or so, if it gets to low, increase your ISO. Also I would recommend to use spot metering.

Use the 17-50 for the group shots at F-4 or so everybody can be in focus. Hope that helps!

Thanks all for the tips, when you say back lit. I dont understand. please expand more as I want to be sure i understand what you mean here.

When the light is behind them, they are back lit. If you expose for the light, you get underexposed faces, like a silhouette.

platforminc wrote in post #15049415
Hi All,

A relative of mine is getting married very soon and although a professional photographer has been hired, I thought I will use my camera as well just to take the odd shots.

I have a Canon 500D with the following lens:

Canon kit lens
Tamron 17-50 f2.8
Canon 50mm 1.8 prime lens
Canon 430ex Flash

The first part of the wedding will be in a hall with very high ceiling and the second part of the wedding even has a higher ceiling, a hall with ceiling as high as that of a cinema.

What I want to ask is as follows:

• Out of my 3 lens, which is the best one to use. I dont want to have to change frequently.
  
• Will external flash still be required.
  
• Any other tips and tricks.
  
• Kind of aperture setting to use
  
• Full manual/aperture mode or shutter speed mode ?

Thanks in advance.

Yup, stay out the way!

I'd stick with the 17-50. External flash would be useful for fill outdoors and for low light receptions.

Aperture setting to use depends on the situation and the look you are going for. For groups shots, you might want to stop down especially if you have multiple rows of people. It also depends on the lens used and distance to the group. I usually stick with f4-f5.6. Again, it depends. If I need more DOF, I would obviously stop down more.

Again, M vs Av depends on the situation and your comfort level. If the light isn't changing all that much, M will give you more consistent exposures. If the lighting is changing quickly then Av will get you somewhere in the ballpark. You might have to ride the EC dial to compensate. Indoors when using flash, use M mode.

Thanks guys, started with the first part yesterday. I must admit I struggled a little bit, probably because I have not taken shots for over 2 months now. Indoors using AV n external flash, if I turn aperture to 4 or 5.6 then my shutter speed was then going to like 2 secs which wasn't right, the best I could get was 1/25 or so but that waa f2.8 and iso 800 with tungsten balance setting, spot metering.

I just couldn't get it right, it was me beign called to take shots at short notice with no time to practice anything. I had to stick to f2.8 and iso 800 as 1600 might be a bit too noisy I thought, this was for mainly groups of 2-3.


I have the main wedding today better lighting in this hall indoors. do you guys suggest I go manual alll the way. Sometimes I have to give the camera to novice users and having to change settings can be tricky atimes for novice users.

Thanks in advance

You need to bump you ISO, you have no choice, just try to fix it in pp, Noise Ninja is great for this, I dont know if you have it, or just use PS or Lightroom

Thanks everyone, one thing i noticed in AV mode, when selecting f stop or 4 or higher, shutter speed then went up to 2-5 seconds which was way too much and in order to get it to 1/25 ISO had to be at 3200 which although I never tried, but just felt was going to be too much.

Another slight problem, with an external flash and shooting in somewhere with good lighting and very high ceiling, I turned the flash up in a 12 o clock position with the flash difuser and took some shots, the quality was worse compared to when I didnt use any flash at all.

I know how to bounce flash off ceiling very well but problem seems to be when the ceiling is really high and nothing to bounce it off, also when do you need to point flash direct at subject, it that for fill flash in the sun outdoors to have a soft effect ?

Thanks in advance.

If you have nothing to bounce off of or you need all the power you can get you use direct flash. you may use a softbox, umbrella or any number of light modifiers to increase the apparent size of the light and create a softer light.
If the ceiling is too high to effectively bounce the light off of you can bounce it off of a wall, a person, a card or any other kind of modifier.
The key is to make the light bigger. Sometimes there is not much you can do.

Thanks for the tip, do you know any portable and inexpensive stuff I can put in my camera bag, umbrella is too big to carry around. Any ideas please. Thanks

I use umbrella style soft boxes(Westcott Apollo Softbox), umbrellas, a card (Dembe Flip-it Flash Card) and sometimes a piece of foam(search for bigger better bounce card here on POTN,) wrapped around the flash head.
I find they are not that cumbersome. biggest issue I have is the wind blowing them over. Happens a lot.