ceremony and AF worst-case scenario

I am supposed to shoot my first wedding at the end of August so I am ramping up my skills, technique, and attitudes.

The ceremony is supposed to take place at sunset. My participants will all be strongly backlit. To complicate matters, the participants will all be under trees in a forest. They will be near the tree-line and there is an opening that will let in the sunset. This situation is no good for AF.

How do you focus in this situation?

1. Manual focus through the viewfinder. My viewfinder is huge and bright for an AF camera, but still not nearly as big as my old manual focus film bodies. I'm afraid of not nailing focus. I'm the photographer, I NEED to NAIL the shot.

2. manual focus through LiveView. The bright screen seems like it would be very distracting. The plus here is that I could stand in the back and telephoto lens my shots up to the ceremony. No one would be distracted by the screen if I am in the back.

3. I can keep a speedlight on top and disable the flash but keep the AF assist enabled. The resulting red grid seems like it would be hugely distracting and an enormous no-no.

4. scout during daylight and pre-set my focus to the right spot. I see a ton of things going wrong here.

5. take "re-enactment" photos after the official ceremony... AF assist and flash as much as I want.

6. Rent a 6D because it will AF down to -3 EV

I'm going to try several of these methods as I practice but I'd be interested to hear how you guys have dealt with similar situations.

If it matters, my kit is a 1DS mark iii, a 7D, some 2.8 zooms and several very fast primes.

I don't think the AF assist beam is distracting. I would get in as close as possible and use that method.

If you don't know, maybe you shouldn't be a wedding photographer.

Anyway, by "at" sunset do you mean it will be dark or is it near sunset so the actual sunset happens during the ceremony? Kinda important to know. Usually you have some light up to 30 minutes after sunset.

I really don't see how AF assist will be helpful at all in this situation. Although your subjects will be dark relative to the background sky, the scene overall is, I suspect, far too bright for AF assist to kick in. Moreover, if it's dark enough for AF assist to kick in, I think it WOULD be intrusive in the context of a ceremony--maybe even more intrusive than adding flash.

If I'm understanding the situation correctly, here are a couple of ways I would approach this. First--hoods on your lenses. Second, flare is what generally makes it difficult to grab focus in these situations, so position yourself so that YOU (or at least your lens) are in shade. Look for Cliff Mautner's videos and how he deals with shooting brides at sunset. This will help avoid flare and make focusing easier. Third, a silhouette against a bright sky should provide you with a decently contrasty edge to grab focus with. Unless the sun is directly behind them in the frame or the clouds are crazy, you should be able to grab focus on the edge of the bride or groom against the sky. Fourth--uh, maybe avoid shooting at f/1.2.

frugivore wrote in post #16866805
I don't think the AF assist beam is distracting. I would get in as close as possible and use that method.

I'll try it out tonight. thanks for the tip.

Numenorean wrote in post #16866964
If you don't know, maybe you shouldn't be a wedding photographer.

point well taken and I agree. That's why I'm working on all this stuff 4 months in advance.

Numenorean wrote in post #16866964
Anyway, by "at" sunset do you mean it will be dark or is it near sunset so the actual sunset happens during the ceremony? Kinda important to know. Usually you have some light up to 30 minutes after sunset.

I'm pretty sure they are trying to have the ceremony during the most colorful part of the sunset... slightly after the sun dips below the horizon. Sunset is 7:32PM on the date of the wedding. I'm assuming they will start @ 7:30 and the sky gets more colorful as they progress through the ceremony. They will be under a tree canopy that has a window style view of the sunset. They will be framed by the tree trunks and canopy. So the extra light will be at a minimum.

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #16867010
I really don't see how AF assist will be helpful at all in this situation. Although your subjects will be dark relative to the background sky, the scene overall is, I suspect, far too bright for AF assist to kick in. Moreover, if it's dark enough for AF assist to kick in, I think it WOULD be intrusive in the context of a ceremony--maybe even more intrusive than adding flash.

I suspect you're right about the obtrusiveness. I'm afraid the trees will kill any ambient light that would normally be bouncing around. I scouted the site yesterday during the brightest time of the day. I need to go back at sunset for a scouting session.

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #16867010
If I'm understanding the situation correctly, here are a couple of ways I would approach this. First--hoods on your lenses. Second, flare is what generally makes it difficult to grab focus in these situations, so position yourself so that YOU (or at least your lens) are in shade. Look for Cliff Mautner's videos and how he deals with shooting brides at sunset. This will help avoid flare and make focusing easier. Third, a silhouette against a bright sky should provide you with a decently contrasty edge to grab focus with. Unless the sun is directly behind them in the frame or the clouds are crazy, you should be able to grab focus on the edge of the bride or groom against the sky. Fourth--uh, maybe avoid shooting at f/1.2.

fantastic pointers. I will try that tonight as well. Thanks for the video recommendation.

Regards the AF assist light, surely if everyone's going to be that strongly backlit you're going to want to be using some fill flash anyway?

Ideally I'd do everything without flash during the ceremony. But if they don't have any additional illumination then yes, I'd like to do some fill or off-camera lighting.
I know the bride and groom pretty well. I'm going to try to convince them that they need some kind of faint light to illuminate them at least half a stop brighter than the sunset. Like a lantern or something. If they don't have something like this then the older guests won't see a thing.

The problem is that they are in the middle of the woods; there is no electricity. This is rented property and open flame is prohibited. So I think they are looking at battery operated lights of some sort. Or bring a generator.

The whole layout of the ceremony needs an overhaul IMO but that isn't my decision to make