Wedding lens and flash.. please help!

50mm = focal length
f/1.4 = maximum aperture (f-stop) of lens

Gurry, I've posted something similar to this before for others so I apologize in advance for subjecting the vets to it again . But you may find some of these tips to be helpful for shotting inside the church and/or reception hall.

Dark churches, halls and other dim venues are always a photographic lighting challenge. The first thing I usually do is decide just how little light I have. Once that decision is made I choose my ISO. If things are just dim with some window light and overhead lamps I will usually start at ISO 400. If it’s fairly dim I will go at least ISO 800. I use flash with both of these settings.

I have a 580ex that I use with the off shoe cord and a Newton Camera Rotator Flash Bracket. It’s a terrific combination and gives a lot of flexibility with excellent results. Normally I’ll have the flash tilted straight up, or perhaps just a little forward depending upon how dark it is. The little white card will also be extended, or I may even have a larger diffuser like the Lumiquest Pocket Bounce or the 80/20 attached to the flash.

Any time I’m in a dim venue I will set the camera on Manual, but run the flash on AUTO-ETTL. Shutter speed will be manually set around 1/30 – 1/50 and aperture manually set from f/5.6 – f/8 depending upon how much I want the ambient light to impact and brighten up the background. By “dragging” the shutter at a slow speed of arount 1/30 and thereabouts you allow a lot of nice ambient light to creep into the overall exposure.

If it’s really dark I will have the flash aimed head on, with the clear plastic diffuser clicked into place, at the couples as they come done the aisle during the processional. The same goes for the recessional. If there’s a modest amount of light I will bounce the flash, maybe tilting the head at a 45, or a little steeper, again with the white card extended.

Don’t forget how handy tripods can be. For many years before there was high ISO, IS, auto focus and all the other good stuff, the old tripod made many low light shots very possible. I always take one with me even if I don’t always use it.

I hope these suggestions help - Stu

sapearl wrote in post #5140031
Gurry, I would strongly suggest that you buy at least one more memory card, at least 2GB.

Assume one of yours will fail (odds are against this) but for insurance sake assume that anyway..... and what would that leave you with as far as spares go? Cheap insurance if you ask me; memory is always on sale these days.

Just to add to that, I'd suggest having 4 2GB cards. As you approach important moments like cake cutting or toast, see how much memory you have left and swap in a fresh card just so you don't get caught with a full card at an important moment.

Also consider shooting in raw. The advantage in raw is the ability retain detail that jpg throws out when saved in-camera. It's a huge safety net.

Clean the dust off your sensor and lens before the big day.

HAVE FUN!!

tim wrote in post #5137937
...Not even a single customer has ever mentioned ISO noise. They either don't notice or don't care.

I don't mean to divert this thread but Tim, since you do much of your professional shooting at higher ISOs, do you ever use noise reduction software? Or do you not like it? I'd be interested to hear any of the wedding pro opinions on this. I like it for many high ISO shots but sometimes depending on the subject and the mood I actually kind of like a little bit of noise.

I have shot in raw before but im not very good at editing, and didnt play to much with it to figure out how to adjust with raw.

Gurry wrote in post #5139716
well im for sure getting the 430ex, unless the 580 comes up to a really cheap price. and for memory i have a 2g, and a spare 512mb. will the sigma 70-300 f4-5.6 come in handy or usefull at all, and where? what about the kit lens? and im thinking that i might pick up a sigma 28-70mm f2.8-4 DG.
also, whats the different, with lens's when the sigma box has a red stripe on it, or a tan colour strip?

You're really not listening to the advice here. Your budget is painfully low, stop worrying about glass. Glass isn't going to do anything for you at all. When you browse this site and you see a phenomenal photo - 99% of the time it has to do with the photographer (the other 1% only really applies to sports photographers where occasionally it can be said that a certain lens allowed the photographer to get a shot that no other lens would have allowed).

You can shoot the entire wedding with the Rebel kit lens, it has an extremely useful range and assuming that you had light, the photos would be incredible. When I say "had light", I mean you had a bevy of strobes, some Pocket Wizards, light stands, some gels, and a few diffusers.

Let me break down wedding photography for you a bit. Anyone can take a group of family members, tell them to stand in a certain place, and take a snapshot. Sure, there's making sure you have enough depth of field and that no one is squinting and the background is nice and there are no branches or wires growing out of anyone's head and there are no distracting or harsh shadows blah blah blah .... that's the easy part. There's plenty of light so a 6MP point and shoot will suffice as long as you pick a good location.

The hard part here is the ceremony. The indoors part. If your plan is to buy a 430EX and go blasting away straight-on during the ceremony your pictures are going to look horrible. You need fast primes. Not 2.8 fast .. 2.8 fast is actually slow, quite slow. You need speed, like 1.2/1.4, or if you have no other choice, 2.0. Then you need a few years practice with them so that you can tell, without thinking, how much depth of field you're going to have at f/1.4 with X lens at X distance from your subject. Many people here have suggest bouncing your flash, but there are two problems with that. Your average church is much too large to bounce any light around in, you need a wall or ceiling within a few feet (3 at most) of you to successfully bounce light, and unless she's getting married in Vegas, the walls are going to be much farther away than that. That's if you are even ALLOWED to shoot flash (which some churches restrict).

With $300, go pick up a Canon 35mm f/2 for $230 and spend the rest on more memory. With the 2.5 gigs of memory you said you have, you only have 8 more gigs to go (approximately of course). That will leave you with your slow zoom, and a fast prime - that will get you through the wedding with decent results if you learn how to use both effectively.

And just because I feel it is SOOO important, I will say this again. And I want you to understand that I'm not saying this as a photographer, I'm saying this as a husband. Sit your sister down and explain to her that "her day" will be over in the blink of an eye. Unless she has hired a wedding planner, she and her new husband will spend the entire day running around trying to get everything to go smoothly for their guests. This comes from someone who had almost no relaxation time his entire wedding day. I spent hours with the photog and videog, then onto the ceremony, then more pictures/video, then to the restaurant where we organized and sat everyone, walked around to each and every person to say hi and thank them, then speeches, then some food, then a ceremonial dance, then more food, then some more dancing, then desert, then wrap everyone up and send them home, then pick the drunks up off the floor, then rush home ourselves to pack for a flight, then get on said flight. You're up at 5AM to get ready, get the bridesmaids and groomsmen ready, where are the flowers? Where is the limo? ... the list goes on and on and on and by the time you get to the "dancing" portion at 8PM at night, all you want to do is sleep.

Her day will be a blur, as most wedding days our. The only people who will enjoy themselves are the guests. The only memories she's going to have 10, 15, 20 years from now will be the pictures. My brother in law spent tens of thousands of dollars on his wedding. He had so many friends, he had to hire body guards for the day because of all the gold his new bride was carrying around on her neck (it is Chinese tradition to give gold to the bride). He has two regrets about his wedding:

1) That he skimped and hired some cheapo photographer for $400

2) That he threw away the crappy photos because he thought they were horrible

Every summer he will see my camera gear and tell me about how he hired this crappy photographer for his wedding and if he could change one thing about his wedding ... that would be it. I have to hear this sad story EVERY year, not because he likes telling it, because seeing my camera reminds him of the fact that he has never shown any photos of his wedding to anyone. In fact, I've never actually seen any photos from his wedding.

Tell your sister this. Get her to hire a real photographer, it will be the ONLY money she spends on her wedding that she will think was worth it 5 years from now when that 1-use-only thousand dollar dress is sitting in a box and she's still paying off the food/alcohol bill and the "Holy !@#$ Flowers cost how much?" have all died.

This is NOT coming from a photographer, this is coming from a husband and friend who's lived through it and talked with many others who have.

Bill

Gurry, I know how it must feel, but no one is attacking you. Just remember, many of these people who are helping you here are some seriously experienced, excellent professional wedding photographers. They just want to be sure the bride & groom will be happy years from now with their only wedding pictures, and they want to be sure that no one will be upset with you if the pictures turn out to be less than what they had hoped. I think what caused some concern is the fact that you're going to shoot a wedding - a high-stress, only one chance to get it right event, and you are not familiar with some very, very basic photography terms.

Gurry wrote in post #5140994
I have shot in raw before but im not very good at editing, and didnt play to much with it to figure out how to adjust with raw.

If you get white-balance wrong while shooting RAW ... 1-click and its fixed. If you get white-balance wrong while shooting JPG ... start praying, especially if you are no good with Photoshop.

Bill

Phil Light wrote in post #5141036
Gurry, I know how it must feel, but no one is attacking you. Just remember, many of these people who are helping you here are some seriously experienced, excellent professional wedding photographers. They just want to be sure the bride & groom will be happy years from now with their only wedding pictures, and they want to be sure that no one will be upset with you if the pictures turn out to be less than what they had hoped. I think what caused some concern is the fact that you're going to shoot a wedding - a high-stress, only one chance to get it right event, and you are not familiar with some very, very basic photography terms.

^ What he said ^ - asking what 50/1.4 means is unbelievably scary. Time to give you the good link:

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=249006

Bill

Do NOT get the Sigma 28-70mm f2.8-4! Your kit lens is better than that. The Sigma boxes with the red stripe are the EX series, the gold or tan boxes are their budget lenses.

Seriously, what Bill says about WB adjustment in RAW is absolutely correct. You just "eye dropper" a white card and it will get you very very close the white you need for the image. You can do this in JPG but it's a bit more cumbersome and time consuming. You can batch these very fast in RAW.

This being said, I am getting more and more concerned about the nature of your questions. I have no doubt you can "get images" of this wedding. Everything you've said so far though leads me to believe a lot of the results will be very disappointing - sorry, don't mean to be harsh, but I've been doing this for a while and understand the complexity.

Bill Ng wrote in post #5141049
If you get white-balance wrong while shooting RAW ... 1-click and its fixed. If you get white-balance wrong while shooting JPG ... start praying, especially if you are no good with Photoshop.

Bill

Sorry Gurry but I had to go back and reread some of your posts to get a better understanding of the situation here. I've seen this sort of thing MANY times since I shot my first wedding in 1973. "..... I don't really care.... I just want some nice pictures..." This is a contradiction and makes no sense. If you want nice pictures, then you really do care about the quality of the work.

I would be concerned that she is basing her concept of "nice" on albums of others she's seen, as well as pictures she's seen in bridal magazines. That's simple human nature. If you can deliver similar quality work then you will be fine. If not then there's cause for concern.

Is is that your sister cannot afford to a hire a pro? You would be better off pitching in and helping her hire one. This way you can be a part of her wedding and truly enjoy yourself.

Gurry wrote in post #5128522
well my sister knows that im not the best, and she does not really care, she just wants some nice pictures, she doesn't care if they are like amazing or anything, just some nice shots. ....

The first wedding I ever shot was about 1982, free for some friends who "really didn't care how good they were." They just wanted me to take what I could get and since I shot it free I gave them the film to have the prints made themselves. I didn't really know what I was doing at the time and the pictures sucked. We remained friends but I could tell they were very disappointed in the pictures. It's bothered me ever since.

sapearl wrote in post #5141937
Sorry Gurry but I had to go back and reread some of your posts to get a better understanding of the situation here. I've seen this sort of thing MANY times since I shot my first wedding in 1973. "..... I don't really care.... I just want some nice pictures..." This is a contradiction and makes no sense. If you want nice pictures, then you really do care about the quality of the work.

I would be concerned that she is basing her concept of "nice" on albums of others she's seen, as well as pictures she's seen in bridal magazines. That's simple human nature. If you can deliver similar quality work then you will be fine. If not then there's cause for concern.

Is is that your sister cannot afford to a hire a pro? You would be better off pitching in and helping her hire one. This way you can be a part of her wedding and truly enjoy yourself.

Bridal magazines?

Wow. The stuff I've seen in bridal magazines is shot in studio with some awesome light.

i know what it means, just forgot, sorry, i can tell her, but its her choice. i appreciate the advice and help, but please no more telling me not to do it, like i said, i can tell her what you guys just said, but its her choice, but i came here for advice on lens, and maybe some help on taking photos and what not, not to be talked out of it.
also, yes they have spent every penny they have to get married, after they just bought a house, he is working a 2nd job plowing just to help pay for it, and now my dad is in more debt because he had to chip in. so hiring a pro is a lot more for them. but i can still tell her all of this.