Show me your wedding, or indoor photography set up

I did a wedding this weekend and while i like the pictures, I feel with a little better set up they would have come out that much better. So i am asking to see your pics of your cameras and set ups you use to shoot wedding pics, or receptions, banquits, stuff like that, please post a picture of the set up and a picture you took with the set up. This would be a great help. I am moving into wedding photography and am trying to learn as much as possible. Right now I am using the 40D with a 580 ex and the gary phong lightsphere. I am sure i need a flash bracket though. Thought, inputs suggestions and examples are needed. Thanks every one.

akhoopes wrote in post #5698106
Thought, inputs suggestions and examples are needed. Thanks every one.

I don't want to drag everything out and spend two hours making it all look interesting so I will just honor your last request!

To do weddings I suggest the following minimal ($10,000) kit:

* Camera Body (40D or 5D) x 2
* 24-70 f2.8L or 17-55 f2.8
* I have primes as backup lenses, 35 f2, 50 f1.4, 85 f1.8
* 580EX II flash x 5
* 16GB Sandisk III x 2
* USB card reader
* Light Stand x 4
* Swivel Umbrella Adapter x 4
* Flash Mount Adapter x 4
* 60" Umbrella x 2 (you should have a 32" set too)
* StormCases x 3
* Tripod + ball head + arca-swiss plates for camera body
* Quad Core computer
* S-IPS LCD 21" monitor
* PhotoShop CS3 or gimp to save cash (but you will want CS3)

This will get you by. You will also want an assistant... hopefully your married to one.

akhoopes wrote in post #5698106
I did a wedding this weekend and while i like the pictures, I feel with a little better set up they would have come out that much better. So i am asking to see your pics of your cameras and set ups you use to shoot wedding pics, or receptions, banquits, stuff like that, please post a picture of the set up and a picture you took with the set up. This would be a great help. I am moving into wedding photography and am trying to learn as much as possible. Right now I am using the 40D with a 580 ex and the gary phong lightsphere. I am sure i need a flash bracket though. Thought, inputs suggestions and examples are needed. Thanks every one.

If you are doing weddings for hire and are the only paid photographer there, you'd better have TWO camera bodies and enough lenses and lighting equipment so that you can keep on working when (notice I'm saying "when", not "if") something stops working while on the job.

You can't imagine the fury you'd be facing (as well as legal problems) if you had to stop partway through a wedding and could not complete the job because "my camera broke".

If you look at the post above, you'll see duplicates of many items in the list. There's very good reasoning behind that.

By the way - you will find that Gary Fong's "tupperware" is not nearly versatile enough for weddings. Ceilings are too high (and often the wrong color), walls are too far away (and also the wrong color). All the "diffuser" would do for you in those circumstances is waste what little light energy the flash can muster in addition to draining its batteries faster than necessary. For true versatility, I find the LumiQuest Promax System to be a great package of tools that tucks away very nicely in any camera bag that I have.

There's no reason for you to be unable to create excellent images with your current kit.

cdifoto wrote in post #5698702
There's no reason for you to be unable to create excellent images with your current kit.

Quite true.

I think every one is misunderstanding me, while i appriciate all the information given here, I was asking to see set ups of the camera and how you would have the flash on the camera set up during the ceromony and reception. and other indoor photgraphy events, and an example of a shot you took with the set up, not a gear list, I know what kind of gear you need, I was looking for camera , and flash bracket examples, i think thats the route i am going to go instead of the lightsphere, i didnt like the results from it.

oh but why in the world would i need 5 580 ex flashes, Ihave one and some aline bees if i needed to do formal shots, i couldnt see seting up 5 strobes and 5 light stands, wow. so if any body has any examples and a picture taken with it, ,or any other suggestions that would be great, and if you want to see what i did this weekend you can visit my website www.jumpingthrewphoto.​com go to family and its the gallery at the bottom that says wedding. I think i got some good shots, but feel with some stuff made for these kinds of photos i would have gotten better results, i normally shot outside, non moving posed subjects. this was quite different and a challange, none if the pictures in this gallery have had any post proccessing done except resize in lightroom.

thanks for the help every one.

pcunite wrote in post #5698551
I don't want to drag everything out and spend two hours making it all look interesting so I will just honor your last request!

To do weddings I suggest the following minimal ($10,000) kit:

* Camera Body (40D or 5D) x 2
* 24-70 f2.8L or 17-55 f2.8
* I have primes as backup lenses, 35 f2, 50 f1.4, 85 f1.8
* 580EX II flash x 5
* 16GB Sandisk III x 2
* USB card reader
* Light Stand x 4
* Swivel Umbrella Adapter x 4
* Flash Mount Adapter x 4
* 60" Umbrella x 2 (you should have a 32" set too)
* StormCases x 3
* Tripod + ball head + arca-swiss plates for camera body
* Quad Core computer
* S-IPS LCD 21" monitor
* PhotoShop CS3 or gimp to save cash (but you will want CS3)

This will get you by. You will also want an assistant... hopefully your married to one.

I have most of this expect the flash's for that i have 1 580 and a few alien bees.

akhoopes wrote in post #5698906
I have most of this expect the flash's for that i have 1 580 and a few alien bees.

Ok... then the path to great images involves one or more or individually the following:

* Placing flashes in key areas for lighting. Trigger them remotely when needed.

* Third and forth assistants who carry flashes at the end of a stick and shadow your movements. Some of the best work I have seen uses this form.

* Using large apertures for tasteful subject separation. This is prime lens work so you will have another camera bouncing off your back the whole time.

My Set-up:
Hasselblad-
80mm F2.8 CF lens
2x120 films backs loaded with Ilford Delta 100 ISO
Backed up with EOS 620
EF 50mm F1.8L MK II
Ilford Delta 100 ISO 36 exp
Hot shoe to PC adapter

Digital-
Canon 20D
EF 50mm F1.8L MK II
Backed up with 35-105mm F3.5-4.5
Canon BH-511a
Sandisk 4gb Ultra II CF cards
HP DV5000Z and Photoshop CS2
20" of usb cables

Both-
1% spot meter and a random flash meter
3x Calumet Travel lite 750
2x 42" reflective umbrellas
16x24" softbox
18% gray card

akhoopes wrote in post #5698887
I was asking to see set ups of the camera and how you would have the flash on the camera set up during the ceromony and reception.

Ok. I rarely post pictures here so this is your lucky day. The following sequence of photos is from a wedding I did last year in a very very difficult and dark church. Look at the ceiling notice how it is wood!

These shots show how that the 40D and f2.8 provide really too much depth of field most of the time which is why I will be moving to the 5D replacement. These shots are only spectacular in the sense that I know how to light a scene otherwise I would consider them snapshots.

Each shot used three flashes, one on camera as master also firing and two others. Coming down the isle was a flash behind them (the pool of light behind them on the floor) and everything else has two flashes from the front contributing in addition to on camera. If I had an assistant it would nice but I don't charge $5,000 for wedding work

A quick shot to show the work to follow!

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i dont understand , am i typing it wrong or something, I am looking for pictures of peoples set up, what you carry around in yuor hand, IE camera, flash bracket, flash, whatever you use at the event and an example of something you shot, why does every one keep putting a gear list down with no examples. I appriciate the effort but its not what i am asking for.

pcunite wrote in post #5699138
Ok. I rarely post pictures here so this is your lucky day. The following sequence of photos is from a wedding I did last year in a very very difficult and dark church. Look at the ceiling notice how it is wood!

These shots show how that the 40D and f2.8 provide really too much depth of field most of the time which is why I will be moving to the 5D replacement. These shots are only spectacular in the sense that I know how to light a scene otherwise I would consider them snapshots.

Each shot used three flashes, one on camera as master also firing and two others. Coming down the isle was a flash behind them (the pool of light behind them on the floor) and everything else has two flashes from the front contributing in addition to on camera. If I had an assistant it would nice but I don't charge $5,000 for wedding work

A quick shot to show the work to follow!









These used one single flash because I could bounce off of something very near the subjects. It is the best I could do in a situation I can not control...



The above two used one single flash because I could bounce off of something very near the subjects. It is the best I could do in a situation I can not control...

thanks for the info, appricate it.

Here are some shots I took as a guest at a wedding. I used a 30D with 17-85 lens and a 580EX flash, on camera. No brackets, no diffusers/bouncers (not even the one in the 580EX), no gels, no light meters. I bounced off the ceiling for most shots, when there was one.

Even though most people will know what a 30D, 17-85 and 580EX look like, I don't want to get in trouble so I'm posting a picture of my gear, as used. Ignore the tripod I did not have that back then. Apologies for the soft image - this was hand held at 1/15 with my unstabilised P&S.

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I tend to put a speedlite on each camera and use that for most of the day. Outside some of the shots get off camera flash, sometimes bare, sometimes shot into an umbrella. At receptions I use off camera flash, either Sunpak 383s or Alien Bee B800s, bounced off the ceiling or direct if the ceiling's not suitable, triggered by crappy radio triggers (soon to be upgraded).

To the OP - join www.digitalweddingforu​m.com and take a look at the lighting threads there. People have gone to a lot of trouble to help teach others, and the calibre of photographer is very high. It's the best $100 you'll spend on wedding photography. You might only get into DWF start, that's still very valuable.

pcunite - it's generally considered impolite to link to a lot of large images on a forum. There's a 100kb max size on POTN.

I consider it basic that you absolutely need off-camera flashes and some way of triggering them, shooting through brollies or softboxes. You need a spare everything.

It doesn't need to cost you a load of money though, a cheap body as a backup, some spare lenses (you may already have), cheap flashes on manual and ebay cactus triggers would probably suffice at a pinch.