Wedding Shoot

I am shooting a wedding with 2 ab800 with 2 shoot through umbrellas, it is a very big wedding party 9 bridesmaids & 9 groomsmen. Do you think I will have to have my 580ex flash on the camera to fill in shadows. I would probably have 1 ab on the right & 1 ab on the left and the fill would be my flash. Any Help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

In my opinion, shoot-through umbrellas are the wrong choice for this setup. A lot of your light will be bounced back away from the subjects. I would use 60" satin white umbrellas with an opaque black cover and just bounce off the inside of the umbrellas.

Personally, I would not try mixing the Speedlite with studio lights unless you've had plenty of experience working with the combination.

If you set the two studio units appropriately with diffusers, a third light does nothing for illuminating the subjects any better, except cast more shadows and create harsh edges on them!

Simply set one of the AB's as fill (near camera) and the other AB as the key light, and aim the key light so that the nearest people are 'feathered', like in the illustration.

Where are you taking the photos? In a church? Outside? Do you have an assistant to help you set up the strobes quickly?

It is in a Church, here is a photo of the church inside. Just a quick shoot.

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I can't help much with church stuff, i've never had to do one. Wilt and Skip will have done it hundreds of times. I have a few thoughts:
- If you have two rows having lights left and right can cause shadows on the 2nd row. You might like to have one strobe directly above the camera, and one to one side. Any thoughts from anyone with experience?
- Have an assistant to help set up. Maybe even have things set up and in an out of the way place in advance.

I do have 2 people helping me. I just dont want a bunch of shadows on their faces!! When dealing with such a big group!

pamijo89 wrote in post #6116051
I do have 2 people helping me. I just dont want a bunch of shadows on their faces!! When dealing with such a big group!

18 people really isn't a very big group, but you still need to get the lighting right. I agree with those above saying that you want a fair amount of the light to come from the vicinity of the camera (though a bit higher than the camera).

I hope you have a good light meter than can measure light from flash sources. When doing a large group shot, I often use four to six lights and will experiment with the lighting intensity (using my Sekonic L-358 meter) over the entire width and depth of where the group would be relative to the camera and lights. I will adjust the positions and angles of the lights to get it right. You can probably experiment away from the actual venue and do a touch-up of your setup on location.

Tim - I have not done any wedding stuff for over 35 years and don't care to ever again..... I used to show up at the bride's home at 7:30 AM and wouldn't leave until the bride and groom left the reception. At 25 years old I could handle that but not now.

Pam, you could possibly pull this off with just the 580ex. I did this shot last Sunday in a Russian Orthodox church that had a modest amount of ambient light coming in from some side windows. I was standing on a short stool, using the 580 mounted on a Newton bracket. ISO 800, 1/30 sec, f6.3, shot RAW.

This is the full frame of the shot, no cropping, and no PP, although I did make global WB and exposure adjustments in ACR. The shadows really are not too bad, and I'll just have to do a little exposure layer adjustment for the album print. You can clearly see the flash fall off on the sides from the 580, but that portion will be cropped out, with any remaining dark background lightened in PS.

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Maybe one big strobe with a shoot thru umbrella high above the camera. Shoot thru umbrellas throw light wider than bounce umbrellas, I think, so may be more appropriate. With the 2nd light you could light the background, add an accept light to one side, add a hair light, or something else.

Hey there Tim, didn't recognize you in the new avatar .

I'm with Skip on this. Instead of shooting through the umbrella, bounce the light off it. You might not even have to get a larger umbrella, although the light will be softer with a larger diameter umbrella.

I'd suggest experimenting with shoot thru and bounce umbrellas, mainly to test how wide coverage is. Get three people to help, standing in the centre and the two edges, with the same distances as in the church. Or do it yourself with a timer.

sapearl wrote in post #6116364
Hey there Tim, didn't recognize you in the new avatar .

Yeah i've been playing in the studio

sapearl wrote in post #6116354
Pam, you could possibly pull this off with just the 580ex. I did this shot last Sunday in a Russian Orthodox church that had a modest amount of ambient light coming in from some side windows. I was standing on a short stool, using the 580 mounted on a Newton bracket. ISO 800, 1/30 sec, f6.3, shot RAW.

This is the full frame of the shot, no cropping, and no PP, although I did make global WB and exposure adjustments in ACR. The shadows really are not too bad, and I'll just have to do a little exposure layer adjustment for the album print. You can clearly see the flash fall off on the sides from the 580, but that portion will be cropped out, with any remaining dark background lightened in PS.

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You old medium format guys are such show offs:p
Looks good Stu. Noth'n like experience I say...

Thanks air - very nice of you . Well, I don't have any choice; I've got no assistants, travel light, and don't own any supplemental lighting other than my 580ex's.

airfrogusmc wrote in post #6116618
You old medium format guys are such show offs:p
Looks good Stu. Noth'n like experience I say...