How do you guys shoot the bouquet toss?

I've never done it because it scares the crap out of me. Moe, Larry and Curly (the guys I shoot for) are hit and miss so they're no help.

How do you nail that bouquet floating in the air every time? It must be like shooting a spastic seagull with one wing.

And I can't friggin' believe there's only one thread in this entire forum about the most important part of the day where inebriated and overly buxom bridesmaids squirm and wrestle over cheesy flowers.

For god's sake, what's wrong with you people?

I usually shoot it from either the side with a wide angle, or facing the bride with something like a 24-70. Wide angle from the side makes it easier to get everything in the frame (toss, bouquet in the air, and people waiting to catch it) but it's harder to get an aesthetically pleasing shot (lots of open space in the middle).

If you choose to face the bride I'd frame the shot so the people waiting to catch are over her shoulder, but that makes it harder to capture the bouquet in the air.

Just remember, the bouquet always goes higher than you want or expect.

So you just throw the cam into AI Servo at 1/300 maybe and shoot wide? Then close your eyes and pray? I don't think I have anything that will AF that fast. Maybe I need to ask this over on the birders forum.

Yeah, I've seen 'em go everywhere except where they're supposed to. Brides need to practice this damn it! Of course the sissy-assed grooms aren't any better with the garter shoot.

I try to get a pose of the bride getting ready to throw with the crowd behind her and then just find an ideal location where I get a field of view containing both the bride and her entourage.

camera settings for inside I typically go AI Servo with ISO 800 and FEC -1/3. usually, I can get a 3 or 4 frame burst before I drain the flash's capacitor, which gets a the whole garter toss.

as an aside, I think garter tosses are a lot more fun.

So frustrating that I don't have my archive HDs in my computer so I can't just access them.

Last one from Nov 21:

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

bric-a-brac wrote in post #9118603
camera settings for inside I typically go AI Servo with ISO 800 and FEC -1/3. usually, I can get a 3 or 4 frame burst before I drain the flash's capacitor

Same here on my 580ex. (I played with it).

Still seems like a crap shoot to me though. Maybe I can just dangle the bouquet from a piano wire, shoot and get back to my chair?

as an aside, I think garter tosses are a lot more fun.

Those I can handle. Your guy acts like that garter is made of steel. (Pansy).

Tosses can be "simulated" and recreated if absolutely necessary, but I haven't done that.

This is what I'm talking about form. You certainly "nailed" it. (But the bouquet got stuck in the lights on that 2nd pic )

I have two 430 ex's in addition to the 580. The knuckleheads I shoot for are getting lazy and giving me more latitude. I'm surprised they still show up.

I'm gonna practice this. All I need is a 15 foot ceiling and something to throw. Our chihuahua shouldn't mind.

Thanks for the tips!

You mentioned 1/300th - no - stay below the sync speed of the flash.

I do it differently every time. Sometimes it's with just bounced on camera flash, sometimes two off camera lights, sometimes one off camera light. You can stand in front of the bride, to the side, or have the bride do a fake throw a couple of times then move from her to the catchers. The trick is catching it at the top of the arc, it's almost always higher than I expect.

My approach is very much like Form's (those are all excellent shots; the first one especially); multiple flashes, low flash power and fast recycle time, get of three shots at least.

The deal is that the boquet is NOT the subject. It's always the bride and those waiting to make the catch. You want a shot just before or just after the bride makes a toss. You want another one as it's coming down and the girls are making their grab for it, and another one right after she has it. But as said, you want fresh batteries, high ISO, and low flash power to ensure that you can fire that quickly.

tim wrote in post #9118780
You mentioned 1/300th - no - stay below the sync speed of the flash.

Yeah, for me that's 1/250. I just didn't know if folks were using some high speed synch magic.

I can get a nice burst as the bouquet gets thrown. The key (I think) is to make sure your gear recycles fast enough to get the gals catching it. That's some timing I'll need to practice.

Thanks peeps!

Great timing on that first shot Joey - you got a solid "release" and a great facial expression on the bride.

I have mixed feelings on bouquet shot setups, often vary them from venue to venue, and like Tim tend to do them differently. Often the physical layout restricts your movements and you have to work with what you have. I understand why you used the smaller aperture here - makes sense, and it does really isolate the bride - but I feel the "audience" is often very important too. It's great if you can reconizably capture the expressions on their faces too.

U got some good advice above. It also makes a difference whether or not you're shooting inside or outside at dusk or dark. For these, I used a slave light (Metz 54 on M at 1/4 to 1/2 power) aimed at the catchers, out of the way, and hoped nobody got between the light and catchers. Then I used the on camera light for the bride with camera on M, 1/250, f11, and prefocused at about 10 feet. Frame the bride & catchers to get everyone in and wait for the bouquet to come down. You get some and you miss some depending on where the bouquet turns up. Daytime shots outside I used only the camera flash on the bride but did everything else the same.

Now that's a DIFFERENT sort of expression on her face Alex ..... makes you wonder what's going through here mind.

I agree about watching that DOF setting - there's always a lot of movement going on, bride jockeying for position and such.... too shallow a DOF and she can fall right out of focus. Also, as you stand further back the slightly deeper DOF will better reveal facial features and expressions on the "catchers." I've always felt this made it easier years down the road to identify who was in the "fray."

Good idea with the b/w conversion due to the extreme light mix.

TheHoff wrote in post #9120725

35mm, high ISO to keep the background lit but a 580ex in my left hand off camera to highlight the bride. Focus on her before the throw and don't be so tight on the DOF that she's going to move out of it. B/W because of 5 different colour light sources in the room.