Two Questions about the Sun and Outdoor Ceremonies

Ah, ain't it fun? I shoot in the harshest sunlight imaginable 90% of the time it seems

I will sacrifice the sky for faces.

HSS on your flash is your friend. I'm not a fan of it a lot of the time during the ceremonies, but a lot of that has to do with how everyone is arranged and where I can move etc.

I often won't shoot wide open but I can't remember the last time I went past about f5.6 unless it was for group shots or unless I was trying to get a sun star or particular flare or something.

That half shade/half sun thing you have going in post #8 really suckaroos for getting a great shot of them both. I feel for ya.

robert... your image editing is turned off so i'll take it down if you want but i pulled it and played with it before i noticed... about 5 minutes in photoshop from your jpeg image... on my crappy day job monitor so i don't really know how well i did the lights and darks... i see i needed to do a little bit better job on her arm... but so it goes for a 5 min job.

first thing i thought when i saw it was it needs to be in black and white... black and white always helps cure the multiple white balance photos

i live on the beach and avoid beach weddings like the plague. the sun blows!

Definitely, nothing cures wb problems quite like a B&W.

And I have no issues with image editing; just something I've never turned on mostly because I'm not too thought out about my profile settings.

Here's a copy of the edited version. It will never be a beautiful picture, but it at least gets to be acceptable. Done with LR3beta2 (gotta order the full version this weekend), opposing graduated filters and a little more tweaking with the adjustment brush.

BTW, it deserves to be said that this is not a good picture and will not end up in the couple's collection. Wouldn't have been bad had I not cut off the groom's head, but I have others from the sequence. It was just a good example of the lighting problem, though.

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I've tried the beta and frickin' love the exposure adjustment brush. LR3 looks to be a life saver!

Peacefield wrote in post #10343238
BTW, it deserves to be said that this is not a good picture and will not end up in the couple's collection.

Why not?

Unless a nice cloud magically appeared I assume most of their "altar" shots will look like this.

It's perfectly fine and a good save. The couple knows where they stood that day. The groom probably has a sunburn to remind him.

I'll be shooting in 95 degree weather later this afternoon with no shade. The 25mph wind will be tearing us all new arseholes but hey... it is what it is.

RT McAllister wrote in post #10344079
Why not?

Unless a nice cloud magically appeared I assume most of their "altar" shots will look like this.

It's perfectly fine and a good save. The couple knows where they stood that day. The groom probably has a sunburn to remind him.

I'll be shooting in 95 degree weather later this afternoon with no shade. The 25mph wind will be tearing us all new arseholes but hey... it is what it is.

Only because I cut off the top of his head. It was one of those, "focus, recompose, damn, I squeezed the shutter too hard before I recomposed, okay; focus, recompose again" type of things. Not owing to exposure, just the less than ideal composure and I have some that were done properly.

RT - I LOVE those kinds of days Sun, sand, the ocean spray, people sweating, squinting, getting sunburned. What's not to love

Peace - I think you did a nice job with the processing (and I do like the black white, too) and unless you have another shot of her putting his ring on, i wouldn't worry about his head.

One thing that sometimes we might forget about black and white...not only do they look good forever, in this case they take some of the heat out of the image. And that might actually enhance the couple's enjoyment of the photo. In colour, the groom looks like he's about to either spontaneously combust or melt into a ookie puddle. In black and white, it seems more elegant. When they look at it they won't think about how stinking hot it was but how amazing the moment felt.

kja wrote in post #10345855
In colour, the groom looks like he's about to either spontaneously combust or melt into a ookie puddle.

Yeah, that poor guy was having a rough go of it.

kja wrote in post #10345855
RT - I LOVE those kinds of days Sun, sand, the ocean spray, people sweating, squinting, getting sunburned. What's not to love

Well, here in **** Holler we have no beaches. The closest thing to your beloved environment would be the fountain in front of the local Moose Lodge. (I guess the pigeon crap could be made to look like seashells though).

your processing is absolutely what must be done in that situation. There's not much else you can do. Lights actually make photos look worse IMHO. That is actually one of the worst lighting situations I've seen. We shoot in bright sun with shadows quite a bit and lights are just impractical and ugly for most of these situations.

I'm of the opposite opinion. I personally blast the living snot out the couple with flash in a situation like that. Overpower that splotchy light and bring it all into a similar dynamic range. MUCH less work for you after the fact, and well placed lights will look better than ill-angled natural light like that. For that I use a 400ws studio light.

Newb question. Do ND filters or Graduated ND filter help at all for this?

Not really, I think. I do have a graduated ND filter that can help balance the brightiness of the sky to the brightness of the foreground. Here, though, the demarkation between sunlit and shadow is pretty distinct. I suppose it's not impossible for it contribute some benefit, though.

ND filters would help reduce your shutter speed to below the sync speed, which means you could use the full power of your flash.

I had a similar issue a few weeks ago. You were lucky your bride was in the shade and your groom in the sun. Mine was reversed. I have not "Fixed" them in post yet. I will probably only work on the images that go in the album.
For the shots I took my 580exII and manually zoomed it then aimed it at the groom. this helped a bit. Even at a distance of 15 feet or so. I kept it on camera so I could take advantage of the HSS. When in doubt, I will always error on the side of the dress.
On the proof images I did do a fair amount of highlight recovery and a little gradient tool also.