Wedding Practice

RBrogen

Here are a couple of shots I took today when my wife and I went over to scout the location for the upcoming wedding shoot that includes an elephant. Her name is Dondi. C&C welcome.

EDIT: More info on the Groom. His God Father is one of the Flying Walendas (famous trapeze artists). His grandfather used to ride trick horse with Hopalong Cassiday and Roy Rogers and then got into the movies with animal training. Some of the movies where his animals were featured are Dr. Dolittle, Green Beret and Planet of the Apes to name a few.

#1 Bride & Groom (Ashley & Joshua)


#2 I always wondered what Santa did on his time off...now I know....actually Groom's dad and minister, Phil.


#3 Joshua loves his Dondi


#4


#5

tinfish

All I can say is wow, thats going to be a fun shoot.

ChatKat

Forget the elephant!
The couple are so handsome that they alone would make a stunning portfolio. Nice shots and great opportunity. Too bad you're 3000 miles away or you could have a second shooter to help you (ha ha)

Richard

I can't wait to see the final set. One (blindingly obvious) thought: the elephant will upstage everyone else in every shot she appears, so you are going to have to resist the temptation to include her too often.

Good luck.

nicoleshilliday

ChatKat wrote:

The couple are so handsome that they alone would make a stunning portfolio. Nice shots and great opportunity. Too bad you're 3000 miles away or you could have a second shooter to help you (ha ha)

I'm only a few hundred miles away....hummmm Just Kidding.

Looks like this is going to be a blast! Can't wait to see the shots!

RBrogen

Thanks everyone. I am quite excited to do this job. The people are very nice and it is such a unique opportunity. Now we just have to hope for good weather.

dangin

looks like it's going to be one heckuva wedding!

if i could just make 2 suggestions:
1) custom white balance for better color consistency.
2) faster shutter speed (1/200 or faster).

santa's not the same without the red suit.

RBrogen

dangin wrote:

looks like it's going to be one heckuva wedding!

if i could just make 2 suggestions:
1) custom white balance for better color consistency.
2) faster shutter speed (1/200 or faster).

santa's not the same without the red suit.

Thanks dangin I think it is going to be a great day. I actually noticed that my shutter speed was off after the fact. I was doing the test shots to make sure my new lighting gear was working (ST-E2 w/2 580EX II and 1 480EX). I noticed when I got home that I had introduced a lot of blur and noise because of shooting at 1/50.

As for the custom white balance, any suggestions on setup in this area would be appreciated as I've not done that in the past. I've used bracketing, which I was going to do in addition to shooting RAW to help compensate for being out doors and having variable lighting conditions. I'll read up on the custom white balance and see if I can make sense of it in time to help as well.

Thanks for the input.

dangin

RBrogen wrote:

Thanks dangin I think it is going to be a great day. I actually noticed that my shutter speed was off after the fact. I was doing the test shots to make sure my new lighting gear was working (ST-E2 w/2 580EX II and 1 480EX). I noticed when I got home that I had introduced a lot of blur and noise because of shooting at 1/50.

As for the custom white balance, any suggestions on setup in this area would be appreciated as I've not done that in the past. I've used bracketing, which I was going to do in addition to shooting RAW to help compensate for being out doors and having variable lighting conditions. I'll read up on the custom white balance and see if I can make sense of it in time to help as well.

Thanks for the input.

keeping shutter speed at an acceptable level is easy if you shoot full manual. meter your shots prior and chimp to verify that you've got good depth of field and the shutter speed down.

custom white balance can be a bit challenging since you're shooting with multiple types of light. i'd strongly suggest using a calibration target that has nuetral grey, white, and black. if you can get your hands on a photovision wb target, get one. if not, print out a target of your own on a sheet of paper where 1/3 of it is grey, 1/3 is white, and 1/3 is black. have someone hold it for you where the bride and groom will be standing and custom white balance off of it. if your camera supports multiple cwb profiles, capture one with the use of flash and one w/ just available light.

bracketing can be a helpful tool if the lighting conditions are changing. otherwise, get your exposure close enough to right to start off with and you'll be fine. continue to shoot raw to give you that little bit of play during post production to recover highlights or boost exposure.

good luck. i can't wait to see how it turns out!!!

RBrogen

dangin wrote:

keeping shutter speed at an acceptable level is easy if you shoot full manual. meter your shots prior and chimp to verify that you've got good depth of field and the shutter speed down.

custom white balance can be a bit challenging since you're shooting with multiple types of light. i'd strongly suggest using a calibration target that has nuetral grey, white, and black. if you can get your hands on a photovision wb target, get one. if not, print out a target of your own on a sheet of paper where 1/3 of it is grey, 1/3 is white, and 1/3 is black. have someone hold it for you where the bride and groom will be standing and custom white balance off of it. if your camera supports multiple cwb profiles, capture one with the use of flash and one w/ just available light.

bracketing can be a helpful tool if the lighting conditions are changing. otherwise, get your exposure close enough to right to start off with and you'll be fine. continue to shoot raw to give you that little bit of play during post production to recover highlights or boost exposure.

good luck. i can't wait to see how it turns out!!!

Great info thank you very much. I'll definitely do that!