Shooting in Church with no flash.....any tips?

Kevin CTMP

Hi everyone,

I recently shot my first wedding where the Pastor did not allow use of flash....needless to say, I got the pictures I needed, but I think they could have been a little better.

My set-up was a 40D with and 17-85 IS lens....and my second was an XTI on a tripod with a 70-300 lens and remote shutter.

does anyone have any tips on how to shoot in a dark church with no flash??

thanks!

Kevin

www.ctm-photography.net

JohnBiggs

Kevin CTMP wrote:

Hi everyone,

I recently shot my first wedding where the Pastor did not allow use of flash....needless to say, I got the pictures I needed, but I think they could have been a little better.

My set-up was a 40D with and 17-85 IS lens....and my second was an XTI on a tripod with a 70-300 lens and remote shutter.

does anyone have any tips on how to shoot in a dark church with no flash??

thanks!

Kevin

www.ctm-photography.net

Higher ISO, (and a camera that does well with it)
Faster Glass,
Image Stabilizer,
Tripod

The easiest is the high ISO. If it means getting a shot or not, I'd rather have the noise.

jeffreaux2

Kevin CTMP wrote:

Hi everyone,

I recently shot my first wedding where the Pastor did not allow use of flash....needless to say, I got the pictures I needed, but I think they could have been a little better.

My set-up was a 40D with and 17-85 IS lens....and my second was an XTI on a tripod with a 70-300 lens and remote shutter.

does anyone have any tips on how to shoot in a dark church with no flash??

thanks!

Kevin

www.ctm-photography.net

Those two lenses aren't what I would consider suitable for that type of work due to their lack of large aperture and also the fact that the aperture changes realative to how much the lens is zoomed.

Ideally, you need faster lenses. That is, a lense with a constant aperture of F2.8 or larger(smaller number). If the lense is also stabilized, it would help...but keep in mind that a tripod or stabilization won't help you "freeze" your subjects. That said, I couldn't imagine using a tripod to shoot a wedding. It would be very limiting, and would allow for very little variety in framing shots....moving around.

A lense of this type plus higher ISO's ought to allow you a reasonable shutter speed AND the ability to adjust the zoom without having to refigure your exposure....and YES...you should be shooting in "manual" in this type of light...with the aperture, ISO, and shutterspeed locked in place. Adjust your exposure using your histogram so that the bride's white dress is exposed as white....without blowing the highlights.


These were all shot with no flash...using existing light, high ISO, and fast large aperture lenses.

AspectArts

And, when you have those high ISO images and you want to get rid of the noise, get software like Noise Ninja. It will plug in to your photoshop, or act on it's own. I bought it after shooting a wedding in a dark church last summer, and it works AWESOME. Well worth the $$$ I paid for it.

colourbox

Kevin CTMP wrote:

17-85 IS lens[/URL]

What's missing from your lens descriptions is the maximum aperture of each lens. I specifically replaced my 17-85 IS because it was of no help in a no-flash situation, because the max aperture of f/4 could not provide fast enough shutter speed in low light, and worse, f/4 only applies at wide angle...when you zoom in, it's closed down all the way to f/5.6! (The variabilty is why it's called 17-85 f/4-5.6).

In low light, I use the 17-55mm f/2.8 IS, or the 50mm f/1.8. The two features that make the 17-55 better than the 17-85 are that it opens up all the way to f/2.8, and very critical, it can hold f/2.8 even if you zoom all the way to 55mm. That means when both the 17-85 and 17-55 are zoomed in all the way, the 17-55 lets in so much more light at f/2.8 than the 17-85 does at f/5.6, that it can be all the difference between whether or not your handheld low light shot was acceptably sharp, or unusably blurry.

IS helps, but if the subject is moving instead of you, then all bets are off on the IS, and the larger aperture comes to the rescue again because you can use a faster shutter speed, which is more likely to freeze the subject.

Another option is to use a camera that is low noise at high ISO so that you can compensate for the low-light shortcomings of the 17-85 by cranking up the ISO.

Kevin CTMP

wow.....thank you all so much, you've definitely given me some great ideas to consider......like i said, the pictures turned out ok and the bride and groom were happy with them....but i'm very critical of my work and thought they could be better.......i'm definitely looking to get some new, faster lenses, unfortunatley, I have a baby on the way and the bank for photo gear is closed until further notice .....so i'm stuck making due with what i have...but many of your suggestions should still help me get better shots!

has anyone every experimented with the noise reduction option in the 40D....would it help at higher ISO's.....or does it slow down the camera too much?

thanks!

Kevin

www.ctm-photography.net

jbakerphoto

Kevin do keep in mind that there are more affordable options as far as fast glass. I picked up a Tamron 17-50 2.8 for around 300 used. Its a good lense and would perform much better then the 17-85 in low light. You could sell your Canon Lense and be out very little cash. Just a thought.

I know how it is with little ones on the way. i have a 17 month old staying at home with his mom. Needless to say there is very little photography budget. Congrats by the way...

JohnBiggs

Kevin,

Noise Ninja or other software is going to perform better than in camera NR.

I use the Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 for nearly everything and I've seen it listed for like $299. It's awesome glass.

jeffreaux2

A kid on the way?.....


Congrats....


...and THAT is the best reason I know of to have a 17-50-ish F2.8 lens in the bag!!!

form

There is no f/2.8 zoom that will be enough for some church environments. Consider fast f/1.4 or f/1.2 primes, and yes it's worth the money to be able to shoot in a situation where, otherwise, you simply couldn't.

By the way, don't try to use f/4-5.6 variable zoom lenses indoors.

richtersl

If you're in a position where you can't use a tripod or another means of support, you might want to consider changing your exposure compensation setting to -1, -1.5, or -2, depending on the situation. Yes, underexpose the picture. By doing this you will be able to use a higher shutter speed and thus reduce camera shake. Of course you run the risk of the picture coming out noisy, but you can use something like Noise Ninja or Imagenomic to fix that.

I did that at a friend's wedding and was able to get shots that the pro missed.