Wedding Party Rookie

Seatime · July 3, 2010

This is my first indoor shoot. I'm just learning how to handle a flash & I can tell I have a long way to go. I would like to shoot weddings soon, maybe some budget ones to start, or as a second shooter to gain experience. Any tips or critiques are most welcome. Here are a few shots from the wedding party:

ssimmonsphoto · July 6, 2010

From a quick glance, they all seem (except for the car) too soft for my liking. Did you do anything in post?
Also, what are you using for equipment? I have relied less on flash thanks to my faster glass.

Sam · July 6, 2010

OK, sit down, no sharp objects within reach? Good...here goes...........

The images really suffer technically. Underexposed, out of focus / camera shake, dark backgrounds.

Generally under these conditions most shoot using manual or aperture priority. Also with higher ISO to allow more ambient light in.

I don't know what your definition of soon is but if your serious about shooting weddings and producing quality images I would recommend reading everything you can. Looking at the websites of wedding photographers you admire. Practice in any type of low light environment you can.

Then try and find work as a second shooter.

There is no shortcut to quality.

Just to be clear, the first images I shot were absolutely, totally, horribly unusable! I darn near quit a week after I bought the camera, but I can be stubborn and decided that the camera would not get the best of me.

Sam

r3t1awr3yd · July 6, 2010

Sam wrote: »

OK, sit down, no sharp objects within reach? Good...here goes...........

The images really suffer technically. Underexposed, out of focus / camera shake, dark backgrounds.

Generally under these conditions most shoot using manual or aperture priority. Also with higher ISO to allow more ambient light in.

I don't know what your definition of soon is but if your serious about shooting weddings and producing quality images I would recommend reading everything you can. Looking at the websites of wedding photographers you admire. Practice in any type of low light environment you can.

Then try and find work as a second shooter.

There is no shortcut to quality.

Just to be clear, the first images I shot were absolutely, totally, horribly unusable! I darn near quit a week after I bought the camera, but I can be stubborn and decided that the camera would not get the best of me.

Sam

To echo the encouragement here, minus a rare few (who usually dabble in a lot of other photography mediums first), most people's first wedding shoot is nothing short of a disaster if they've never been a second shooter first. Don't feel bad. Read more. Shoot more. Kick it up ten notches next time and rock the shots.

Seatime · July 7, 2010

ssimmonsphoto wrote: »

From a quick glance, they all seem (except for the car) too soft for my liking. Did you do anything in post?
Also, what are you using for equipment? I have relied less on flash thanks to my faster glass.

Thanks for the reply, Simmons. I took the shots 1 1/2 years ago with my Canon Rebel XT and Tamron 28-75 f2.8. Iso was 400. Some of the shots were badly underexposed, and I tried to bring them back. I agree, some are pretty soft, mainly do to marginally slow shutter speeds. My camera does not do well at 400 iso and above... noise. It was really dark in the room. I agree, they should be sharper.

Thanks a lot for the input. I do appreciate it.

Seatime · July 7, 2010

Sam wrote: »

OK, sit down, no sharp objects within reach? Good...here goes...........

The images really suffer technically. Underexposed, out of focus / camera shake, dark backgrounds.

Generally under these conditions most shoot using manual or aperture priority. Also with higher ISO to allow more ambient light in.

I don't know what your definition of soon is but if your serious about shooting weddings and producing quality images I would recommend reading everything you can. Looking at the websites of wedding photographers you admire. Practice in any type of low light environment you can.

Then try and find work as a second shooter.

There is no shortcut to quality.

Just to be clear, the first images I shot were absolutely, totally, horribly unusable! I darn near quit a week after I bought the camera, but I can be stubborn and decided that the camera would not get the best of me.

Sam

Thank you, Sam, for giving me straight talk. I found it interesting... the photographer who covered the wedding seemed to have little sense of composition. There was a lot of distracting garbage in his shots. (I got a copy of the disc) He shot almost every photo at f1.4. There were shots of the bride and groom... faces out of focus, building in the back sharp as a tack. At 1.4 either the bride's face was in focus or the groom's, but not both. He got paid $3500, using a canon 5d and a Speedlight. His images were severely underexposed... much darker than mine.

You give some solid advice. I have a couple books here to read now. I'm pretty fast at learning technical stuff, but I'm also only as good as my equipment. I've been thinking about a 7d pretty quick. My xt doesn't shoot iso 400 in dim light. Perhaps I should shoot raw? Can I push the iso with a 7d, or should I really be looking at the 5d MKII?

Thanks again.

Seatime · July 7, 2010

r3t1awr3yd wrote: »

To echo the encouragement here, minus a rare few (who usually dabble in a lot of other photography mediums first), most people's first wedding shoot is nothing short of a disaster if they've never been a second shooter first. Don't feel bad. Read more. Shoot more. Kick it up ten notches next time and rock the shots.

Thanks for the encouragement, Wally. I will be reading. I've enjoyed natural light for a while, so indoors is going to be a rough spot in the road. I will be looking to shoot more in tough conditions now. Second shooter doesn't sound bad at all for a while. There are a few bad photographers working around here. I'd like to be one of the good ones. Thanks for your thoughts.

Sam · July 7, 2010

Seatime wrote: »

Thank you, Sam, for giving me straight talk. I found it interesting... the photographer who covered the wedding seemed to have little sense of composition. There was a lot of distracting garbage in his shots. (I got a copy of the disc) He shot almost every photo at f1.4. There were shots of the bride and groom... faces out of focus, building in the back sharp as a tack. At 1.4 either the bride's face was in focus or the groom's, but not both. He got paid $3500, using a canon 5d and a Speedlight. His images were severely underexposed... much darker than mine.

You give some solid advice. I have a couple books here to read now. I'm pretty fast at learning technical stuff, but I'm also only as good as my equipment. I've been thinking about a 7d pretty quick. My xt doesn't shoot iso 400 in dim light. Perhaps I should shoot raw? Can I push the iso with a 7d, or should I really be looking at the 5d MKII?

Thanks again.

Kevin,

I took some time and went through your website. In your wedding gallery I see a few that are reasonably sharp, and again many which if they were sharper would be nice candid shots.

In your other galleries I see much sharper images. Your aperture in these galleries seems to be between f5.6 and f8, while all the wedding images were at f2.8.

I am wondering if your lens is soft at f2.8 and or you can't hand hold at the shutter speed you were using. 1/100

Try experimenting in your house. Use a tripod and take some test shots at various f stops. Then take the same image hand held using the same f stops. Raise your ISO up to maintain a similar shutter speed for each f stop hand held. Ignore noise.

Then try the same set up raising the light level and increasing the shutter speed for the hand held shots.

My goal here would be to isolate why most / all of your low light images ( shutter at 1/100) were so soft. Is it the lens or your ability to hand hold at the lower shutter speeds?

Next try and experiment using the flash.

As to getting better gear, that really is up to you and your budget. If you have the budget why not? Do realize that while better gear will provide all kinds of advantages....it ain't a magic bullet!! You may want to consider this a challenge and learn to squeeze everything you can out of your present camera before moving up.

I am no low light expert but have found shooting in low light is a minute by minute battle, chimping, watching the histogram, checking sharpness, and I don't expect every shot to be spot on. I work on increasing to keeper rate.

I would love to see a few of the pros images from the wedding.

Keep us posted, and good luck.

Sam

Seatime · July 7, 2010

Thanks for taking the time, Sam. I have a hunch that my ability to hand hold the camera is the main issue. Your test suggestions are a great idea.

I'm in no hurry to jump out there into the real world. I feel like I have a good understanding of my camera and lenses. I need to study light a lot more, as indicated by my visit to your portfolio. Nice, nice work.

Right now, I'm thinking about getting a 50d. I think I can crank the iso up on that camera and get the long shutter speeds I need. The 7d has too many bells and whistles for my needs and budget. In the future, I will ignore noise concerns in low light conditions. I believe I also will compensate my exposure a tad to make up for my uv filters.

If I can find your email address, I will send you a couple samples from the pro for you to look at.

Sam · July 7, 2010

Seatime wrote: »

Thanks for taking the time, Sam. I have a hunch that my ability to hand hold the camera is the main issue. Your test suggestions are a great idea.

I'm in no hurry to jump out there into the real world. I feel like I have a good understanding of my camera and lenses. I need to study light a lot more, as indicated by my visit to your portfolio. Nice, nice work.

Right now, I'm thinking about getting a 50d. I think I can crank the iso up on that camera and get the long shutter speeds I need. The 7d has too many bells and whistles for my needs and budget. In the future, I will ignore noise concerns in low light conditions. I believe I also will compensate my exposure a tad to make up for my uv filters.

If I can find your email address, I will send you a couple samples from the pro for you to look at.

Kevin,

Just go to my website and use the contact button

Sam

Sam · July 7, 2010

Sam wrote: »

Kevin,

Just go to my website and use the contact button

Sam[/QUOT

I see you just did that!!!

Sam

Matthew Saville · July 7, 2010

Seatime wrote: »

Thank you, Sam, for giving me straight talk. I found it interesting... the photographer who covered the wedding seemed to have little sense of composition. There was a lot of distracting garbage in his shots. (I got a copy of the disc) He shot almost every photo at f1.4. There were shots of the bride and groom... faces out of focus, building in the back sharp as a tack. At 1.4 either the bride's face was in focus or the groom's, but not both. He got paid $3500, using a canon 5d and a Speedlight. His images were severely underexposed... much darker than mine.

You give some solid advice. I have a couple books here to read now. I'm pretty fast at learning technical stuff, but I'm also only as good as my equipment. I've been thinking about a 7d pretty quick. My xt doesn't shoot iso 400 in dim light. Perhaps I should shoot raw? Can I push the iso with a 7d, or should I really be looking at the 5d MKII?

Thanks again.

If you ask me, this is the greater travesty here. Kevin is doing things the RIGHT way, shooting casually as a guest at the wedding and GETTING HONEST FEEDBACK about his work so he can improve, ...while the main photographer at this event runs away with $3500 and apparently delivers crap.

I don't know about you, but that's got RED FLAGS ALL OVER IT, for any professional freelance photographer out there. And we wonder why our industry is suffering so much because of digital? Unfortunately, I don't think digital is really to blame. Ambitious amateurs are to blame, digital was just the catalyst. In the film days, you had to have GUTS to call yourself a pro. Sure there were scammy, bad photographers then too, but just not the magnitude we see today.

Anyways, I just wanted to give props to Kevin for seeking feedback on his work, and being receptive when the feedback was tough. Thanks for following the RIGHT path. Also, to others who might read this and are charging "big bucks"- Please take a good look at your work and be honest about it's value / quality. Is it REALLY that good? Or did you just hype yourself up to all your friends, and get business by being a charismatic salesman?

It's okay to be one of those people who subscribes to the philosophy going around these days- "it's not about your photos, it's about YOU"....as long as your work IS actually good. But do the industry a favor- if your work isn't that great yet, maybe hold off another year or three before you start calling yourself a pro and charging the big bucks... Thanks.

:-P

=Matt=

Seatime · July 8, 2010

Thank you, Matthew. I appreciate it. I aim to get really good. The photos will sell me & I will build a referral base. I started a landscape design business in '91 with that philosophy & it worked. Still get calls for my services, even though the economy sucks. Treat people well. Give them quality & a smile. Get rewards. Learned it from my grandpa.

I gotta say, my bubble got popped a little bit on this post. But Sam was thoughtful enough to have me sit and give him my knife. Can't ask for more than the truth.

Enjoyed seeing your stuff. Dang good.

Wedding Party Rookie

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