Beach Wedding Advice

mpriest13

Shooting my first beach wedding in a couple of weeks. Going to check out the location tomorrow.

My question what is the best strategy for keeping the sky and water nice a blue and properly exposed while keeping the bride and groom properly exposed as well.

I will be shooting with a
Nikon D300
24-70f2.8
70-200f2.8
tokina 11-16f2.8
50mm f1.4
nikon sb-600.

I can rent anything else that is needed...

Thanks for your advice

Sam

Time of day, weather (sunny, cloudy) subject positioning, fill flash, graduated neutral density filter, circular polarizer, tent, large diffusers.

Sam

Art Scott

mpriest13 wrote: »

Shooting my first beach wedding in a couple of weeks. Going to check out the location tomorrow.

My question what is the best strategy for keeping the sky and water nice a blue and properly exposed while keeping the bride and groom properly exposed as well.

I will be shooting with a
Nikon D300
24-70f2.8
70-200f2.8
tokina 11-16f2.8
50mm f1.4
nikon sb-600.

I can rent anything else that is needed...

Thanks for your advice

For any non moving shots -static shots of the B,G & the rest of wedding party and family...shoot in HDR fashion.....especially if not using a flash......that way you can get the Dynamic Range to create the best possible photos.......
Sam give good suggestions.....but you would also need an army of assistants top set up a shooting tent and holding large enuff diffusers to do a wedding.....but good advice at any rate.........
Personally I would ditch the 50mm....unless the wedding is at dusk you're not going to need that f1.4....

You need to get someone to practice shooting in daylight with the flash before wedding day......you also need a flash bracket.......I have been a stroboframe person for a very long time but would recommend a Newton Flash Rotator bracket....the one that folds flash when not in use.........bottles of drinking water.....cover all exposed skin with a really good sunscreen - coppertone sport sweat / water proof 30-50............you should have a second body...preferably another D300 so that using it will be second nature.....have a lens mounted on it ready to go so that you do not need to switch lenses.............unless this is one huge wedding party you probably won't need the tokina 11-16 either...........but I ould rent a macro lens or at least a close focusing lens so you can get good close ups of the rings.........

That is all I have for now..............

mmmatt

Hopefully the sun will be behind them, but then flash is a must if you are going to save a bright sky. Expose for the sky if you want to save it and adjust flash comp to get the level of flash you like. Pretty much all you can do! You'll get more out of your flash closer up but either way you will be hitting it pretty good so I would recommend an external battery pack. Remember flash comp and exposure levels change as you change directions or if a cloud covers the sun for a bit.

Matt

mpriest13

mmmatt wrote: »

Hopefully the sun will be behind them, but then flash is a must if you are going to save a bright sky. Expose for the sky if you want to save it and adjust flash comp to get the level of flash you like. Pretty much all you can do! You'll get more out of your flash closer up but either way you will be hitting it pretty good so I would recommend an external battery pack. Remember flash comp and exposure levels change as you change directions or if a cloud covers the sun for a bit.

Matt

Thanks MMatt,

I have used that technique with good results for engagement and senior sessions I am just worried about getting enough flash from my little sb600 for anything other than the close up shots...I am afraid that the wide shots of the entire wedding are going to be a problem. I don't want silhouettes and I don't want blown skies. I could always take two shots of everything...one exposed for the sky and one exposed for the wedding and attempt to merge them in post. Anyone have any luck doing that?

Qarik

high speed sync my friend and clever post processing

Matthew Saville

Embrace harsh light, don't beat it into submission unless you absolutely MUST. And honestly, I haven't used "fill" flash in years. I'll use it off-camera to create dramatic light if I have the time and inclination, but 90% of the time I'm with clients, I shoot natural light and just rock the contrast... Light and shadow are the life blood of a great image. You just have to know where to be, what to compose, and how to expose it. A polarizer will really help in the extreme mid-day situations.

These days people feel compelled to beat shadows into submission with flash or fancy blending techniques, but myself being greatly influenced by the work of legendary nature photographers such as David Muench and Galen Rowell, ...I guess I just enjoy sunlight on the beach.

I teach a natural light portraits workshop here in Southern California every now and then which gets into this in greater hands-on detail, but one rule of thumb I follow is this... (which enables me to usually leave my flash in my bag, and my HDR skills un-flexed)

There are two types of shots you could possibly want to capture. The shot where the subjects are smiling directly at the camera, and the shot where the subjects AREN'T. For the shots where you need to capture smiling faces, or where the main subject / focal point IS faces, 90% of the time I just turn them away from the sun, and kiss the background goodbye. It deserves to be de-emphasized by being blurry and washed out, though not *pure* white if you can avoid it... Then, for the shots where I don't necessarily need to capture a smiling face, I'm a little bit more flexible with my options. I can use the sun as my light source, compose a wider shot that includes a pretty landscape or other composition, and if the clients aren't smiling right at the camera, that's fine. And it also means I don't necessarily need to blast them with flash, too. See how that works. Well here's a few images I've taken over the past few years in relatively strong sunlight, when shade was pretty much out of the question....

Take care!
=Matt=




(Taken mid-afternoon, when the sun isn't straight up, but definitely still nowhere near "golden hour" just yet...)




(Using the sun as a direct light source, maybe an hour or more before sunset.)



(A few minutes before sunset, the light is just ridiculously easy. Of course for this shot they're squinting a little, but check my blog for a bunch of other images from this particular shoot...)




(An hour or two before sunset. This kind of light should be no problem to shoot without flash, or maybe just a tiny little fill light, but honestly as I was saying, if the picture isn't about them looking at the camera and smiling, what is there to fill? The shot is about the entire scene, so their faces don't need extra illumination...)




(It doesn't get much harsher than this! Pretty much mid-day sunlight. Used a polarizer!)




(More polarizer work! Keeping that background ocean nice and deep blue. That's the polarizer, not photoshop I promise!)

Ed911

I see you are shooting a Nikon D300. If you haven't already done so, turn on the Active-D lighting feature in your Shooting Menu...it's on the second page. Set it to normal to start with. Active-D lighting helps control the highlights so you don't blow out as many shots. I keep mine on all the time, set to normal.

See here for an explantion...

http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d300.htm

It's also known that the D300 shoots a little hot outdoors and tends to over expose a bit...so you might want to dial back your exposure compensation by -.3 or -.7. You'll have to experiment here. Learn what your histogram should look like in different situations.

Hope this helps...

mmmatt

mpriest13 wrote: »

Thanks MMatt,

I have used that technique with good results for engagement and senior sessions I am just worried about getting enough flash from my little sb600 for anything other than the close up shots...I am afraid that the wide shots of the entire wedding are going to be a problem. I don't want silhouettes and I don't want blown skies. I could always take two shots of everything...one exposed for the sky and one exposed for the wedding and attempt to merge them in post. Anyone have any luck doing that?

Yeah, that 600 will be working hard!! You can't really use flash when shooting far back or really wide no matter where you are. Especially shooting on-camera flash because the light blows out the foreground and/or doesn't travel out wide enough. Off camera maybe, if you could find a spot for a light stand but then it is tough to direct the light where you want it. You will get your choice of sky or faces when shooting ambient but with a wide scene properly exposed, faces are less of an issue because as Matt said it is about the whole scene. Personally I would shoot the service mostly ambient and get in close for some with on-camera fill. I would shoot group formals with on-camera, and then go off camera for the shots of the b&g shooting ambient when it was appropriate.

As for merging images in post, it is certainly doable and as a safety measure I would get a few shots of the sky and beach to use if needed. Replacing the sky around a couple on the beach is one thing but doing it behind a wedding scene would be a ginormous PITA. If you shot same exact shots from a pod it would be easier but you can't shoot an entire wedding that way. It may be worth setting up a 2nd body on a pod though, and that way you can do some pano setups and some hdr setups. Either of which would be very appropriate for a beach wedding.

Matt

ARKreations

Not to mention that the SB600 does not have an external battery port and will go through AA's and rechargeable like peanuts at a baseball game - which in turn will cause it to get rather warm.

Te Amo

Shoot with both the flash and camera in manual. Dial your flash down to 1/4-1/8 power. Maybe 1/2 if you need more power out of it. Then adjust your camera settings accordingly. This will save your batteries.