First time with a "wedding"...

Fstoplife

So tomorrow I am helping out with a Wedding. It's not a full blown huge wedding, so I thought it was a good place to get started. We are doing bridal portraits in the park, at 12:00, sadly. Then she's having a ceremony at a restaurant and she only wants pics of the ceremony. I am helping out, but I really want to get good shots, as next year my friend is looking for me to do the same thing, take pics of her getting ready and the ceremony, that's it. I am so nervous about blowing out the highlights in her dress, especially since it's going to be noon. I am hoping there will be lots of shady areas, and i know the assistant will have a diffuser and reflectors, but any suggestions on how to not to blow the whites? I read that its probably best to matrix meter. And I always shoot manual and RAW so I have that down pat. I think a lot of my problem is I don't take my time, I feel that the people will get antsy, although I am getting over that very quickly. Any suggestions on anything else??

tenoverthenose

Given when you are asking this, I would suggest that you get outside now and start practicing in the noonish light. Take a white pillow outside and try to take photos of it in various situations and keep the detail. Plan for the worst case scenario and hope for the best.

Fstoplife

I have shot white outside before at the beach, I guess I am just getting nervous. I am hoping that there is a cloud that helps tomorrow, just so I feel more confident. I always read all these things about how you are supposed to do it, and exposure compensation and all sorts of things, and then I start getting nervous, when I know I know these things, I just see what other people are doing, and I don't do it like that, I shoot basically with my histogram.

Bsimon

For the portraits, ( I assume your camera has the ability to flash the clipping points on your screen??) Take your bride/groom to the portrait location, put your camera on man. and take 3-4 test shots while chimping your screen to make sure the dress is properly exposed then just fire away. Obviously you want to do this in a shaded area bc noon sunlight = no good.

Hope it all goes well for you, best of luck!

tenoverthenose

My point is that you need to practice so that you are not nervous on the day. Your clients will smell that you are nervous and react accordingly (who you want to have a surgeon who is nervous?). You need to have a plan to get great shots any place at any time. That way when you are stuck at high noon in open sun you know how to pull it off. The only way to do that is practice. It's a lot more than just metering correctly. Different angles, looks, poses work better at different times of day. There are some really cool shots that I have pulled off in noon sun that would be very difficult to make happen at a different time.

Fstoplife

Bsimon wrote: »

For the portraits, ( I assume your camera has the ability to flash the clipping points on your screen??) Take your bride/groom to the portrait location, put your camera on man. and take 3-4 test shots while chimping your screen to make sure the dress is properly exposed then just fire away. Obviously you want to do this in a shaded area bc noon sunlight = no good.

Hope it all goes well for you, best of luck!

So you suggest metering off the groom? Everywhere I read it said meter off the dress, then meter off the face, and pick a setting in between. Is matrix the best mode to use? At least then it takes in other factors, that the spot metering doesn't. That's what I plan on doing, getting my setting right and just shooting. I know it's going to be fin, I just get nervous. Do you think using a gray card for exposure would be helpful in a situation like this? I know where we are shooting there is a sidewalk, so i can always meter off of that.

Bsimon

It will be best for you to take a standard matrix metering quickly at whatever f-stop you want then go full manual and double check either your clipping blinks or histogram for clipping on her dress. Get your manual settings locked in and as long as your lighting doesn't change and keep shooting while chimping quickly occasionally. Note, these are for your outdoor shots when you are not in a changing light environment.

If you are not comfortable in manual use app priority and check your blinks and or histogram for clipping and use your exposure compensation and adjust accordingly up or down. Also if clipping is really bad and you are having trouble the best thing would be to look for a not so bright area to move to

Bsimon

Also I'm sure you've got this but the best time to take your test shots is while everyone is getting in place. Explain what you are doing and make your adjustments quickly before you get your poses set up.

Matthew Saville

tenoverthenose wrote: »

Given when you are asking this, I would suggest that you get outside now and start practicing in the noonish light. Take a white pillow outside and try to take photos of it in various situations and keep the detail. Plan for the worst case scenario and hope for the best.

Well said. Practice is 1000X more valuable than advice.

It's almost too simple to explain- Be careful with exposure, and don't blow highlights unless it is okay to do so. And if you want to preserve highlights in a dress AND expose for something that is much darker, blast it with flash.

I have to say though, I've shot wedding after wedding in bright sun, and I always find ways to avoid flash except for in making dramatic portraits. Allow me to demonstrate:

Wedding portrait made before the ceremony, in bright (3 PM) sun with two off-camera flashes at my right, blasting at half power. Straight out of the camera, un-processed. (ISO 100, (LO-1) f/9.5, 1/250 sec...)


Next, a ceremony shot where I decided to let a bit of highlights clip because I felt it wouldn't hurt the image... Again, this image is the un-edited JPG preview of the RAW image, so I'm sure there's a bit more highlight preservation possible...

Moogle Pepper

Dammn, Matt!

kyeezie

Moogle Pepper wrote: »

Dammn, Matt!

Matt and his beautiful examples.