Nervous about 2nd shooting a friend's wedding

red_zone

Well, here goes:

My friends are getting married this weekend, and I've volunteered to help one of my other friends with the photography. She's got some journalism experience and a mid-range DSLR (D90) flash, reflectors, and tripod... I'm hoping that she'll show me the ropes a bit. The wedding is pretty low budget, we're doing this for free / the price of an invitation.
I will be shooting with a D5000, the 18-55 kit, 55-200 kit, or 18-200 zoom. I've jumped in to help out my cousin, years ago, with just the on-camera flash, and sometimes bring my camera along for some 'guest' photos that I'll send along to the family members... but honestly most are not much better than snapshots.

I've determined that I absolutely need at least a good flash and a diffuser. To this end I'm renting some equipment for the weekend - an SB800 speedlight, with diffuser, and I went ahead and put a hold on an 85mm f1.8 lens. I'm hoping it will come in useful for the ceremony and the "family" portraits afterward.

I will have pretty much 0 time between travel and rehearsal dinner, so will be experimenting a bit there. I'll have some time on Saturday morning to practice, before the getting ready starts.

Anything I can do to make my practice session into something more than just making my friends stand somewhere indoors and see how the flash bounces?

From that first wedding, "official" 2nd shooter. The gallery didn't get narrowed down, so I've posted more here than a usual post. I'd be appreciative of any critique you are willing to give... I've seen the level of photography here, and I can only hope to get there someday.



I have gotten slightly better; my most recent one as a guest a few weeks ago:
http://jqmello.smugmug.com/Family/Rinehart-Brownlow-Wedding/
Also a light challenged venue. High ISO does not like my camera, and I keep forgetting 1/focal length to prevent blur.

Dooginfif20

Well if it were me, I would slap that 18-200 on there and go to town. If you are renting gear I would have gone with the SB910, but if you already ordered oh well not that big of a difference. What do you mean by diffuser? Are we talking flash mounted, hand held, stand held?

As for the pictures you posted they all have a them. They are all shot standing and straight at the subjet. What mode did you shoot in? These look like they were in auto mode to be honest.

As for the pictures you will be taking, shot high, shoot low, lay down and shoot up, stand on a chair and shoot down, shoot through the opening of a chair, a door, a window, a group of people, flowers, trees, grass, anything you can. When you use the SB800 shoot with it bouncing of a wall or ceiling. Shoot with it mounted on a tripod, your camera, or switch to CLS and shoot with it in one hand and camera in the other. Be creative.

What time is the ceremony? Where is it? Is it indoors outdoors? If indoors, is there windows or poor lighting? If outside, will the sun by really high in the sky cause raccoon eyes? If I were you I would be asking these questions now and get a list going of things you will want to check out when you get there. With no time to scope it out it puts you in a real bind. Look and see if the location has pictures on the web.

Hopefully this helps and I didnt come across harsh!

red_zone

Thanks for your input! You're not coming across as harsh... I'm asking some pretty basic questions here.
Why the SB910? I think I can upgrade to the 900, but I'm not sure the difference in capability between the flashes, or my ability to utilize it... so I went with the basic when doing the reservation. I can probably get them to switch it out if they have the 900 available.
Flash mounted diffuser... or at least that's what I am expecting! It's not listed on the equipment list, except 'diffusers available by request', so I did.

I plan on putting the 18-200 on there for the outdoors ceremony. I have a circular polarizer for that lens, and have been happy with some of my shots with the polarizer and fill flash:

I think I can always add equipment, Penn Camera / Calumet Photography has some very reasonable prices for gear rental, especially on their weekend deal.

The 85 will probably be split between me and the primary photographer, so we'll see who uses that the most... but I think it'll probably be the go to lens for portraits.

The ceremony is at 5pm, so plenty of light, but shouldn't be too harsh. Both wedding and reception are at The Barn At Aspen Grove... I was a bit worried about the 'barn' part, but it's a purpose-built reception building with very little resemblance to a barn, I should be able to bounce flash pretty well. http://thebarnataspengrove.com/Home_Page_S8ED.html

I wish I knew how they were going to set it up, the arch looks like it can have some pretty strong dappled shadows during the evening hours. Forecast calls for clear skies and gorgeous weather.

Thanks for the advice on shots - I'll try to shoot through things. I've sometimes stood back too far, so I'll have to get right up close to get some good framing.

Dooginfif20

So the reason I suggested the SB-910 is because the SB-900 has overheating issues (had it happen to me with mine at a retirement) and if you are bouncing indoors you will putting that flash through the ringer. Keep batteries in your pockets at all times of sure! Last thing you want to have happen is your batteries die and then you have to run to your bag or car to get more. Same with memory cards. If you shoot raw (which I hope you are) you will want to have them ready to go in your pocket.

So another question is formals. Are you doing them before or after? If the ceremony is at 5 I would do them after. The closer you can get to letting the sun go down the better your lighting will be (or have a better chance of getting good light I should say). That place you are shooting at looks awesome. Make sure you find out where they are going to be at inside if the wedding is inside because if they are going to be right up against the windows your shots will need fill if you are shooting at them. It will make for some natual window lights down the group too!

When shooting through things its good to be almost right on them and shoot wide open (well unless you are using a 1.4 or 1.8). I like to shoot where there is a little cutout on a wall and shoot almost straight at the wall with just a little not the wall and that little bit being the subject.

Just have fun and remember to shoot high and low. Get in the middle of groups dancing or hold up high and pray and shoot!

Matthew Saville

The SB800 is a champ, it will have no issues with overheating. And on the SB900, just turn off the overheat protection and keep an eye on the thermometer readout.

Personally, my current favorite Nikon flash is the SB700 actually. WAY more affordable than the obscenely large SB900 / 910, and almost as powerful.

But either way. I thought I had replied to this topic but I guess it got lost in la-la land. Here goes again:

Stick with "pure" bouncing flash, don't bother with those tiny little diffuser domes. A bounce card is nice sometimes when the ceiling is 30-40+ feet high and/or painted black, but other than that I just bounce my flash at a backward angle (mind you, NOT straight up!) ...and aim for the nearest wall & ceiling combination.

It sucks the juice out of your batteries pretty quick, but even blasting my SB700 at nearly full power all night long I usually only use 2-3 sets of (4) Eneloop AA batteries.

Pure bouncing will give you much better light quality; in many of your samples you're posting here I see a bit of harshness and I think that the results would continue to look harsh if you were using an SB hotshoe flash and one of those little dome diffusers, or even one of those larger lid-type diffusers like a Lightsphere. (The lightsphere works great, if you leave the lid of 99% of the time, but I prefer a simple bounce card cause it compacts into my camera bag so much more nicely...)

If you're going to be shooting a whole lot in very poor lighting, I would also consider adding a 17-55 2.8 to your rental bill along with the 85mm f/1.8. I mean the 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 will work fine, but again you'll probably be sucking the light out of your flash pretty quick at f/5.6.

I would also ask, what are your duties for this event? Other replies have mentioned you shooting the formals, and indeed if that is the case then you'll want to be sure to practice getting sharp, well-exposed results. If the formals are outside, have people face away from the sun and then just balance a bright background with a small amount of fill flash. It's kinda sad to have to nearly blow out your background if you can't control the light enough, but it's better than having patchy sun blasting people in the side of the face! Of course shoot in the shade if you can, but usually they want to shoot formals right there at the front of the ceremony, in the sun. If the sun is low in the sky then you can use it as your main light source or let it hit your subjects' face, but other than that during brighter times of day just keep an eye on it.

Other than that, the main thing you should focus on between now and this wedding is deliberate practice. Practice nailing focus in dim conditions using a fast f/1.8 lens. Practice getting your exposures right with bouncing flash. Practice blending the flash bounce with the background light; and if you're brave you can attempt using a warming gel on your SB800 to balance the color of your flash so it matches the color of the indoor lights.

It is indeed a good idea to over-shoot, to think creatively all day long and shoot multiple angles so you don't get stuck in a rut. HOWEVER, I will caution against going down the "spray and pray" route. Keep a level head. From a technical standpoint, always be sure to "cover the bases" at least a little bit all throughout the day, and use whatever techniques / settings you can rely on to give you perfect focus and exposure. In other words, don't go too crazy with "try something new" that you miss / ruin a very important moment.

Take care, and good luck!
=Matt=

red_zone

Thank you very much Matt, for your in depth reply. I've re-read this a few times and have a mental list of some of these things that I'll be trying to keep forefront in my mind when I pick up gear this afternoon and start shooting this evening.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

The SB800 is a champ, it will have no issues with overheating. Stick with "pure" bouncing flash, don't bother with those tiny little diffuser domes. A bounce card is nice sometimes when the ceiling is 30-40+ feet high and/or painted black.

Thanks. My options are the 800 or 900, so I'll stick with the 800 for this time. I think when I requested a diffuser it's a generic little dome... but it doesn't mean I have to use it, we will see how it works. The ceilings are varied, there's a balcony around the dance floor, so there it will be 30+ feet, but thankfully all white finish drywall - fairly reflective. I may look into the bounce cards, we will see in just a few hours. I'll let everyone know what gear I ended up renting and how it worked out... and share some pictures.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

If you're going to be shooting a whole lot in very poor lighting, I would also consider adding a 17-55 2.8 to your rental bill along with the 85mm f/1.8.

For another $40, why not? It's a cheap way to experiment with a nice lens in real conditions, where the quality of the results are relatively important. I wish my budget and time allowed me to go rent these weeks ago and just play, but it's going to be trial by fire. Not having reserved it, it will depend on what's in stock.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

I would also ask, what are your duties for this event?

As far as formals, I'm going to be helping with formal shots after the wedding. The prime will have her choice of lens and either I'll be holding reflectors or shooting 2nd angles on everything, depending on lighting. Otherwise; groom's prep, guests and family, detail shots of decor, cake, dancing, etc... the 'usual' (?) second shooter targets. She'll get the rings on shoes shots, bridal portraits, dress shots, etc, etc. The theme includes fancy hats, so I imagine there will be lots of those pictures. I'm also sure we'll both have quite a bit of overlap on subjects, but that's probably a good thing.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

Practice nailing focus in dim conditions using a fast f/1.8 lens. Practice getting your exposures right with bouncing flash. Practice blending the flash bounce with the background light; and if you're brave you can attempt using a warming gel on your SB800 to balance the color of your flash so it matches the color of the indoor lights.

The rehearsal dinner tonight will be the beginning of practice, but not the end! I plan on making the friends in the house I'm staying in put up with a bunch of flashes while I get things better for the wedding night.

Matthew Saville wrote: »

It is indeed a good idea to over-shoot, to think creatively all day long and shoot multiple angles so you don't get stuck in a rut. HOWEVER, I will caution against going down the "spray and pray" route. Keep a level head. From a technical standpoint, always be sure to "cover the bases" at least a little bit all throughout the day, and use whatever techniques / settings you can rely on to give you perfect focus and exposure. In other words, don't go too crazy with "try something new" that you miss / ruin a very important moment.

Take care, and good luck!
=Matt=

Thanks for the advice! I've had a bad experience with 'spray and pray'. The problem is that it removes the thinking behind the photo, and when that happens it's easy to overlook something, like shutter speed, or whether the switch on the lens got bumped to manual, and it can be hundreds of pictures before it's corrected... so now I chimp every / every few shots to see what works and what needs changing. Still working on it...

Dooginfif20

I just wanted to add a note in here that I didnt mean it as pray and spray. I was talking about when you are standing in a group and you are unable to see the back of the camera (im 6-2 and still struggle at times) and to aim at the group from above and pray. Im not a spray and pray kinda guy

doddie

@red_zone I've certainly shot a lot worse in my days as a guest and possibly even early on as an assistant. I'm new to this forum and learning all the time still. All of the above advice is great and since I'm a Canon shooter I won't try to help you out re: nikon flash, lenses, or, gear in general. Browsing your images there are a few things that you are likely to improve on with time. Trees poking out of peoples heads - always check your backgrounds and as much as you're having to work quickly think about your compositions. Avoid shooting groups and portraits with the subject facing the sun, it will result in harsh shadows and lots of squinting! And if you can avoid crazy angles, as much as you might be tempted to, 9 times out of 10 keeping a straight horizon will be better than at a slant! @Dooginfif20 nailed it when he wrote "Just have fun and remember to shoot high and low"!

red_zone

I think this weekend went fairly well, on whole. I did not end up using the 85mm - it did not interface with my camera = manual focus and locked at f16. My friend was shooting with a D7000, which it did interface with, but I didn't ask if she used it... oh well, lesson learned.
I did rent a 24-70 f2.8, since the 18-55 f2.8 was reserved. This was a little long with the crop sensor, but I really enjoyed shooting with it. This was the lens I used indoors all the time, with bounced flash. At wide open, I found that more posed pictures turned out than candid, as the moving subjects sometimes went out of the focus slice between focusing and shutter activation.

Everything else is technique... so there were some hits and misses. I've learned the bit about trees growing out of heads, at least as much as possible in this setting. It helps to have a shallow depth of focus there. One thing I am kicking myself for is switching modes and not checking ALL the settings... I ended up taking a whole series of pictures over 15 minutes at ISO 3200 in bright sunlight. They aren't unusable, exactly, but the noise is enough to be distracting. These could have been a whole lot better. I shot the wedding (outside) with the polarizer on, and in one position I didn't check the orientation and I got a funky blue reflection off the bride's hair.

Overall, though, I'd say that about 30% of my shots are usable, and 5% are really good. Thank goodness I took about 1500, and was only the 2nd shooter. This one was particularly easy, as the family members self-assembled for photographs, asked for photos of certain groupings, and were really friendly in general.

I've only just loaded these onto my computer this morning, but here's one of my friends and fellow guests that I thought was particularly good.

red_zone

doddie wrote: »

Browsing your images there are a few things that you are likely to improve on with time. Trees poking out of peoples heads - always check your backgrounds and as much as you're having to work quickly think about your compositions. And if you can avoid crazy angles, as much as you might be tempted to, 9 times out of 10 keeping a straight horizon will be better than at a slant! @Dooginfif20 nailed it when he wrote "Just have fun and remember to shoot high and low"!

Thanks doddie. I tried to keep these in mind when shooting, I didn't really remember to do really high and really low, but I did a bit of standing on chairs and kneeling. The horizon thing is something that I've always struggled with, even when I have all the time in the world and am just shooting landscapes, sometimes things just seem to skew. Looking back at older albums they're ALL that way, but the newer ones maybe only 50%.

doddie wrote: »

Avoid shooting groups and portraits with the subject facing the sun, it will result in harsh shadows and lots of squinting!

This I tried to avoid... but the "formal" shots were all into the sun. I'm hoping that the 'real' photographer got some good ones there because I shot those all on ISO 3200, eek!

Also, thanks for making this your first post. I've explored your site, think that you do amazing work, and I appreciate your input.

Dooginfif20

red_zone was the image you just posted shot with the 24-70? It seems pretty soft coming from that lens.

red_zone

Dooginfif20 wrote: »

red_zone was the image you just posted shot with the 24-70? It seems pretty soft coming from that lens.

No, I was using my 18-200 with cpl... I've noticed that a number of shots with it are soft and assumed it was operator error. This one I made sure the autofocus was right on the subjects' eyes, and it looked good through the lens.

More from the 24-70 when I get through the inside shots tonight.

Dooginfif20

It was probably the CPL then. I cant tell but look at your exif data and see what the shutter speed was. I love CPLs but they rob you of shutter speed when you need it.

Matthew Saville

Since a Circular Polarizer cuts down 1-12 stops of light, it can indeed affect your image quality negatively in two different ways:

1.) The loss of shutter speed could cause subject motion / camera shake blur.

2.) The loss of light could cause your autofocus to "choke" in lower light situations, though certainly not in bright sunlight. In bright sunlight however, an un-clean CPL might hinder perfect focus if there is a smudge or large dust speck...

Either way, I still use CPLs all the time for weddings in bright sunlight. They allow me to continue shooting at f/2.8 or f/2, for shallow DOF.

The particular image you shared just looks like it may have been slightly mis-focused, but that's no big deal as long as their faces are mostly sharp. With practice you'll nail focus more frequently, but this is still good!

=Matt=

red_zone

Dooginfif20 wrote: »

It was probably the CPL then. I cant tell but look at your exif data and see what the shutter speed was. I love CPLs but they rob you of shutter speed when you need it.

Hmm... turns out that was with the 24-70, @48mm, f2.8, auto ISO, 1/1000s. I've got a lot of photos with both lenses that are soft though. There's only so much you can do- make sure the auto-focus dot is on the face, enough light, fast enough shutter, and hope. Eventually it'd be nice to know, though.

Here's another one later that night with the 24-70, @44mm, f2.8, ISO 1000m 1/60s.


Still working on the set...

Sam

Matt can shed more light on this I am sure, but when taking general wedding or photojournalist type images I almost never shoot wide open. I will look for about f5.6 to f8.

Wide open has it's place when low light demands it or when being more creative with DOF, but can be very difficult to nail the focus.

Sam

Matthew Saville

Sam wrote: »

Matt can shed more light on this I am sure, but when taking general wedding or photojournalist type images I almost never shoot wide open. I will look for about f5.6 to f8.

Wide open has it's place when low light demands it or when being more creative with DOF, but can be very difficult to nail the focus.

Sam

I shoot wide open 90% of the time at weddings, actually. Unless I am shooting a very large group of people and need both DOF and edge sharpness, or also very wide angle dramatic portraits of just the couple in a landscape setting. Those are the only times I ever require f/5.6-f/11.

For all details, preparation, ceremony, general candids, and receptions I am shooting between f/1.4 and f/2.8... If part of my day involves full-blown sunlight, I slap on a polarizer and/or a ND filter and keep rocking away...

(See how this turns out by visiting my blog, ! http://www.linandjirsablog.com/associates)

=Matt=

Sam

Matthew Saville wrote: »

I shoot wide open 90% of the time at weddings, actually. Unless I am shooting a very large group of people and need both DOF and edge sharpness, or also very wide angle dramatic portraits of just the couple in a landscape setting. Those are the only times I ever require f/5.6-f/11.

For all details, preparation, ceremony, general candids, and receptions I am shooting between f/1.4 and f/2.8... If part of my day involves full-blown sunlight, I slap on a polarizer and/or a ND filter and keep rocking away...

(See how this turns out by visiting my blog, ! http://www.linandjirsablog.com/associates)

=Matt=

Matt,

Your images look great. Looks like a lot are shot at 35mm, (my guess only)

My thoughts were that when shooting very close or with a longer focal length the DOF gets rather small which makes it harder to nail the focus.

Sam

Matthew Saville

Sam wrote: »

Matt,

Your images look great. Looks like a lot are shot at 35mm, (my guess only)

My thoughts were that when shooting very close or with a longer focal length the DOF gets rather small which makes it harder to nail the focus.

Sam

Yep, it's tough to nail focus, especially in low-light conditions. But the results are worth it, if you have a camera / technique that you can rely on to nail focus... :-)

Come to think of it, the only other time I might use greater DOF would be for daylight ultra-wide action scenes, such as an Indian Baraat ceremony, where I'm doing a lot of shooting from the hip (or holding my camera up in the air!) and shooting "blind". But again, these are wider focal lengths where DOF doesn't matter anyways. Anything longer than 35-50mm, and I'm shooting wide open 95% of the time...

Not advice for everyone, just my personal habits...
=Matt=

red_zone

Well, I've had some time to winnow down the good shots, and I'll now present some successful and... less successful... shots.
I had some trouble, especially inside during dancing, shooting at wide-open. My best shots were at f2.8, between 40-60mm zoom (plus sensor crop), and static subjects.
If you'd like to browse, the entire set is here :http://jqmello.smugmug.com/Events/Coulter-Lepley-Wedding/

This was not the traditional formal wedding where the groom does not see the bride the day of... both immediate families got together to do shots before the wedding. These are my "successful" pictures... The "groom prep"; some special father/son time before the "formals" session.
1


2


Formals... these were a failure. I switched settings and never noticed that the ISO was at 3200. In bright sunlight! Everything is noisy enough to look not entirely focused.
Examples:
3


I call this one the "Mary Poppins" shot
4


Once at the venue, I put on the 18-200 with cpl and took some outside scenic shots.
5


6


7


8


During the wedding I was sent to the balcony for some perspective
9


10


11


12


13
http://jqmello.smugmug.com/Events/Coulter-Lepley-Wedding/i-HRC3Pfx/0/XL/DSC_0581-XL.jpg

14


15


16


I didn't mess with color on most of the images, just cropping and levels adjustment.

Dooginfif20

red what mode were you shooting in? These all seem rather dull and noisy. I like 9, 11, and 12. Do you have any post processing software?

red_zone

I believe the outdoors shots are mostly in aperture priority, ISO 200, cpl on the 18-200 lens. There really shouldn't be as much noise on those as there is... viewing at full resolution it's pretty readily apparent. I did adjust the fill light after the fact to try to combat harsh shadows.
The indoors shots are also aperture priority, ISO 800 or ISO 1000, with bounced flash and the 24-70 f2.8 lens. I really cannot go over 1000 without being extremely noisy, it's noticeable at 800, and mostly acceptable at 1000. the early group shots (pictures 3 and 4) were shot at 3200, I was taking pictures in almost pitch black the night before and when switching back to that mode, totally forgot to look at my settings.

Unfortunately all I have for post work is Picasa. Paint.net has some higher functionality, but I haven't worked with it enough to do any good. This is why all of my original raw files are with the primary photographer, who coincidentally likes to shoot and edit in jpeg format. She uses Bridge and Photoshop.

Dooginfif20

If you would like any help with some retouching I would be more then happy to help. Im not the worlds greatest retoucher, but I think I could make this puppies sing. I dont see why the primary photographer would choose to shoot and edit in jpeg. So much data lost in compression!

dawssvt

Keep shooting!