How to?

ladytx · July 10, 2008

I will be taking some pictures at these two locations. Any advice would be appreciated. It is for a small wedding so the bride and 3 girls with her will be in white. The groom and 2 boys with him will be in brown and khaki. The time will be at 5:30 pm. I will be going there today to test it out.

This is the first location. Would I set an exposure for the sky to try and not have it blown out, lock it in and then use a fill flash? On camera or off? Would I use a gel for the shade? :dunno

This is the other location. This picture was taken around 7:00 pm but we will be shooting more around 5:30 and that shade you see will not be there. Again, the woman and girls will be in white. They will be walking and not posing some of the time for these shots. Just put it on auto and go for it? :dunno

Thanks in advance for any help and suggestions.

Blessings,

geospatial_junkie · July 10, 2008

I rarely shoot at weddings unless for a friend or relative, so take my advice with a grain of salt as there are MUCH more qualified wedding photographers than I here!

Here are my suggestions:

Relocate the garbage can in the background; use photoshop to remove it; or use your lens wide open to blur it out. Also, go to the site on a SUNNY day and on a CLOUDY day at the SAME time you expect to shoot and get a friend to where a bright white shirt so you can see what you will be dealing with. I am also not crazy about the brown patch of grass that the bride and groom will be on. If you are planning on getting full-length shots, maybe a spot with fresh-healthy grass might be a bit better.

I like the second location, however, for it to work, make sure there are no bystanders in the photo. You could even use some nice texturing in this shot or bleaching in the background to bring out the grain of the stone!:D

Let us know how it goes. Sooner or later I'm going to start shooting weddings, but I'm trying to put it off. I'm mostly a landscape photographer so I am also interested in learning how these types of issues are dealt with.

Antonio Correia · July 10, 2008

I don't have any experience on shooting weddings but here are my two cents.

You didn't mention but you have a flash. May be two. It looks you have at least one.

1. I would never shoot people under bright sunshine. If ever I did it, I would use a large umbrella or similar to make a large shadow on the people.
2. I would use the flash off camera and never on camera. There are others, more experienced than me that do it. But I wouldn't dare.
3. I would use high shutter speeds to get dark backgrounds even if I had to use HSS with longer recycle time and less power.
4. I would be shooting at Aperture priority with compensation for under exposing.
5. Use reflectors like white clothes or white walls. Be aware however of the color of the walls as they may introduce color shifts.
6. Shooting under the trees is a good option. Green light is well read by the sensors and are good for portraits.
7. I would be very careful about the background of the pictures, in spite of using relatively large apertures.
8. I would use an assistant to hold the flash for me, while I would be using a flash bracket.
9. Go to the place and test again at the same time of the day you will be shooting
10. Look carefully at the histogram and don't blow the high lights.
11. Shoot raw
12. Take a drive to backup the work
13. Rent another camera, just in case.

Just some thoughts. Hope to be useful.
I am sure you will receive more and better advices than this.

tinfish · July 10, 2008

I would use fill flash for both situations. Experiment ahead of time balancing your fill flash with ambient. Off camera flash to me always seems more flattering, but not always practical. As far as shooting in the sunlight, If possible I would try to keep the sun behind and off to one side of your subject using the fill to bring up the faces. Just my two cents. Good luck.

geospatial_junkie · July 10, 2008

I agree with both previous posters about the fill-flash. I just assumed that you were using a flash.

Antonio Correia · July 10, 2008

When I said not to shoot under direct Sun, I was thinking of how harsh light is under such circumstances.

However, here you can have a look at a recent post where the light is harsh - see the last shot - but the problem was overcome with success.

There are other sites on the net where people shoot with the use of two - even three flashes - with very nice results.

But you don't have to go and move around.

Just have a look here in DGrin and you will find enough documentation and wise advices.

dangin · July 11, 2008

ladytx wrote:

I will be taking some pictures at these two locations. Any advice would be appreciated. It is for a small wedding so the bride and 3 girls with her will be in white. The groom and 2 boys with him will be in brown and khaki. The time will be at 5:30 pm. I will be going there today to test it out.

This is the first location. Would I set an exposure for the sky to try and not have it blown out, lock it in and then use a fill flash? On camera or off? Would I use a gel for the shade?

This is the other location. This picture was taken around 7:00 pm but we will be shooting more around 5:30 and that shade you see will not be there. Again, the woman and girls will be in white. They will be walking and not posing some of the time for these shots. Just put it on auto and go for it?

fill flash is an absolute must. overexposing the sky will depend on whether the sun is backlighting your subjects or not. if it is... unless you've got a 300+ ws strobe blasting your subjects and you can high speed sync to about 1/500, you're going to get what you're going to get.

some suggestions to help mitigate the sun:

1) get as close as you can to the subjects and use wide angle diffusion w/ full power flash pops. this does not mean a stofen or fongdong diffuser.
2) low ISO (ASA 100), high speed sync flash, and stop down that aperture.
3) underexpose by 1/3-2/3 stop if you want to salvage highlights in blown out wedding dresses

this shot was at something like f/14 1/200 @ ASA 100, full power flash.

ladytx · July 25, 2008

Thanks to all who helped me. They got married under the complete shade of a big tree. I set up a strobe on each side equipped with radio poppers. Here are a few results.

1.

2.

3.

Blessings,

cmorganphotography · July 25, 2008

geospatial_junkie wrote:

Relocate the garbage can in the background; use photoshop to remove it; or use your lens wide open to blur it out. Also, go to the site on a SUNNY day and on a CLOUDY day at the SAME time you expect to shoot and get a friend to where a bright white shirt so you can see what you will be dealing with. I am also not crazy about the brown patch of grass that the bride and groom will be on. If you are planning on getting full-length shots, maybe a spot with fresh-healthy grass might be a bit better.

+1 I was going to say all this but he beat me to it.
If you aren't comfortable with your manual zoom, or it isn't fast enough, auto might be the way to go especially if they are walking, even slowly, but never stopping. You'll be playing catch up with the zoom and never landing a good "RIGHT ON!" sharp picture. I speak from experience. Save yourself the post production time and hair pulling. However, don't let the camera lock onto the garbage can in the background, stay on top of it and you should do fine.

How to?

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