I'm Freaking out!

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 24, 2008

I can't get it to look right!

shatch · July 24, 2008

Couple of thoughts.

1) Remember, the shade is your friend. Especially on sunny days.
2) What mode are you shooting in? M, AV, TV, Green Box? If you shoot in any of the first three (preferabbly M or AV), you will be able to more fully control your exposure. Your camera meter wants to see 18% grey when making a decision as to what to set the apature and exposure to. Shooting a white wedding dress will nearly always throw that off. The camera only sees light, not what it is. You will need to lower your exposure to allow the wedding dress to come into spec. Check your manual to see how to adjust exposure in these modes.
3) Post your exif on this photo as well. It will be a valuable piece in those experts who will provide you with additional ideas and information.

It will come together and it will look great. Keep smiling and keep shooting.

whitley · July 24, 2008

My thoughts
Hi KT...I'm not sure if you're wanting post processing tips or if you want help in getting this type of "look" correct. I'm going to assume the former because if the subject is in a bridal gown, there's normally no do overs.

I would burn in the corners to get more focus on the bride. Also, if you have Photoshop, you might want to try some liberal use of the recovery slider to get more detail in the dress. It appears to be badly blown out. In the future, I wouldn't shoot the bride with this type of background or I'd move her forward and use a large aperture to blur the background.

Swartzy · July 24, 2008

A couple thoughts:

I realize you were attempting to capture the entire dress but the background elements take away as there are too many things which distract. A tighter crop would work much better as well as straightening her pose. She is leaning towards the right as is the entire frame. Don't know if you shot this in JPeg or Raw but should you like me to work it up I'd be delighted. Provide a link to the original and I'll go to work on it should you wish.

Swartzy

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 24, 2008

This was my sister's wedding dress and we were at my work just trying to try it out. I have 3 weeks to get to know my new camera and learn how to shoot a wedding dress in the sun b/c that is where the wedding will be. So I borrowed a dress and begged my co worker to wear it while me and my partner test things. The exif , I am not really sure of. I was testing out my preset modes, and happen to be using portrait on that one. Now NORMALLY I shoot Raw and in Manual. But I don't even know where to begin on what settings. I have LightRoom and adobe photoshop at home I use

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 24, 2008

EXIF (found it)

1/200 shutter
14 aperature
400 ISO
Matrix metering

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 24, 2008

Straight from the camera, no processing done!

whitley · July 24, 2008

I think spot (vs matrix) metering on the dress will definately be a step in the right direction. The other pictures that you posted were very nice.

InsuredDisaster · July 24, 2008

The first shot looks poorly focused. Is it just me?

Scott_Quier · July 25, 2008

shatch wrote:

Couple of thoughts.

1) Remember, the shade is your friend. Especially on sunny days.
2) What mode are you shooting in? M, AV, TV, Green Box? If you shoot in any of the first three (preferabbly M or AV), you will be able to more fully control your exposure. Your camera meter wants to see 18% grey when making a decision as to what to set the apature and exposure to. Shooting a white wedding dress will nearly always throw that off. The camera only sees light, not what it is. You will need to lower your exposure to allow the wedding dress to come into spec. Check your manual to see how to adjust exposure in these modes.
3) Post your exif on this photo as well. It will be a valuable piece in those experts who will provide you with additional ideas and information.

It will come together and it will look great. Keep smiling and keep shooting.

If you meter and your meter wants to turn white to 18% gray, then lowering your exposure will further reduce the luminosity of the gown.

Scott_Quier · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

This was my sister's wedding dress and we were at my work just trying to try it out. I have 3 weeks to get to know my new camera and learn how to shoot a wedding dress in the sun b/c that is where the wedding will be. So I borrowed a dress and begged my co worker to wear it while me and my partner test things. The exif , I am not really sure of. I was testing out my preset modes, and happen to be using portrait on that one. Now NORMALLY I shoot Raw and in Manual. But I don't even know where to begin on what settings. I have LightRoom and adobe photoshop at home I use

Then continue to shoot RAW and manual. Here's a quick couple of hints:

To get a reading, move in really close to the gown and get your reading.
Remembering that the camera is wanting to turn all things to 18% gray, the expsoure the camera computer is providing you will be somethere between 1 and 1.5 stops too dark. So adjust either your shutter speed or your aperture. If you have an incident light meter, take a reading near the face of your model and set your camera to the settings indicated.
Step back to shooting distance
Take the shot
Chimp the histogram. If the spike from the dress isn't in the upper 1/4 of the histogram, adjust your settings and take another shot.

But, you said the wedding is going to be in full sun. Hmmmm .... now you need to make choices. In the first pose, if you correctly expose the face/bodice (and, it appears you came quite close to doing exactly that) there is virtually no way you are going to get the skirt of the gown properly exposed. It has to do with the fact that your model's face and bodice are in the shade while the skirt is in direct sunlight.

Another thought - you could attempt to use your flash and have the flash be your main light. Doing so, your flash would be stronger (more powerful) than the sun (yes, at close range, this can be done). Under such circumstances, the model's face, bodice and skirt would all be in the same (or nearly same) light. But, you won't be able to that during the wedding - you will be too far from the action for the flash to be anywhere near powerful enough to compete with the sun.

But, shatch has very valid a point. If you can get the model/bride into the shade that will make your life so much easier. Then the face, bodice, and skirt would all be illuminated by the same light and all would be well within the dynamic range of your camera's sensor.

As for the EXIF - There's a couple of things I would do to make your life a little easier:

Boost shutter speed to max x-synch (probably 1/250)
Reduce your ISO to 100
Now, adjust your aperture to match the above changes - should be somewhere in the f/8 - f/11 range - your shot is a bit over-exposed:D

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 25, 2008

Then continue to shoot RAW and manual. Here's a quick couple of hints:
To get a reading, move in really close to the gown and get your reading.

Remembering that the camera is wanting to turn all things to 18% gray, the expsoure the camera computer is providing you will be somethere between 1 and 1.5 stops too dark. So adjust either your shutter speed or your aperture. If you have an incident light meter, take a reading near the face of your model and set your camera to the settings indicated.

Step back to shooting distance

Take the shot

Chimp the histogram. If the spike from the dress isn't in the upper 1/4 of the histogram, adjust your settings and take another shot.

But, you said the wedding is going to be in full sun. Hmmmm .... now you need to make choices. In the first pose, if you correctly expose the face/bodice (and, it appears you came quite close to doing exactly that) there is virtually no way you are going to get the skirt of the gown properly exposed. It has to do with the fact that your model's face and bodice are in the shade while the skirt is in direct sunlight.

Another thought - you could attempt to use your flash and have the flash be your main light. Doing so, your flash would be stronger (more powerful) than the sun (yes, at close range, this can be done). Under such circumstances, the model's face, bodice and skirt would all be in the same (or nearly same) light. But, you won't be able to that during the wedding - you will be too far from the action for the flash to be anywhere near powerful enough to compete with the sun.

But, shatch has very valid a point. If you can get the model/bride into the shade that will make your life so much easier. Then the face, bodice, and skirt would all be illuminated by the same light and all would be well within the dynamic range of your camera's sensor.

As for the EXIF - There's a couple of things I would do to make your life a little easier:
Boost shutter speed to max x-synch (probably 1/250)

Reduce your ISO to 100

Now, adjust your aperture to match the above changes - should be somewhere in the f/8 - f/11 range - your shot is a bit over-exposed:D

Thanks Scott and Shatch! I will try this again and hope to have some kind of improvement. Now will I want it on F/8 -F/11 throughout the whole wedding ceremony? I am afraid my Canon will focus on something I don't want it to focus on if it is on auto (9 point system) and then I am afraid if I manually put the focusing dot where I want it I won't have enough time to change it during the actual ceremony. Hopefully that makes sense.

Scott_Quier · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

[/LIST]Thanks Scott and Shatch! I will try this again and hope to have some kind of improvement. Now will I want it on F/8 -F/11 throughout the whole wedding ceremony? I am afraid my Canon will focus on something I don't want it to focus on if it is on auto (9 point system) and then I am afraid if I manually put the focusing dot where I want it I won't have enough time to change it during the actual ceremony. Hopefully that makes sense.

In general and assuming bright sunlight these settings will get you close, But, there's no way one can tell with any certainty you what your settings should be at any given time. Camera settings must be adjusted to meet the demands of the situation and the situation is ALWAYS changing. That's part of what makes photography so much fun

.

One "Rule of Thumb" that should help you is the "Sunny 16 Rule" A good place to start is this thread.

For future reference, you can do a google search on DGrin content AND limit returned results to only postings on DGrin. For example, I found the above link using the following search terms

sunny 16 site:dgrin.com

What's very significant is the

site:dgrin.com

portion. This tell google to look only at DGrin content.

As for focusing, consider using only the center focus point. Focus and re-compose before you trigger the shutter. Granted, there's the small possibility of a slight focus error when you work this way, but if your camera to subject distance is more than 4 or 5 feet and you're working at f/8 or better, your Depth of Field (remembering that DOF is increased with increasing camera-to-subject distance and with decreasing aperture) will be much more the sufficient to compensate.

InsuredDisaster · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

[/list]Thanks Scott and Shatch! I will try this again and hope to have some kind of improvement. Now will I want it on F/8 -F/11 throughout the whole wedding ceremony? I am afraid my Canon will focus on something I don't want it to focus on if it is on auto (9 point system) and then I am afraid if I manually put the focusing dot where I want it I won't have enough time to change it during the actual ceremony. Hopefully that makes sense.

I'm not a pro, nor have I ever done a wedding, but you might look to your Av (Aperture priority mode) or P mode. On my Nikon, you can rotate the command dial when in P mode and this doesn't change your exposure, but you can move things towards faster shutter/wider aperture or slower shutter, smaller aperture. The good part of this is that it will handle the situation if you go into an extremely dark or extremely bright situation fairly well. check you manual to see if you can do something similar with your camera.

The other thing is Av mode or Aperture priority. This way, you can turn the command dial one way or the other and you can open or close up your aperture setting and enable you to control you depth of field. The camera will automatically handle shutter speed. The one problem I run into is if you open your aperture up to max when indoors, and then go outside into the bright sun, the camera may max out the shutter speed to whatever the fastest speed is, but it may still be to bright and blow out your photo.

cmason · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

[/listI am afraid my Canon will focus on something I don't want it to focus on if it is on auto (9 point system) and then I am afraid if I manually put the focusing dot where I want it I won't have enough time to change it during the actual ceremony. Hopefully that makes sense.

KTBoom:

Look at the Custom Functions. there is one that will allow you to use the 'arrow keys' on the back of the camera to choose your focus pt. I found that this was extremely useful and could very quickly select my focus pt with my thumb while composing. The XSi menu is different than the XT, so I am not sure what it is called, and the XSi doesnt have the 'joystick' that the 40D uses for this function, so sorry I can't be more specific.

Try it out, and practice, you will get the hang of it quickly.

the auto focus selection will be a disaster for you at a wedding I predict, as for many photos, such as the last one you posted, getting the eye in focus is really important. If you leave your aperature fairly closed (f11,16) you can get a wide range in focus while you ensure that the eye is sharp.

Richard · July 25, 2008

Scott_Quier wrote:
For future reference, you can do a google search on DGrin content AND limit returned results to only postings on DGrin. For example, I found the above link using the following search terms
sunny 16 site:dgrin.com
What's very significant is the
site:dgrin.com
portion. This tell google to look only at DGrin content.

This is useful for any site you wish to search.

Some people may not be aware that you can do the same thing within the Search dropdown box on the main Dgrin nav bar. The GUI design of this isn't as clear as it should be, but nevertheless, the top area of the window that opens is a text box that will trigger a Google search within Dgrin.

Just type in what you want and hit enter. This search does not suffer from the lame vBulletin limitations.

FYI. And now back to our regularly scheduled program...

mmroden · July 25, 2008

I think your second set of shots are spot on, but as everyone's said, the dress is blown and the background is distracting.

When I shoot weddings in the sun, here are my general settings:

1) Lowest ISO possible that still retains full dynamic range (100 on the d200, 200 on the d70 and d300). Since you have lightroom, and if you have cs3, there are lots of interesting raw processing options that can really save you if you shot in RAW at that ISO. It depends on your camera (I don't shoot Canon), but at that ISO, you can generally go up or down 3 stops of exposure and still have a very usable image.

2) Lens selection. For me, when I shoot weddings, I use the 17-55 2.8, and the 85 f/1.8 on another body for range. The first gets the wide and generally enough zoom, and on a d300, an image that's cropped to 1/2 size is still 6 mp, more than enough for most prints. I generally don't like to use longer lenses-- the big ones (the 70-200 f/2.8s) are great quality, but after a few hours of lugging it around, I'm really just sick of the thing, and the small ones (70-300's and similar) just aren't as sharp or crisp at the lower apertures. If you don't have the options of the other lenses, you can take a look at renting a lens (generally about $50, depending on the lens and where you go; I got a 70-200 f 2.8 from Bel-Air Photo in LA for $30 for a weekend), or just keep yourself away from the far end of the zoom range. Generally, the lower-end zooms tend to have poorer image quality the further out you go. I fantasize about a high quality 70-200 lens that I can carry around and use at a wedding that won't break my arm or the bank.

3) Shoot on the lowest aperture possible. This is the reason why I go for the lenses I do; by shooting at these low apertures, you can isolate your subject from the background using blur, and the really nice lenses give a really nice background blur, with no further postprocessing. Shooting at these low apertures tends to be the difference between "Wow, what a shot!" and "Uncle Morty took some similar pictures." This rule isn't hard and fast-- when the bride is moving out of the church (if it's a church wedding), I might go to a smaller aperture, near f5.6, to make sure I don't accidentally leave something out, but for the most part, f2.8 is good.

4) Use very selective focus. Since you have a nine-point focus array, very similar to the one in the d70 (I'd imagine), put the focus point at one of the far left or far right points, and put that point over someone's eye. If the eye is in focus, almost everything else will be forgiven. Our brains are wired to make eye contact; there's a whole portion of the brain that's dedicated solely to the finding and recognition of faces, and eyes make up a big portion of that processing. Missing the eye and getting a nose, while the face will still be discernable, means that the image will just look... wrong.

5) Relax-- they chose you to be their photographer, so they have some faith in your abilities. It's good to practice, but don't freak out. Panicking can make wedding photography go from something that's fun-- documenting people's happiness-- into a real chore.

Scott_Quier · July 25, 2008

Continuing post #13 - you can find a very good post by Pathfinder on estimating outdoor expsoure without a lightmeter here.

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 25, 2008

I can't wait to get home and check out if I can get some good pictures with all of the help you guys are giving me. I have a 14-55 mm lens,will that do good? I plan on taking 2 cameras (not sure if my olympus will be back from repair) and having one with a wide lens and one with a larger lens. My partner will carry one and be in one part and I will have the other in another location of the wedding.

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 25, 2008

Another picture for everyone to see. I really like this one for some reason

Seneca · July 25, 2008

KT...for some reason the image looks flat the colors are just not popping like they should.

Take a look at the before and after.

Since you will be shooting in harsh sunlit conditions...I think it's best you meter the sky. If you don't you are going to have a lot of blown out highlights.

Scott_Quier · July 25, 2008

For future reference:

The expression is not very flattering for a bride - I know, this isn't a bride just a friend at work
You cut off her elbows
Where's she looking?
And, it looks a little blow out on this monitor. Is it?

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 25, 2008

Seneca wrote:

KT...for some reason the image looks flat the colors are just not popping like they should.

Take a look at the before and after.

Since you will be shooting in harsh sunlit conditions...I think it's best you meter the sky. If you don't you are going to have a lot of blown out highlights.

Thanks, I am trying so hard to get this figured out. I didn't think about colors popping out when I have the whole exposure problem right now.

Seneca · July 25, 2008

Well photography is so much more than clicking the shutter. There is a lot to remember and a lot to keep together. I charge a lot of money for an 8x10...I want my customers to know that I have "the eye" for this business.

Good Luck.

urbanaries · July 25, 2008

Seneca wrote:

Well photography is so much more than clicking the shutter. There is a lot to remember and a lot to keep together. I charge a lot of money for an 8x10...I want my customers to know that I have "the eye" for this business.

Good Luck.

+1

i_worship_the_King · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

EXIF (found it)

1/200 shutter
14 aperture
400 ISO
Matrix metering

I'm not an expert, but the Sunny 16 thing (a way to estimate exposure) says something to the tune of:

1/400 aperture
f/16
@ ISO400 in full sun.

If I were you I would shoot the lowest ISO possible, between 100 & 400 is not that big of a difference, but any noise reduction is nice. Big white areas like a dress can cause the meter to go nutty - so once you dial in stick with it, and chimp the histograms or highlights to make sure it's on target.:D

Seneca · July 25, 2008

F16 1/250 (200 IS)) is a good starting point for harsh sunlight

LiquidAir · July 25, 2008

KTBoom2006-E510 wrote:

EXIF (found it)

1/200 shutter
14 aperature
400 ISO
Matrix metering

That is about a stop overexposed for direct sun. Try either

1/200s shutter
f/16 aperture
200 ISO

or

1/200 shutter
f/11 aperture
100 ISO

Personally, I'd choose f/11 and 100 ISO because f/16 is going to be diffraction limited. With a bright dress like that you might even need to stop down another 1/3 stop, but I'd start at f/11 and only push it if I had to.

Another answer if you aren't comfortable with manual exposure is to spot meter off the dress and push the esposure 1 2/3 stops. That should leave the dress looking white without blowing it out.

Scott_Quier · July 26, 2008

That's funny - the last three posts are just duplicating/repeating what I said in post 13

My comments at the bottom of post #11 are just are just an implementation of this "rule" - wait for it and it'll come to you

No worries - it's just confirmation that there's no great secret to any of this.

KTBoom2006-E510 · July 31, 2008

At the weddings, how many of you use flash? Does it every distract people? And do you click a lot? I am afraid of taking to many pictures and people getting mad b/c i have the flash going off so much.

marlof · July 31, 2008

Seneca wrote:

KT...for some reason the image looks flat the colors are just not popping like they should.

I'd say "could" in stead of "should". If my wedding pictures came out popping like your example, I'd figure I'd have married in a parallel universe, where true color representation is frowned upon. I know this kind of pop is a hot style, and it's favored by many, but please allow some people to care for subtlety. :-) A good read on this subject can be found at the online photographer. Nevertheless, good advise to make note of postprocessing as well.

I'm Freaking out!

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