Wedding Photography

[bigdazzler]

take a look at the spread of the whatsaname thingy it should all be roughly centre or evenly spread

gold medal technical quote of the year mate ..

for the record .. its called a histogram

[flash]

ah!! a histogram, yep had one of them and the quack said I'm all clear!

[ricktas]

Well, it is Sunday night, how did you go Bigdaz?

[dowden photography]

Well i got my 550D this week, as well as my 17-85mm lens, and i am going to a wedding this weekend and have decided i may as well bring it along and give it a go. I am not the official photographer and they have hired professionals so it is not the end of the world if the photos do not turn out, i am doing this for my experience, so don't bother telling me wedding photography is hard, i have searched and found that out already.

Firstly don't get in the way of the paid photographer, your friends could be paying over $2000 for their service and getting in their way could be a friendship ended.

Now my only lens is the 17-85mm, but i am looking at buying a 50mm F1.8 and a 55-250mm IS lens in the near future, would i be better off getting these sooner?


the 50mm ƒ1.8 is a very cheap lens, stick with the 17-85mm

I only have the in built flash, will this be enough?

Hell no, not even close, a mile from it.
Inbuilt flashes are one of the worst things you could shoot with, buy a second hand flash if you want but if you plan on using a flash.

Lens hoods, i don't have any, should I?

Yes, you'll stop light dots and flair.

I am pretty new at this should i just stick to Auto mode, or change it to one of the other auto settings, such as portrait mode or something? Or is this that moment where i need to take my training wheels off and learn more about depth of field so i can get some good background blur happening?


Shoot in aperture mode, set it to the lowest number and fire away, when using the flash set it to ƒ8.

[dowden photography]

yeah, come near me when i'm working and I'll hit you over the head with my $3000 lens

but seriously, it seems you've determined that capturing shots is not necessarily as easy as it seems and you have realistic expectations for a first wedding. This is a great start as you may even surprise yourself!

Here are a few quick points:

• As above, best not to use flash in the church during the ceremony. That said, as the bride walks in, walks out and during the certificate signing (if celebrant says everyone come up) are usually the 3 times when it's "permissable" to use your flash.
• Don't be scared to push your ISO up high in the church. Better to capture grainy images then clear ones with lots of motion blur (ie. shutter speed too slow, people moving)
• don't bother with multiple lenses as you will miss things when changing, the 17-85mm should be able to cover most of your needs
• Talking to the photographer is really a case by case thing that you'll have to judge on the day. I personally don't mind talking to people and handing out a few tips when working but i will tell people to disappear if they become a nuisance.
• have fun, and enjoy the day as much as you can (it sometimes does suck when your partner's in the bridal party)

Its the old Bart Cummings line, "I'll train your for $75 a day, if you want to be hands on, it'll be $150 a day"

I know when I'm working I don't want to be bugged by people wanting to know this and that, I'll be more than willing to talk to anyone after I'm done, but not while my name & work is at stake.

[bigbaz]

Took a lot of photos, on the weekend, just used the 17-85mm, learnt quite a few things on the day about my camera and about different things on it, kept the flash off and just shot with what light was there.

Main thing that i learnt was how to set manual focus points as i kept trying to take shots of things and it would focus on something closer and the thing i wanted to photograph was all blurry.

I also learnt that when changing to manual focus points do not get drunk and forget that you have done that as you are constantly wondering why all your photos are focusing on weird things.

I did speak to the professional photographers, the bride was having issues getting the dress on, so they had a bit of downtime and decided to chat to them then, but kept well out of their way when they were working.

Was a bit odd as i seemed to be the only person other then the professionals taking photos, at one stage the MC said anyone that wants to get a photo of them cutting the cake, please surround the dancefloor, so i got up and went to the edge of the dancefloor, and was the only one there out of 300 guests. Even for the bridal waltz everyone stayed where they were.

I will post a few shots up in the critique section after i review them, i took about 500 (a bit small as i left the camera sitting on my chair for most of the night).

Lastly i enjoyed the wedding except my girlfriend catching the bouquet, that was stressful. But was made better by the two glasses of Johnnie Walker Blue Label she gave me afterwards.

[zenridaz]

did you get drunk at the wedding?

[bigbaz]

of course i did, the girlfriend was feeding me blue label johnnie walker, damn it tastes good