I had a go at a wedding

footydad

footydad

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My (grown-up) son was an usher at a wedding yesterday, it wasn't too far from where I live, so my wife and I popped along and waited for the congregation to come out. And of course I took my camera, I was careful not to get in the official photographers way and had a 'go' at some shots. Please let me know what you think of them and how I can improve my technique.
IMG_5300 by Ian Kendle, on Flickr
IMG_5349 by Ian Kendle, on Flickr
IMG_5380 by Ian Kendle, on Flickr
IMG_5384 by Ian Kendle, on Flickr
 
Good effort :)

A couple of points (bear in mind I'm no pro but have shot a wedding or two).

Ignoring the group shot (which I would crop into a panorama - certainly remove the road, or preferably you would have shot it so the road wasn't there but all of the church was), the subjects are rather central which goes against conventional wisdom - it makes the pictures feel a bit on edge and unnatural. For example, on the solo photo of the bride, I would have had her framed into the right of the photo with here looking into the empty space, this would have created a more natural feel. There are times when breaking this wisdom works well but weddings generally aren't (unless you are trying to create some drama for a particular reason).

The bane of all wedding togs is trying not to blow the highlights on the dress which has happened in a couple of the shots. You could try to drag back the highlights if you shot raw or prevention is better than cure and positioning the photos in the shade helps, as does being particularly careful of exposure - blinkies can be very helpful here.

Also, all of them could do with a little fill light in the face - diffused flash or reflector.
 
All that's wrong with #1 is too much road and not enough church.

#2's perfectly OK as it stands, but next time shoot it portrait to get all the bouquet in and avoid chopping the groom's arm off at the wrist.

Is #3 actually pin sharp? Whatever, you could perhaps have improved matters by moving slightly to your right and swinging a bit left so as to get more of that darker foliage behind her, and it also looks to me as if you could brighten her face considerably in LR (or PS)

Assuming #4 was actually set up for the pro and the groom's looking at him, what's not to like about it?

I note what Ned says about the framing, but it bugs me as much as it will bug the couple i.e. not at all. And just to show that there's always more than one way to skin a cat, I shot well over 400 weddings professionally, never took a reflector to any of them, and never once used fill flash for a posed shots.
 
I'd be quite happy with these but imo number 1 is crying out to be cropped, and number 3 doesn't look sharp.
 
Nawty said:
The bane of all wedding togs is trying not to blow the highlights on the dress which has happened in a couple of the shots. You could try to drag back the highlights if you shot raw or prevention is better than cure and positioning the photos in the shade helps, as does being particularly careful of exposure - blinkies can be very helpful here.
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I whole heartedly disagree on this point. As long as you're not turning the dress into an amorphous white blob then blowing areas of the dress in favour of keeping her face exposed well is much more important
 
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Can't add anything to what's been said above, other than the guy who's in the couple shots seems to be missing from the group shot, unless my eyes are worse than I thought.

Oh, one thing. Did you use the central AF point for each shot? Not going to start any debate on RoT etc. was just wondering.
 
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boyfalldown said:
I whole heartedly disagree on this point. As long as you're not turning the dress into an amorphous white blob then blowing areas of the dress in favour of keeping her face exposed well is much more important
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I'm with you all the way Hugh. I didn't want to labour the point in my post above, but IMO blown highlights on a wedding dress concern enthusiast photographers on the internets far more than they do most professional wedding photographers or their customers.
 
Did the official photographer agree you weren't in the way? Looks like you've got their attention in almost all the shots.
 
Morbid said:
Oh, one thing. Did you use the central AF point for each shot? Not going to start any debate on RoT etc. was just wondering.
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I think I used the 19 AF points.
snap-happy said:
Did the official photographer agree you weren't in the way? Looks like you've got their attention in almost all the shots.
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She seemed fine with it, I just asked "okay if I take a few shots, let me know if I'm in the way", I either stood by the side of her of waited until she moved on and I asked the people in the shot to stay still for sec, no-one seemed to mind.

Thank you everyone for your comments, it's much appreciated.
 
Agree with tips mentioned above.
All in all not bad,but ofcourse there is always some nitpicking..
I would sugest to make the horizon (hedge) level or crop the background (edit ..see that wont work) on #2 (Possibly the couple hangs over when you level the hedge)
#4 Looking up to the couple gives a strange perspective (atleast..i think).Perhaps clone out the hand on his back.
 
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As others have said, good attempt, I think No3 is focused on the leaf to the left of the necklace
 
Back to the question about the AF point, following on from Admirable's comment above. If you are using the 19 point 'zone' rather than a single AF point that you choose, you're leaving the camera to decide what it wants to focus on.

For portraits, try single point AF and focus on the nearest eye of the main subject. It will take some getting used to, switching between the various AF points, but you'll avoid missing focus if the camera thinks the leaf (in this case) is the subject.

BTW, is the guy in the couple shots the groom or not? You didn't answer when I asked before - just curious.
 
Excellent attempt, some nice photos.

FOB for the 2 & 3 photos above ?..., looks like the groom is the one in main picture ?... Also, if you look at the set on Flickr the groom seems to be the one in photo 1 with the bride?........ (scroll down halfway of 1st page). > https://www.flickr.com/photos/88713483@N00/sets/72157655084093306

The OP may have missed the questions so hope he doesn't mind me posting the link to the set.


boyfalldown said:
Is the guy in 2 the groom. It looks like a different chap stood next to her in 1?
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Morbid said:
Back to the question about the AF point, following on from Admirable's comment above. If you are using the 19 point 'zone' rather than a single AF point that you choose, you're leaving the camera to decide what it wants to focus on.

For portraits, try single point AF and focus on the nearest eye of the main subject. It will take some getting used to, switching between the various AF points, but you'll avoid missing focus if the camera thinks the leaf (in this case) is the subject.

BTW, is the guy in the couple shots the groom or not? You didn't answer when I asked before - just curious.
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image #3 - I do not think the blown white areas in the bg are attractive nor the shadows on the left side of her face
it is not a shot as a customer that I would want, IMVHO
 
BillN_33 said:
image #3 - I do not think the blown white areas in the bg are attractive nor the shadows on the left side of her face
it is not a shot as a customer that I would want, IMVHO
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how would you have done it differently?
 
I think those have some potential. As you have your edited ticked I think there's quite allot that you can draw out of those files, the shadows need a good boost. You need to get rid of those distracting leaves in the foreground and clean a few areas up, the crop is also a little loose all IMVHO. Here's a quick 5 min edit.

 
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My attempt

Fb6u6pX.jpg
 
Er....you can post process it to within an inch of it's life, but you still won't get it in focus.
 
If you'd be happy with it looking 'ok' then fair enough. It was you that pointed out it was focused on the leaf in the first place, was wondering why you were bothering trying to rescue it. I'd look at it and think it could have been a lovely shot, shame I missed the focus and hit delete.
 
To be fair Ian you can't really tell how badly OOF it is from this low resolution, sharpened version. It sharpens up ok for web use so depends how picky the OP wants to be with it. Nailing focus is up there as the no.1 priority but I get the feeling that the OP will also learn about some of the other aspects of this shot so worthy of a little more crit than a total binned shot.
 
With my photographers hat on I might have deleted it too but there is the chance that the bride might like it and the OP asked how he can improve
 
Apologies to the OP for the hijack.

Livin The Dream said:
To be fair Ian you can't really tell how badly OOF it is from this low resolution, sharpened version. It sharpens up ok for web use so depends how picky the OP wants to be with it. Nailing focus is up there as the no.1 priority but I get the feeling that the OP will also learn about some of the other aspects of this shot so worthy of a little more crit than a total binned shot.
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The original file is on Flickr at full size, it is focused on the leaf not the bride's eyes. None of her face is sharp, the leaf is. It's shot with a 7D and a 17-40 mm L lens so it should have been sharp. I have the same lens, it produces really sharp images.

One lesson to learn, and as I've already tried to point out, is it's the photographer that should chose the focus point, not the camera when it's set to 19 point zone AF.

admirable said:
With my photographers hat on I might have deleted it too but there is the chance that the bride might like it and the OP asked how he can improve
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Agree with this, so may have been a bit harsh. It may even work as a large canvas, these are viewed from a distance and sharpness doesn't really matter - ever viewed oil paintings close up?
 
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#3 has all the possibilities of a great image, but is crying out for the use of a flash and some spot focus.
 
Morbid said:
For portraits, try single point AF and focus on the nearest eye of the main subject. It will take some getting used to, switching between the various AF points, but you'll avoid missing focus if the camera thinks the leaf (in this case) is the subject.
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Great, thank you for advice.

Morbid said:
BTW, is the guy in the couple shots the groom or not? You didn't answer when I asked before - just curious.
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He's the bride's dad.

By the way everyone, please be as picky as you want. I'm just a keen photographer who wants to improve and there's lots of advice coming through.
 
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