Shooting friends wedding

aerobandit

aerobandit

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Piotr
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My friend asked me to take pictures during her wedding. I've spent around 10 minutes explaining to her that I'm not a pro, I'm more into landscape and wildlife and for something like wedding she should get professional photographer. She kept insisting and I agreed in the end as she said she just want somebody to take ordinary pictures and nothing really special. So I'm about to shoot her wedding this friday and I was wondering if any of the pros here could give me any advice on things like exposure, metering, anything I should know really. I'll be using my 5d mkII, canon 28-70 f/2.8 L and 430ex II. Thanks for help.
 
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Could you just confirm something for me please? You have a couple of grand or more worth of kit, and you want to understand about exposure and metering so you can take ordinary pictures of your friends wedding. All this before Friday :lol::lol::lol:

Ps Please let me know how you get on ;)
 
Shoot raw and meter for the dress. Such I the 5Ds 2 iso quality, you'll be able to lift the faces and shadows easily.

Sent from my iPhone 4 using TP Forums
 
u8myufo said:
Could you just confirm something for me please? You have a couple of grand or more worth of kit, and you want to understand about exposure and metering so you can take ordinary pictures of your friends wedding. All this before Friday :lol::lol::lol:

Ps Please let me know how you get on ;)
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Yep:) I've got a couple of grand worth of kit because i can afford it:) i dont want to "understand" things like exposure or metering. I just wanted to know what metering is best to use so that dress for example won't be overexposed. As I said, I've never taken any pictures during the wedding because I'm not a wedding photographer. I'm doing this as a favour for friend:) I'll post few pictures here when I finish. Cheers.
 
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lawrenceots said:
Shoot raw and meter for the dress. Such I the 5Ds 2 iso quality, you'll be able to lift the faces and shadows easily.

Sent from my iPhone 4 using TP Forums
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Thanks for advice mate. I'm thinking about setting custom white balance for shots without flash during party later during the evening. Is it good idea or should I rely on camera and adjust later in PS?
 
sthwild said:
Thanks for advice mate. I'm thinking about setting custom white balance for shots without flash during party later during the evening. Is it good idea or should I rely on camera and adjust later in PS?
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I'd go custom white balance for tungsten-heavy environments and auto for everything else. Just gives cleaner shots all round in my experience. That's my plan for my first wedding in a couple of weeks anyway :)
 
sthwild said:
Thanks for advice mate. I'm thinking about setting custom white balance for shots without flash during party later during the evening. Is it good idea or should I rely on camera and adjust later in PS?
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If you're shooting in RAW it won't matter anyway, as you'll be adjusting in PP, the custom setting will only offer an idea. It might well be worth taking a grey/reference card though.
 
no expert m8, but crowd control, dont let the rest of the guests take there pics when your takin the main ones for the couple.
And maybe go to the place before hand or speak to your friend and get your shots picked before the day to save time and someone to fetch the folk in the photos

just a few things i pick up when i was asked to the same, good luck

hope im not telling you how to suck eggs here
 
martinxr2 said:
no expert m8, but crowd control, dont let the rest of the guests take there pics when your takin the main ones for the couple.
And maybe go to the place before hand or speak to your friend and get your shots picked before the day to save time and someone to fetch the folk in the photos

just a few things i pick up when i was asked to the same, good luck

hope im not telling you how to suck eggs here
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Good idea. Thanks. I didnt think about crowd control:)
 
Yeah get the best man involved to round people up - it is one of his jobs. And get a list of the shots the bride wants so you don't miss any.

And if you have a mate to tag along, all the better, 2 shooting is better than one!
 
ANd don't be afraid to wallop the ISO right up. A blurry shot is useless, but one with noise that is sharp will still be useable, if only in B+W.
 
list as described but you will have to grab the opertunist pic's yourself dont forget, some people like pics of rings, dress, flowers bride make up, putting dress on the list can go on n on.
get one of the bossy ladies in tow tell her you need help to keep people in there places
works wonders
Always RAW as of other comments
inside do a mix of flash and no flash some place's DO-NOT allow flash during the service,some do not allow camera's best to ask first but don't be frightened to up the iso the camera can take it shame you only got one lens
 
well i would just like to say ...Good luck for tomorrow mate hope everything goes ok :thumbs: i am sure you will be fine just take loads and loads of pics so you have a choice keep an eye on your histogram :cool:
 
Mr G said:
just take loads and loads of pics so you have a choice keep an eye on your histogram :cool:
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Actually, when I shot my first wedding, for a friend and as a guest, I was pretty inexperienced. I knew I was having some problems getting the results I wanted during the day and just went for quantity and blind hope. It was a mistake. Now I'd rate quality over quantity any day of the week.

I was shooting in Av mode, with bounced flash, but some strong backlight through windows during the ceremony was screwing with the ambient exposure. If I had known what I was doing I would have paid much closer attention to the histogram and locked in a manual exposure that worked properly from the off. As it was I had a sh!tload of fiddling to do in post and far too many iffy photos to sift through. I also learned the perils of trying to mix uncorrected flash light with the warmth of tungsten, and only found out about CTO gels in the enquiry that followed. At least by shooting raw I had some wiggle room. Thank God!

Here's an example on a quick fix of one of my first wedding efforts. It's far from great, very far, but at least I was able to patch up some of the mess. To manually correct each photo to this degree is a right PITA. It really should not have been required. 1 stop off on the exposure for starters - not good! Of course, Av mode made sure that the degree of error varied from one shot to the next.

20110127_203244_.JPG


In my defence I'd only had the camera for three months and the flash only turned up the week before the wedding. My slow f/4-5.6 zoom lens didn't help much either, nor my aversion to going above 800 ISO. Still, you live and learn. :)
 
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tdodd said:
Actually, when I shot my first wedding, for a friend and as a guest, I was pretty inexperienced. I knew I was having some problems getting the results I wanted during the day and just went for quantity and blind hope. It was a mistake. Now I'd rate quality over quantity any day of the week.

I was shooting in Av mode, with bounced flash, but some strong backlight through windows during the ceremony was screwing with the ambient exposure. If I had known what I was doing I would have paid much closer attention to the histogram and locked in a manual exposure that worked properly from the off. As it was I had a sh!tload of fiddling to do in post and far too many iffy photos to sift through. I also learned the perils of trying to mix uncorrected flash light with the warmth of tungsten, and only found out about CTO gels in the enquiry that followed. At least by shooting raw I had some wiggle room. Thank God!

Here's an example on a quick fix of one of my first wedding efforts. It's far from great, very far, but at least I was able to patch up some of the mess. To manually correct each photo to this degree is a right PITA. It really should not have been required. 1 stop off on the exposure for starters - not good!

In my defence I'd only had the camera for three months and the flash only turned up the week before the wedding. My slow f/4-5.6 zoom lens didn't help much either, nor my aversion to going above 800 ISO. Still, you live and learn. :)
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I'll try shooting in M, together camera and flash. I've got some ideas now. I'll post something here maybe sunday. Cheers!
 
lawrenceots said:
Shoot raw and meter for the dress. Such I the 5Ds 2 iso quality, you'll be able to lift the faces and shadows easily.
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Is the dress mid-grey??? Or at least a mid-tone??

If it is white and you take a meter reading from the dress alone, ALL your pictures will be underexposed!
 
chip said:
Is the dress mid-grey??? Or at least a mid-tone??

If it is white and you take a meter reading from the dress alone, ALL your pictures will be underexposed!
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There's a big difference between metering for the dress and off the dress.
 
Good luck for tomorrow! I did one last summer with only a very cheap kit of lenses (wide angle, 50mm 1.8, tamron 70-300) and all came out beautifully. I had same concerns as you but you'll know a surprisingly large amount more than most already just from having a "big" camera. RAW is definitely the key - can play around with the white balance all day long afterwards.

Other things I'd say (which are a bit late for you, but good for anyone reading this in future in the same position):

- practice at the dress rehearsal and get their feedback as to whether you were too noisy or too intrusive
- candid shots of couple after the dress rehearsal
- try to take pics of the bride at various times throughout the morning of the wedding (getting makeup done etc.)
- photos of details of venue before
- photos of details of reception before
- photos of details on the bride and groom (cuff links, hair, dress detail, shoes, rings, flowers)

It's a lot easier than you imagine doing it as a friend because they're very at ease and trying to make your life easy too as they know you're doing them a favour.

Good luck for tomorrow!
 
At least you made it through the day

I'm sure there will be plenty of keepers

Plus if nothing else at least you're great value for money :thumbs:
 
Got here a little late! Too many cooks comes to mind...

I hope it went well for you and you took the advise of the people who said to use raw sit between 2.8 and 5 apart from the formal/set shots where even then the highest I would go is 8.

I'm amazed that lenses haven't been mentioned... If you don't have a reliable range of 2.8s from around 14mm up to 200mm you will be stuck at certain times. I can work with a number of diff bodies with reasonably diff settings these days, but as long as I have the first three things on my wedding checklist:
i) 14-24 2.8
ii) 24-70 2.8
iii) 70-200 2.8
Then I am happy!

CLASS STARTS WITH GLASS!!!!
 
u8myufo said:
Could you just confirm something for me please? You have a couple of grand or more worth of kit, and you want to understand about exposure and metering so you can take ordinary pictures of your friends wedding. All this before Friday :lol::lol::lol:

Ps Please let me know how you get on ;)
Click to expand...

sorry OP but this made me laugh!! :D

When are you going to post some shots??? (Hope you pull it off btw!)
 
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