Wedding Photography Tips?

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broadwille

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broad
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My friend's mother is having a very low-budget wedding, and she asked me to be the photographer. Now, I don't have a professional camera, my camera is pretty standard, and like, beginner-beginner DSLR. I don't even think I can call it that. It's the Nikon L110, and it's not really pro standard at all.

But I want to give her great pictures of her special day. So, any tips about making great pictures with this camera?
 
Do some research, go to the venue at the time of day that the event will be happening so you know what light you have to work with.

Practise so you know your camera.
Have plenty of batteries.
Get a list of the photos they want.
Don't promise the world.

I shot a wedding on a bridge camera, and it is hard, but you need to knwo the camera to get the best from it.

Do you understand exposure, aperture, shutter speed , ISo etc?
 
I'm going to be the voice of reason here, you don't think your cameras up to it, you sound as if your inexperienced with weddings (forgive me if I'm wrong) even if you borrow a pro camera theres a lot more to getting a good set of wedding images than just having a good camera.

Theres a lot of things happening at a wedding, your working under pressure possibly with borrowed kit you don't know, your often working in tricky light, you need to managed the guests, are you sure you can do it justice? It's their special day, you won't get a second chance if you get it wrong.

If you do go for it practice as much as you can, check out the venues first (at the same time of day) if you borrow kit, have it at least a week before to practice with it till you can use it without looking at the settings, borrow some back-up gear as well, if you only have one camera and it goes belly up your knackered.
 
The best advice i can give is DO NOT DO IT. I am sorry to say if your not up to the job the images are going to suffer. I understand people have budgets but wedding photography is an investment. The camera you have will not make a world of difference. You could swap cameras with a pro for a day and still not get anywhere near the shots they do.
 
asphotographymk said:
The best advice i can give is DO NOT DO IT. I am sorry to say if your not up to the job the images are going to suffer. I understand people have budgets but wedding photography is an investment. The camera you have will not make a world of difference. You could swap cameras with a pro for a day and still not get anywhere near the shots they do.
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:agree:
 
She did say it was an ultra low budget wedding though...

As long as you let your friend know it will be a challenge for you. You can't completely fail o.o

However, I do recommend you bring on a friend to assist on the day. If I do a wedding, which I one day might, I'd never do my first one alone. Partly because I wouldn't have the experience to predict all the best photo opportunities. With 2 photographers we'd have more of the angles covered, and I'd not feel so frickin' nervous. :D

Other than that - try to take as many photos as you can. (so you'll need lots of memory storage). More photos - is more to select from. Giving you a better chance to pick from the good, bad and the overexposed.
 
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we don't need the usual rants and raves guys, enough's been said already.

OP, buy a spare battery and a spare memory card so that you'll definitely be able to keep shooting the whole time
 
Top Cat said:
I do recommend you bring on a friend to assist on the day. If I do a wedding, which I one day might, I'd never do my first one alone. Partly because I wouldn't have the experience to predict all the best photo opportunities. With 2 photographers we'd have more of the angles covered, and I'd not feel so frickin' nervous. :D

Other than that - try to take as many photos as you can. (so you'll need lots of memory storage). More photos - is more to select from. Giving you a better chance to pick from the good, bad and the overexposed.
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I think this is good advice.

I got married back in the days when a pro wedding photographer would shoot 100 images on film with a Hasselblad rather than 1000 images with a DSLR. We had a pro, but we also had a couple of friends to whom we gave our cameras and pockets full of film. And after the event we made a big effort to get copies of any decent photos that any other guests had captured. (This was also in the days before "crowdsourcing" had entered the vocabulary!)

The result was that we have two wedding albums, one formal and one informal. And guess which one we like the most? I think part of the reason is that, even today, one photographer can't be everywhere and see everything.
 
itsdavedotnet said:
we don't need the usual rants and raves guys, enough's been said already.

OP, buy a spare battery and a spare memory card so that you'll definitely be able to keep shooting the whole time
Click to expand...

If you have been "press ganged" into doing this, then the above is the best advice.
I was in the same situation about five years ago, and I thought it was a disaster. Armed with one basic 2MP Pentax and a Minolta 7000, I went into battle.
The guests were scruffy, nobody smiled, and immediately before the reception the groom (my mate who had "asked" me to do the shoot) shoved a mini camcorder at me, expecting me to video it as well.
I cannot even put this fiasco down as a good learning experience, maybe just one lesson - never do it again.
 
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