What is going on?!

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Tristan

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Tristan
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Hi everyone,

Yesterday I did a wedding in the southwest, my 2nd ever wedding so please do not expect pro-quality photos! But I like to try my absolute best to get good photos!

Started photography in 2008 and now use one Nikon D300s with a few lenses:

- Tamron 18-270mm F4
- Nikkor 50mm AF-S F1.4
- Tamron 70-300mm
- (ON HIRE THIS WEEKEND) Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8

Now using the Tamron 18-270mm F4... Why was this happening? What was I doing wrong, I can't remember where I was Autofocusing, maybe wherever I was made the picture come out like this? Two of the same picture, shot one after the other but both totally different... It was doing it most of the day as I took over 500 photos. Not every single photo mainly when I was outside which wasn't that often!

DSC_9628_zps02b6d3c3.jpg
DSC_9627_zpsf3f89cf2.jpg


And again, Where I put the autofocus it just kept doing this, maybe didn't help with her in Direct sunlight possibly?

ScreenShot2013-09-15at155704_zps1542f073.png


Thankyou for your help, please constructive criticism and I will post some more if I find any issues.

Please don't be hard on me, yesterday was quite a hard day as I was really nervous.

Tristan.
 
Is the issue that the images are soft?

To be honest I wouldn't worry about the focusing I'd concentrate on getting the lighting correct first. You've got half the group until strong sunlight and the other half under shade.
 
stumac said:
Are you spot metering by any chance?
Click to expand...

Ok, this is new to me?

redddraggon said:
Is the issue that the images are soft?

To be honest I wouldn't worry about the focusing I'd concentrate on getting the lighting correct first. You've got half the group until strong sunlight and the other half under shade.
Click to expand...

The images are fine and in focus, might just be how I've uploaded them but if I was putting them in strong sunlight then it will blowout the image and in shade it would darken. This was very annoying as throughout my whole photography, I've never really had an issue like this before.. :(
 
Tristan said:
The images are fine and in focus, might just be how I've uploaded them but if I was putting them in strong sunlight then it will blowout the image and in shade it would darken. This was very annoying as throughout my whole photography, I've never really had an issue like this before.. :(
Click to expand...

You need to get consistent lighting across the whole group. Ideally not in strong sunlight as you get unwanted shadows.

The issue to me looks like your positioning of the group in mottled light.
 
redddraggon said:
You need to get consistent lighting across the whole group. Ideally not in strong sunlight as you get unwanted shadows.

The issue to me looks like your positioning of the group in mottled light.
Click to expand...

Ok, just remember what spot metering was/is, maybe I'm not using that to it's full potential/know what I am doing with it. It was either really in shade or direct sunlight, no in between. :/
 
yeah I agree dappled light is not a good idea, pretty difficult to adjust in ps..
do you shoot in raw ??

I would say try shoot in the shade and use fill flash (off camera better) and or use a reflector if you can, I know that can be difficult when you are on your own..
 
Tristan said:
Ok, just remember what spot metering was/is, maybe I'm not using that to it's full potential/know what I am doing with it. It was either really in shade or direct sunlight, no in between. :/
Click to expand...

Take images in the shade then. Your camera will always struggle with such a big dynamic range.
 
Tristan said:
.....but if I was putting them in strong sunlight then it will blowout the image and in shade it would darken.
Click to expand...

It sounds to me as if you have a fundamental lack of understanding about how a camera exposes in anything other than manual mode.

In bright light, and in shade the camera adjusts to give a good exposure in P, S or A mode (or god forbid in mountain, sporty person, flower mode or green square). Only in manual mode where you are in complete control of aperture and shutter speed (and ISO) would this be the case. As your images are fluctuating between over exposed and under-exposed frame by frame I can only assume you are NOT in manual.

This could be as a result of a number of things from a mechanical issue - sticky aperture blades in the lens, or a poor electrical contact between lens and camera through to you spot-metering, as has been suggested above, on either the brides dress (dark image) or an area of heavy shade (light image) as the camera compensates.

You need to sort this lack of understanding, and get to the bottom of the specific problem as soon as possible - especially if you are taking on weddings - that might mean getting your camera/lens serviced if the EXIF information and the good people of this forum can't make diagnosis. I know you are asking for constructive criticism but these are really poor quality, and I'm genuinely surprised that if your first wedding was undertaken at this level that you were not lynched before you got a chance to shoot your second - charging for them or otherwise.

*If* these are sharp, then that is one saving grace but you really need to take a step back and learn about selecting backgrounds, depth of field, finding even light, handling the very rare occasion where there is no open shade and shooting backlit with fill-flash, posing, composition, and getting the right expressions. A lot of reading, practice and probably some courses should be undertaken before you shoot another wedding, or portrait.
 
Basically everything that Mike has said.


This might sound horrible - but please tell me that you didn't charge for taking these shots?

Even if it was a freebie, I'd suggest not doing any more weddings until you have a much better understanding of how to use your camera.

There's a huge amount of information that can help you not only improve, but improve rapidly and dramatically. You just need to spend some time reading and learning!
 
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Reluctantly, I have to agree with everything that Mike says, above.
Photography is a mix of art, skill, knowledge, care and effort, and unfortunately your example photos are missing all of these ingredients.

You can produce stunning shots in dappled (or any other kind of) lighting but it needs knowledge and experience, not the fuzzy logic of a camera algorithm to do it. The ONLY way of gaining these skills is by practice. I generally ignore most of the rubbish on the internet, but this article seems to me to have a lot of truth in it.
 
Tristan said:
Hi everyone,

Yesterday I did a wedding in the southwest, my 2nd ever wedding so please do not expect pro-quality photos! But I like to try my absolute best to get good photos!

Started photography in 2008 and now use one Nikon D300s with a few lenses:

- Tamron 18-270mm F4
- Nikkor 50mm AF-S F1.4
- Tamron 70-300mm
- (ON HIRE THIS WEEKEND) Nikkor 70-200mm F2.8

Now using the Tamron 18-270mm F4... Why was this happening? What was I doing wrong, I can't remember where I was Autofocusing, maybe wherever I was made the picture come out like this? Two of the same picture, shot one after the other but both totally different... It was doing it most of the day as I took over 500 photos. Not every single photo mainly when I was outside which wasn't that often!

DSC_9628_zps02b6d3c3.jpg
DSC_9627_zpsf3f89cf2.jpg


And again, Where I put the autofocus it just kept doing this, maybe didn't help with her in Direct sunlight possibly?

ScreenShot2013-09-15at155704_zps1542f073.png


Thankyou for your help, please constructive criticism and I will post some more if I find any issues.

Please don't be hard on me, yesterday was quite a hard day as I was really nervous.

Tristan.
Click to expand...

Can you tell us what you mean by "before and after" at the top of the pics of the lady on here own. Also what mode did you have the camera set on when you took these photos?
 
What Mike said, you've a misunderstanding of the fundamentals, can we safely assume that these aren't paying customers?

If you've set spot metering and it's linked to the active AF point, it could cause these kind of metering problems. But the grossly overexposed shot points to something else entirely, presuming you hadn't set lots of exposure compensation on purpose, it could be that the lens wasn't attached properly, or that it's faulty.

But before you're shooting people seriously, you really ought to understand that dappled light is a nightmare, that open bright sunshine is to be avoided (generally) and how your camera meter works (so you can deal with these issues atthe time).

Where I disagree with Mike is that you can shoot in any mode you like as long as you understand your metering.
 
Phil V said:
Where I disagree with Mike is that you can shoot in any mode you like as long as you understand your metering.
Click to expand...

Absolutely you can. I didn't say you couldn't.

Joe Buissink famously shoots (mainly celebrity) weddings in P mode. But uses exposure comp to manage how he *wants* the images to be exposed.

However, *most* experienced photographers who shoot weddings do so in P, M, S, A (or the Canon equivalents) rather than the creative or full-auto mode (green square) as to have control over at least one of the settings...
 
I had something similar to this going on yesterday morning, then realised I'd set the bracketing function in a demo to my buddy and forgot to switch it off before I started shooting.
 
Lots of suggestions and questions for the OP but no response. Was this helpful at all Tristan?
 
I do hope these were NOT paying customers :shrug:

It would appear you have no real understanding of your camera or metering, functions/Settings,the group images are out of focus and the white on the wedding dress on the before and after are blown to bits

I suggest you read up on how to acheive well exposed images and what modes are suitable within your camera , just a thought

Plenty of good books available or failing that some decent tutorials on YouTube worth looking at

Les :rules:
 
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Tristan said:
...It was either really in shade or direct sunlight, no in between. :/
Click to expand...
Your photos, particularly the ones of the group suggest otherwise.
Half the group is in the shade, half in the sun.
WelshNoob said:
We we're all too busy wondering how much the OP got paid.
Click to expand...
One would hope, nothing.
 
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I suspect that we may all be guilty of feeding the trolls...
 
Giving the OP the benefit of the doubt , i'd say that no its not to do with AF - you have just horrifically cocked up the exposure.

the first shots - dappled shade is difficult, while in the second whites in a full sun are difficult to expose correctly without darkeing the subjects face - but really if you are dong weddings (even unpaid) you should be better than this

Did you check the histogram in between shots ?

Leaving aside the exposure issues the expressions also leave a lot to be desired - by positioning her facing into the sun you've made her squint unflatteringly , while in the other shots siome subjects have their eyes closed , probably for the same reason
 
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