Do you think it's over exposed? Dont forget I have LR to fix stuff.
Doing a wedding under protest.
- Thread starter Blacktop
- Start date
Do you think it's over exposed? Dont forget I have LR to fix stuff.
I know you weren't @weebee , .I just thought maybe your "clarity" slider was stuck in overdrive. LOL
After looking at my adjustments on my desk top I can see your point. Damn, I need a better laptop.
Would you mind taking it down? Thanks!
Agreed. I think f/1.8 is way over the top. I could still get a the shallow DOF with 2.8 I believe.
There is absolutely no reason to use f/1.8. For Bounce indoors in houses, I routinely use ISO 400 f/4. A 10 foot ceiling allows f/5.6, and a 8 foot ceiling even more, but f/4 is good to keep the flash recycle fast. f/4 is especially good on a f/2.8 lens.
Auto white balance is no good, esp not for flash. The camera manuals sort of come out and say don't use Auto WB with flash (D7100 manual, page 90). Plus flash color varies with power level, and of course, from flash unit to flash unit. Flash makes it be time to learn to handle white balance. Adobe Camera Raw (such as Lightroom) makes it easy. Learn it now and use it the rest of your career.
Often there are naturally occurring white things in many of our pictures. A piece of paper or china plate or a white T-shirt or a picket fence or church steeple... These may not be pure neutral white, but items intended to look white are very often much better than nothing. In your picture, the white door frame is halfway fair, esp the thinner white strip at left (where the gold trim plate is).
A $5 white balance card (Porta Brace from B&H) makes it be a very accurate white spot, always works perfectly. Just include one in the first session picture test shot, and the trivially correct all of them perfectly with one click. Easiest thing possible.
Also Lightroom has its temperature and tint sliders, if nothing else, just slide each one black and forth, and the good right spot just jumps out at us. But a simple click of the White Balance Tool on a good known white spot works best of all.
White Balance Correction, with or without Raw
If into Raw, then also Why shoot Raw?
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rocketman122
Senior Member
your test picture of your lady overexposed and its nothing new because she has pale skin. looking at your setting heres what I see. iso wise, youre not taking advantage of the camera. aperture. too open. shutter too high BUT..you had low iso, open aperture and high shutter and needed flash? if it was 1/60 at 1.8 and iso 800 and the scene was still dark then I would know it was dark. but here flash should have not been used or at -1.7 and just bump the iso up.
this is something ive been saying for a long time. everything has advanced except metering with the camera and flash. its still the same garbage since the supposed amazing F5 metering where they claim it has "scenes" but its nonsense. you have to learn to be good friends with adjusting the flash as needed. dont touch the EC. I would not mess with the iso or the shutter/aperture and merely adjust the flash to match the scene and to blend ambient with the flash.
1.8 is too much . 2.8-4 is fine as I noted in my previous post. under stress of the wedding, you wont be able to shoot at 1.8 and be accurate. u can use your 70-300 to snipe some people from afar. personally I wouldnt shoot past the 150mm mark on that lens as IQ will suffer. shoot wide, shoot tele, shoot from the left right, up down. dont stop shooting. dont take your time too much to compose. shoot a lot. be fast. you may say fast? isnt it better to go slow and compose properly? no. you dont have time. the ceremony is fast. its not hours. its just minutes. your slow is too slow for weddings. my slowest is too fast for you. you have to get your mindset ready that weddings are fast. you have a certain amount of time to document the ceremony AND add creativity and art and thats why its hard. you shouldnt have a lot of time to think and adjust and "try" you need to shoot and move and shoot and then change the lens and shoot more. your focus accuracy will be off on many pictures. im certain. the stress from the event puts so much pressure on you.
iso is up to u. shooting at 800 is safe. I guess you might not have known what grain really was in the film days. your mindset (and most who shoot) is that u are relying on the flash to light everything and my mindset is to use the camera/iso to expose everything to a limit where it will be acceptable to expose the scene and use the flash to supplement and get things blended well where its aesthetic. if the camera can expose what I need at iso 2000, then great, I wont use 3200 (I use FF). Ill add just the tinyest amount of flash. youre keeping iso low because youre afraid of grain, but yet its not enough by itself to expose the scene so then you throw a ton of flash to light the scene and it doesnt look natural with hotspots and heavy shadows. my mindset is the opposite. ambient exposure from CAMERA first is priority get all the exposure I can take advantage of from the camera. so that means bumping iso. then I add flash to complete the exposure. btw, the flash will erase a lot of the grain in the image. it has that affect.
theres also the benefit of the flash recycle where it will save your butt in a critical shot and the flash is recycling slowly because u were worried to use 1250iso and used 400. in weddings, first and foremost is getting the shot. thats FIRST and priority. 2nd is creativity and art. so you might miss a shot because you were afraid of grain.
I understand your protest to shoot the wedding. you need to get your technical side down. the creative part seems ok to me. most people have a hard time understanding how to add flash to a scene. they use it as a dominant light source and I use it as a supplemental light source.
there is tons we can talk about but only so much youll remember or be able to absord. keep your settings the same. leave your flash head up, card out always. dont make too much changes. youll play with the camera and possibly lose an important picture. you have to get your technical side strong so your focusing on composing and documenting.
this is something ive been saying for a long time. everything has advanced except metering with the camera and flash. its still the same garbage since the supposed amazing F5 metering where they claim it has "scenes" but its nonsense. you have to learn to be good friends with adjusting the flash as needed. dont touch the EC. I would not mess with the iso or the shutter/aperture and merely adjust the flash to match the scene and to blend ambient with the flash.
1.8 is too much . 2.8-4 is fine as I noted in my previous post. under stress of the wedding, you wont be able to shoot at 1.8 and be accurate. u can use your 70-300 to snipe some people from afar. personally I wouldnt shoot past the 150mm mark on that lens as IQ will suffer. shoot wide, shoot tele, shoot from the left right, up down. dont stop shooting. dont take your time too much to compose. shoot a lot. be fast. you may say fast? isnt it better to go slow and compose properly? no. you dont have time. the ceremony is fast. its not hours. its just minutes. your slow is too slow for weddings. my slowest is too fast for you. you have to get your mindset ready that weddings are fast. you have a certain amount of time to document the ceremony AND add creativity and art and thats why its hard. you shouldnt have a lot of time to think and adjust and "try" you need to shoot and move and shoot and then change the lens and shoot more. your focus accuracy will be off on many pictures. im certain. the stress from the event puts so much pressure on you.
iso is up to u. shooting at 800 is safe. I guess you might not have known what grain really was in the film days. your mindset (and most who shoot) is that u are relying on the flash to light everything and my mindset is to use the camera/iso to expose everything to a limit where it will be acceptable to expose the scene and use the flash to supplement and get things blended well where its aesthetic. if the camera can expose what I need at iso 2000, then great, I wont use 3200 (I use FF). Ill add just the tinyest amount of flash. youre keeping iso low because youre afraid of grain, but yet its not enough by itself to expose the scene so then you throw a ton of flash to light the scene and it doesnt look natural with hotspots and heavy shadows. my mindset is the opposite. ambient exposure from CAMERA first is priority get all the exposure I can take advantage of from the camera. so that means bumping iso. then I add flash to complete the exposure. btw, the flash will erase a lot of the grain in the image. it has that affect.
theres also the benefit of the flash recycle where it will save your butt in a critical shot and the flash is recycling slowly because u were worried to use 1250iso and used 400. in weddings, first and foremost is getting the shot. thats FIRST and priority. 2nd is creativity and art. so you might miss a shot because you were afraid of grain.
I understand your protest to shoot the wedding. you need to get your technical side down. the creative part seems ok to me. most people have a hard time understanding how to add flash to a scene. they use it as a dominant light source and I use it as a supplemental light source.
there is tons we can talk about but only so much youll remember or be able to absord. keep your settings the same. leave your flash head up, card out always. dont make too much changes. youll play with the camera and possibly lose an important picture. you have to get your technical side strong so your focusing on composing and documenting.
everprentice
Senior Member
I didn't read everything posted on this thread so someone may have mentioned this already:
Visualize what things may go down during the wedding, even better attend the rehearsal and observe. You better be at the right place at the right time when something important goes down. What also complicates it is the timeline. You need to be able to keep up with the schedule because others may not. Ask them for a shot list for family formals (they might want to have photos with other friends and family) and ask them to have their attendants, or someone, gather them for you. So they will be ready when you need to take that photo.
Also think about your needs: food, hydration and bathroom breaks.
By know you probably know this but allow me to remind you to know the limits of your equipment. Don't overwhelm yourself with the technical stuff on the wedding day. For me it is better to get the exposure off a bit than miss a moment (which happens).
One thing that I almost forgot when I shot my first wedding alone was guests will stand during the bride walks in. If you don't account for that, you might get stuck in a place without any view of the bride.
In short: visualize and keep your head up at all times! Remember: "Luck favors the prepared mind". Good luck and have fun!
Visualize what things may go down during the wedding, even better attend the rehearsal and observe. You better be at the right place at the right time when something important goes down. What also complicates it is the timeline. You need to be able to keep up with the schedule because others may not. Ask them for a shot list for family formals (they might want to have photos with other friends and family) and ask them to have their attendants, or someone, gather them for you. So they will be ready when you need to take that photo.
Also think about your needs: food, hydration and bathroom breaks.
By know you probably know this but allow me to remind you to know the limits of your equipment. Don't overwhelm yourself with the technical stuff on the wedding day. For me it is better to get the exposure off a bit than miss a moment (which happens).
One thing that I almost forgot when I shot my first wedding alone was guests will stand during the bride walks in. If you don't account for that, you might get stuck in a place without any view of the bride.
In short: visualize and keep your head up at all times! Remember: "Luck favors the prepared mind". Good luck and have fun!
Thank you @rocketman122. Your advice really appreciated and taken to heart. I'm going to keep it simple and not overwhelm myself to the point , where I'll forget everything on the day of the wedding.
Went back again today. Practice was terrible. This place is like a cave, I pushed the ISO up to 1600, took the shutter speed down to 125, plus I had the flash at +2 compensation. Shots are noisy as shit!!
Even at ISO 800 as soon as I started pulling shadows and things the noise is tolerable, but as soon as I add a touch of sharpening it all goes to hell.
This is an old country church with horrible lighting. I don't know what else to do. I took @rocketman122's advice, plus all the things I've been learning.
The only thing I can think of is renting a D610 with a Nikkor 24-70 for a week.
Anyone thinking of doing a wedding in a cave with a D7100 and an 18-140, should just shoot themselves without delay.
Even at ISO 800 as soon as I started pulling shadows and things the noise is tolerable, but as soon as I add a touch of sharpening it all goes to hell.
This is an old country church with horrible lighting. I don't know what else to do. I took @rocketman122's advice, plus all the things I've been learning.
The only thing I can think of is renting a D610 with a Nikkor 24-70 for a week.
Anyone thinking of doing a wedding in a cave with a D7100 and an 18-140, should just shoot themselves without delay.
Sorry to hear this buddy! I hope your renting idea works, though the D750 might be a better camera for your needs!
Went back again today. Practice was terrible. This place is like a cave, I pushed the ISO up to 1600, took the shutter speed down to 125, plus I had the flash at +2 compensation. Shots are noisy as shit!!
Even at ISO 800 as soon as I started pulling shadows and things the noise is tolerable, but as soon as I add a touch of sharpening it all goes to hell.
This is an old country church with horrible lighting. I don't know what else to do. I took @rocketman122's advice, plus all the things I've been learning.
The only thing I can think of is renting a D610 with a Nikkor 24-70 for a week.
Anyone thinking of doing a wedding in a cave with a D7100 and an 18-140, should just shoot themselves without delay.
rocketman122
Senior Member
AHAHAHAHA!! hilarious!
when youre MINIMUM requirements for natural light (camera only-no flash) is at the absolute limite youre willing to push it and you still cant get proper exposure, tis time to flash. meaning when you cant get what you want only with the camera, you leave the exposure at what youre willing to accept and then you add flash as much as you need to get the exposure properly.
if youre at the slowest shutter speed (to not get blur) at the widest aperture (that will allow enough depth for focus) and the highest iso (without extreme grain/noise) then youre camera cant do it by itself. its time to add more and more flash till you get there. you will have to add more than one flash.
in this post here
http://nikonites.com/wedding/28411-first-wedding-june-continued-flashes-forum.html
OP is shooting in a church and I recommended (scroll down a bit) he use two flashes on the sides of the church. youll have to add them strategically in your church. fire them in manual mode. to me it seems like one flash is just not enough. you can shoot flash straight on and it should be fine. but youll get hard flash shadows. its up to you. I like soft light. but it depends on your budget. I think you can get away with your current gear and instead of renting a ff setup, invest it in another flash or even two and a set of slaves like the excellent and inexpensive 603II by yongnuo and flashes they have like the 560III which have a receiver in them already. it will make the world of difference. shoot at iso 800 but youll have to use more flash. you dont even need stands really. you can place it on a table (or even the floor) somehwere on the sides aimed up into the ceiling in the area where the couple will stand.
from the pictures u posted, your ceiling isnt high like here so thats a plus
when youre MINIMUM requirements for natural light (camera only-no flash) is at the absolute limite youre willing to push it and you still cant get proper exposure, tis time to flash. meaning when you cant get what you want only with the camera, you leave the exposure at what youre willing to accept and then you add flash as much as you need to get the exposure properly.
if youre at the slowest shutter speed (to not get blur) at the widest aperture (that will allow enough depth for focus) and the highest iso (without extreme grain/noise) then youre camera cant do it by itself. its time to add more and more flash till you get there. you will have to add more than one flash.
in this post here
http://nikonites.com/wedding/28411-first-wedding-june-continued-flashes-forum.html
OP is shooting in a church and I recommended (scroll down a bit) he use two flashes on the sides of the church. youll have to add them strategically in your church. fire them in manual mode. to me it seems like one flash is just not enough. you can shoot flash straight on and it should be fine. but youll get hard flash shadows. its up to you. I like soft light. but it depends on your budget. I think you can get away with your current gear and instead of renting a ff setup, invest it in another flash or even two and a set of slaves like the excellent and inexpensive 603II by yongnuo and flashes they have like the 560III which have a receiver in them already. it will make the world of difference. shoot at iso 800 but youll have to use more flash. you dont even need stands really. you can place it on a table (or even the floor) somehwere on the sides aimed up into the ceiling in the area where the couple will stand.
from the pictures u posted, your ceiling isnt high like here so thats a plus
rocketman122
Senior Member
I want to try to understand how the ceremony is and if the BG stand like in the lovely pic I drew here. the round ball is the preists head sticking out the back of the stand and the BG are with no heads but are standing oin the same level as the seats?
in this picture they would be with their backs towards us? is this how the ceremony will be?
look, you can do it simply and just fire the flash straight forward (not bounced) and not do anything besides that. adjust the flash as you go because the TTL isnt always accurate. keep your iso at 800 f4-5 125 shutter and shoot as it is. it may not be the time to try to get aesthetics fine tuned now and better to go safe. it may be too much technical stuff to try and learn now and you cant believe how much stress you have when youre there and things are moving fast. youll be sh*****g bricks from stress. I wouldnt be stressed but for someone who doesnt do it all the time, you forget everything.
in this picture they would be with their backs towards us? is this how the ceremony will be?
look, you can do it simply and just fire the flash straight forward (not bounced) and not do anything besides that. adjust the flash as you go because the TTL isnt always accurate. keep your iso at 800 f4-5 125 shutter and shoot as it is. it may not be the time to try to get aesthetics fine tuned now and better to go safe. it may be too much technical stuff to try and learn now and you cant believe how much stress you have when youre there and things are moving fast. youll be sh*****g bricks from stress. I wouldnt be stressed but for someone who doesnt do it all the time, you forget everything.
The podium will be moved. The pastor will have his back to the seats and the B&G will be facing the people.
I'll hate to shoot the flash straight on, because I hate those shadows that it creates, but if I have no choice then F** it. I don't need this f**ing stress in my life.
If I had a 1/4 of the light as in that shot, I would have no problems.
sonicbuffalo_RIP
Senior Member
Just them them (the B & G) that you had a revelation that they should get married outdoors. lol
Good luck my friend!
Good luck my friend!