newly-wed --- Nadia and Shin Yi

[+evenstar]

Some pics I took today as backup photographer for my tutor's wedding. This is my first time doing wedding photography so please give tips on how to improve!
More pics will come soon..I've got over 200+ RAW images to finish editing and these few are the finished ones..
Camera: Canon EOS 300D Digital
ISO: 200
Shooting Mode: Manual
Shutter: 1/60s
Aperture: f4.0
Lens: Canon 24-70 f2.8L
Flash: 550EX, Manual mode 1/1 bounced from ceiling
Img Type: RAW

Touching up the bride's mother's face



The bride



March in



Ring-boy


Will add a few more after I finished editing.

[Snowcrash]

can you kindly share why you use manual mode for your flash and not E-TTL?

[+evenstar]

Originally Posted by Snowcrash can you kindly share why you use manual mode for your flash and not E-TTL?

The ETTL was "confused" in the tricky lighting conditions in the room, giving very inconsistent results. Hence, I used M mode for both my camera and the flash.

[Witness]

imho, the pixs look soft and i cannot really agree to some of ya compositions...

juz my 2cts worth...

[Paul_Yeo]

Originally Posted by Witness imho, the pixs look soft and i cannot really agree to some of ya compositions... juz my 2cts worth...

same here...i find that pic not that sharp loh

[espn]

"The Bride" - is this image taken via the mirror? Cos I feel that the framing is weird as if you were trying to avoid your own reflection in the mirror thus you have to move to a side.

"March In" - excellent use of DOF here, ideal as it brings out the ring boy and the bride seperately, the bride is DOF but not entirely

"Ring-Boy" - white cast with handshake.

Images are not really that soft but some can be better, 24-70L from what I know shouldn't be that 'soft', try USM.

Also noted that you were using 1/1 full power on your flash to maintain luminance by bouncing off the ceilings? If the ceilings were that high, forcing your flash to go 1/1 might backfire as the light might take too long to come back to illuminate the surrounding. Also that could be very taxing on your flash as it would take approx 4-5 secs to recharge again, you could miss some shots, even with CP-E2 it might not help. Careful there.

In this case I do recommend a bounce card instead, I noticed your images are mostly f/4 because you wanted a lot of light to enter the len barrel in order to capture your images. Pushing your ISO higher to 400 or 800 would get the same job done and with E-TTL + bounce card should get you a relatively good image.

Anyhow, thanks for sharing, keep shooting!!

[+evenstar]

Originally Posted by espn "The Bride" - is this image taken via the mirror? Cos I feel that the framing is weird as if you were trying to avoid your own reflection in the mirror thus you have to move to a side. "March In" - excellent use of DOF here, ideal as it brings out the ring boy and the bride seperately, the bride is DOF but not entirely "Ring-Boy" - white cast with handshake. Images are not really that soft but some can be better, 24-70L from what I Smilies know shouldn't be that 'soft', try USM. Also noted that you were using 1/1 full power on your flash to maintain luminance by bouncing off the ceilings? If the ceilings were that high, forcing your flash to go 1/1 might backfire as the light might take too long to come back to illuminate the surrounding. Also that could be very taxing on your flash as it would take approx 4-5 secs to recharge again, you could miss some shots, even with CP-E2 it might not help. Careful there. In this case I do recommend a bounce card instead, I noticed your images are mostly f/4 because you wanted a lot of light to enter the len barrel in order to capture your images. Pushing your ISO higher to 400 or 800 would get the same job done and with E-TTL + bounce card should get you a relatively good image. Anyhow, thanks for sharing, keep shooting!!

Ceiling was about 3m high. Tried using ETTL + Omni bounce but the flash output was very inconsistent, maybe due to the clothing of the people.

"The Bride" was taken via a mirror during the makeup. "ring boy" may be overexposed by turning up the exposure too much in the RAW camera window.

[+evenstar]

Some more pictures to share

The Rings



Happy faces after the ceremony


Kissing

[Zerstorer]

Originally Posted by espn Also noted that you were using 1/1 full power on your flash to maintain luminance by bouncing off the ceilings? If the ceilings were that high, forcing your flash to go 1/1 might backfire as the light might take too long to come back to illuminate the surrounding.

If the surroundings are not illuminated, its just a problem of flash distribution or insufficient flash power/reach. Shooting at low ISO, using an omnibounce and still attempting to bounce on 3m high ceilings is simply a bad choice.

There isn't such a thing as light taking too long to come back to illuminate the surroundings.

Last I checked, light still travelled at approximately 299 792 458 m/s. I doubt the 300D's shutter is faster.

[gooseberry]

Originally Posted by Zerstorer There isn't such a thing as light taking too long to come back to illuminate the surroundings. Last I checked, light still travelled at approximately 299 792 458 m/s. I doubt the 300D's shutter is faster.

like the nice dry humour.....

+evenstar : I like "march in", has a nice composition, great capture on the expression of the ring bearer. "the bride" has too much empty space without creating any feeling in it. "Happy faces after ceremony" is good - actually would be even better if the groom wasn't there and it was just a crop of the bride - you captured a great smile from the bride.

[2100]

The Rings - Too tightly cropped.

[espn]

Originally Posted by Zerstorer If the surroundings are not illuminated, its just a problem of flash distribution or insufficient flash power/reach. Shooting at low ISO, using an omnibounce and still attempting to bounce on 3m high ceilings is simply a bad choice. There isn't such a thing as light taking too long to come back to illuminate the surroundings. Last I checked, light still travelled at approximately 299 792 458 m/s. I doubt the 300D's shutter is faster.

So even when typing one has to be scientifically and technically correct to every drop

Ok, will rephrase.

--

When the ceiling is too high, often the flash won't be able to reach, pushing for 1/1 might not do anything either, and the flash is concentrated at one spot upwards (last I checked, light still travels in a straight line) might be the cause of your ambient over powering and your cast on your images.

--

[+evenstar]

Originally Posted by espn So even when typing one has to be scientifically and technically correct to every drop Ok, will rephrase. -- When the ceiling is too high, often the flash won't be able to reach, pushing for 1/1 might not do anything either, and the flash is concentrated at one spot upwards (last I checked, light still travels in a straight line) might be the cause of your ambient over powering and your cast on your images. --

thanks, noted

[roygoh]

Originally Posted by espn So even when typing one has to be scientifically and technically correct to every drop --

Don't you think that you have to be scientifically and technically correct when making a scientific and technical statement about how light behaves?

[espn]

Originally Posted by roygoh Don't you think that you have to be scientifically and technically correct when making a scientific and technical statement about how light behaves?

Typed too fast ma... meant to say that light won't reach the ceiling and be bounced back but ended up saying that light won't come back fast enough.

I'm not a pro, so don't expect me to always be technically correct!!

[hazmee]

Hi Evenstar,

The iso800 on the 300D works superbly! Very little noise unless you really want to start nitpicking at 100%. The noise levels(for me at least) is rather reasonable on-screen and I've printed on 4R before suprisingly the pics turn out to be rather smooth. You should give it a try for indoor shoots next time. However, post processing plays a very important part too. Good luck for your next shoot.

Anyway allow me to stray the topic off a bit, how much did you get the 550ex?

[+evenstar]

Originally Posted by hazmee Hi Evenstar, The iso800 on the 300D works superbly! Very little noise unless you really want to start nitpicking at 100%. The noise levels(for me at least) is rather reasonable on-screen and I've printed on 4R before suprisingly the pics turn out to be rather smooth. You should give it a try for indoor shoots next time. However, post processing plays a very important part too. Good luck for your next shoot. Anyway allow me to stray the topic off a bit, how much did you get the 550ex?

Hmmm, I'm rather hesitant to use ISO 800 as my employee may want to enlarge some of the pictures to S8R? I've tried ISO 800 during a school concert, and the noise was quite visible when printed A4 size. Maybe I USM-ed too much..

I got the 550EX brand new at $600

[espn]

Try de-noising it - http://www.imagenomic.com/ I've had very pleasing results with it.

[Orion_Hunter]

Mmm the photos are not... bad... but can be improve. Know your subject before you focus or compose. Like for the march in if you want to focus on the boy, you can crop even more I guess. As a digital user, you have the privillege of playing with iso on the move. I think usually wedding couple wouldn't enlarge most of their process" shots. E.g. march in and stuff... They will enlarge when it comes to grp photo and things like that so you can plan when to use 400 or 800 or even 200 iso. To be sure on that you can jus clarify with them first.

Btw, the first pic make the bride looks very old... Maybe you can wait for her to finish a bit more of the makeup before snapping? Why? Because all brides want to look their best on their big day.

If ceiling is too high, you can play with not so high bounce like 45 degrees and stuff. Remove the omni bounce if you find tt it is hard to illuminate subject in the area as omni bounce will -2.5 stop or so from your flash. Last but not least, jus try on the go as it is your friend's wedding and you are not the main photographer and the second advantage is you are using digital. Can be more flexible in regards to iso and try as much for you do not need to waste developing cost.

The final point is to keep trying and learning so that your camera will become an even useful tool to you. Hope I have been useful in this post.

Raymond

[+evenstar]

Originally Posted by Orion_Hunter Btw, the first pic make the bride looks very old... Maybe you can wait for her to finish a bit more of the makeup before snapping? Why? Because all brides want to look their best on their big day.

Hmmm..the first pic is of the bride's mother!