Wedding Dinner Photography

[Falcon]

Anyone tried shooting at Carlton Hotel singapore(Empress Ballroom) before? If so, may I know what is the lighting condition like? First time shooting wedding dinner and also a newbie in flash photography. Any tips for me? I am not the main photographer, just a spare one. I will be using a DSLR. Thanks in advance.

 

[hellrock]

Anyone tried shooting at Carlton Hotel singapore(Empress Ballroom) before? If so, may I know what is the lighting condition like? First time shooting wedding dinner and also a newbie in flash photography. Any tips for me? I am not the main photographer, just a spare one. I will be using a DSLR. Thanks in advance.

Hi there,
Just my 2 pixel worth. normally i would arrive early and check the environment... u can always test shot which is suitable.. from my limited experience.. direct flash is more suitable...

 

[Paul_Yeo]

I've shoot there before. Lighting condition quite bright...full of tungsten lights (orange lights), low ceiling - suitable to bounce.

You can try using iso 400 or iso 640 at P mode. OR
iso 400 or iso 640 at M mode 1/30 sec , f/4.

agreed!

i also use this setting. but i KS ...thus at iso800 to save flash battery :sticktong

 

[Falcon]

agreed!

i also use this setting. but i KS ...thus at iso800 to save flash battery :sticktong

Save flash battery? You mean u din use flash?

 

[Falcon]

I've shoot there before. Lighting condition quite bright...full of tungsten lights (orange lights), low ceiling - suitable to bounce.

You can try using iso 400 or iso 640 at P mode. OR
iso 400 or iso 640 at M mode 1/30 sec , f/4.

Thanks Ninja. I am actually planning to use a faster shutter speed to counter handshake(i dun have a pair of very steady hands :embrass: ) and freeze motion. Do I have to make any adjustment to the white balance since I am shooting under tungsten lights?

 

[2100]

Forgot what is the ballroom name but it is bouncable.

I use iso800 too, iso 1600 if it's really dark and also confirm that they don't want to print S8R (usually won't). Else you can't really see the background at all, which looks at least to me a bit not good.

For the WB part, you will be shooting under incandescent. You can set WB to flash and dial in a bit of red so that the flash is on the wee bit warm side. This means the foreground will look ok/very slightly warm while the background looks very much warmer. This looks ok as you'd want to highlight the foreground usually, besides in reality the ballroom looks very warm. (I have never seen any ballroom or ROM rooms which is not warm). It will look like crap if you try to compensate for the incandescent and set it to a lower K like 4000 without doing anything to your flash. Either that or you stick half a piece of orange gel filter on your flash (and watch out for slight colour cast of some ballroom ceilings, some are on the yellow side - old). Gotta balance the flash and ambient colour temp if that's the case.

 

[Falcon]

When you guys said bounce the flash, does it mean that I can just point it 45 degree up the ceiling and bounce it? Do I need a bounce-card? I do not have one so might need to go buy if necessary.

 

[Zerstorer]

The angle depends on your distance towards the subject and height of ceiling, normally its either straight up or 80-60deg for me. 45 is only when subjects are >8m away.

Bouncecards are simply just any piece of white card, don't waste money buying one. Also, if ceiling is low, you just need a small card for frontal fill.

 

[Falcon]

Need to go search for a white card. Not sure if I have any. Btw, do I need to compensate the flash exposure since some of it might be bounced off.

 

[Witness]

good to have a bounce card.....coz it can help fill up shadows under the eyes when u are doing table shots....

when's the wedding anyway ahah.....kaypo me haha...

 

[Zerstorer]

Need to go search for a white card. Not sure if I have any. Btw, do I need to compensate the flash exposure since some of it might be bounced off.

Depends on your flash+body combination. For mine, no compensation is required.
If shooting digital, just try and see, if shooting film adding +1stop won't hurt.

 

[Falcon]

good to have a bounce card.....coz it can help fill up shadows under the eyes when u are doing table shots....

when's the wedding anyway ahah.....kaypo me haha...

This weekend.

Btw, saw yr wedding photos in yr gallery. Very well done. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: Btw, did you create those frames for your photos or was it an action you downloaded over the net? Very nice.

 

[Falcon]

Depends on your flash+body combination. For mine, no compensation is required.
If shooting digital, just try and see, if shooting film adding +1stop won't hurt.

Thanks for the tips, Zerstorer.