First Digital Wedding Question

[Robert_Douros]

I have found a great wealth of information from this forum, but now I really need imput from you pros. I have done film weddings for many years as a part time hobby, and recently switched from Nikon and now have all Canon gear. My delima is this. A friend of mine called me up two days ago, asking if I could help her by photographing her wedding this Sunday...the photographer she had backed out because of some emergency, and now she is without a photogapher. No problem, except I sold all my film cameras and now have the Mark II. I have never shot a wedding digitally and I need some quick advice from as many of you as I can reach. This will be an indoor house wedding in the evening hours. I have a great supply of Canon lenses, 70-200mm 2.8 IS, 135mm f/2L, 50mm 1.4, 24-70mm f/2.8L, and the 16-35mm f/2.8L. I have a couple of 550EX's and 2 580EX's with pleny of flash cards.

My questions are what are the best camera setting I can use for this wedding? Is AV the best way to go, or manual? I will be using RAW format but I have not had enough time to experiment around with different camera settings, and I hope some of you who have had the time can assist me. Do you usually send your work in to have them processd or do you print them yourselves? I have Photoshop CS but have not mastered the digital process yet. Where are some good digital labs I can look into if needed? I am located in the outerbanks of North Carolina.

Any suggestion that will make this as smooth as possible...will be very much appreciated as I scramble for a very interesting last second wedding. Thanks in advance for your very helpful comments

Bob

[Eric_llasenko]

We just did out first digital wedding in October and it was a real learning experience!!

I shoot Nikon, so cant help with Canon specifics, but we did shoot raw only, thank god, as the wedding was an outdoor ceremony at 4pm with intense backlighting off a river and other real nightmare lighting challenges that raw shooting helped correct well.

Some things I learned the hard way that day that may help you...

1. Bring More Memory Cards! (Had 2.5 gb with us and surprisingly shot every single frame of them, and ended up "chimping" and deleting some bad shots at end of reception and going to jpg mode for a few to have shots left for limo drive-off.)(we now carry 5gb since memory prices dropped)

2. White Balances. My life and workflow after would have been a lot smoother if I had shot multiple white balances as we moved from outdoors to the reception.

3. Know Your Gear Intimately. We had just gotten the new SB-800 a couple days before the wedding and while I tested it well, I was not intimately familiar with it enough to make some changes on the fly. (thankfully, I brought a "cheat sheet" for it and refered (unseen by b/g of course) to it a couple times when needed.) Nothing was a major problem, but it would have gone smoother if the flash and I knew each other better!

4. Butt Equity. I was ill prepared for just how long and tedious the editing and post-production was after the wedding was over. It took way too many hours (days) of sitting tied to the computer to process and edit the images. As we were digital newbies to both Nikon Capture and PS CS, it took a LOT longer than I ever expected, but was a valuable learning experience. We're faster now, and have also adjusted prices up higher to compensate for the time sitting at the computer afterwards.

Hope that helps a bit - good luck! [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[TerryZorich]

- If you have a laptop computer, bring it along. Take lots of pre-ceremony photos, and find a few minutes to download and self-critique your photos. (Don't let the bride/groom or any of the guests see the photos!)

- I find that that images shot with the MkII and the 550 are consistently underexposed. Compensate by dialing in +2/3 Flash Exposure Compensation on the camera. Of course, you should check your own exposures, but +2/3 is the general consensus among owners of this combination, including me.

- Shoot a LOT. Shoot two or even three frames of each pose. You didn't mention battery packs for the flash - do you have a Quantum or the like? If not, bring lots of AA batteries and change them more often than you think is necessary. Don't get caught during an important moment without fresh batteries or room on your flash cards! Capturing moments that will never happen again (and which you're being paid to shoot) takes priority over saving a few bucks on batteries or having one less card download session to do.

- Try to get your exposures and focus right. Framing and color can be adjusted to some degree after the fact.

- I never shoow RAW. They're too large, and I simply don't have hours and hours to spend converting images. I try to get good exposures and work from there. However, there are people who ONLY shoot RAW. Perhaps if I understood the workflow and conversion tools better, I'd do the same. How well do you understand it?

Good luck!

[Charles_Matter]

One of your main concerns will be the limited (compared to negative film) dynamic range of the sensor. Look at it this way..a typical digital sensor has a dynamic range approx equal to transparancy film. Negative film has about 2 more stops +- available...so you're going to have to modify your lighting/exposure techniques a bit or get either blown out highlights..or featureless shadows. If you must err..err toward underexposure..as you can do wonders tweaking later in levels and curves. This is the main reason to shoot RAW.
I have yet to work out a satisfactory jpeg workflow..especially one that I can load the curve into my D1X..with and extra 2 stops of dynamic range..but I'm getting close.

I almost never use files straight out of the camera..I take full advantage of every digital tool available to squeeze every drop of potential out of the files that I am currently capable of....even with a jpeg workflow.

Sure..there is extra time at the computer, which needs to be factored into the price equation..somehow. But the trade-off is a lot more control. After a bit you'll work out a much more efficient workflow so that you'll only have to spend the least amt of time possible at the computer. Most of what I do is batch-processed. The only files that I really have to spend any real time with are final printing files...maybe 50-60 out of a total shoot of 600 typically

[Jamie_Roberts]

What Charles just said...great advice all round. To reiterate a couple:

1)Think Kodachrome. The most helpful thing for me when I switched was thinking "I'm shooting slide film--expose for the highlights and don't burn them." You have less than a stop latitude there, though of course you can still overexpose creatively if you want to. (But don't count on a nice gradual, noiseless transition to overexposure if you have a severe light source).

2)IMO, always shoot RAW (I wouldn't consider JPEG for a first digital wedding--there's too many things that could go wrong) and bite the bullet on size. You will have way more room in the shadows and if you don't get the white balance right on the shot, you can fix in post. JPEG doesn't let you do this easily.

3)Bring along a light gray / white card and shoot it now and then to have a clue about white balance from lighting setup to lighting setup. Not all white dresses are actually neutral enough to set the WB in post. Note this can help you nail mixed lighting nightmares.

3)With Canon, you have a lot of noise latitude / ISO flexibility. Use fill flash more often and open up to at least ISO 250 (unless its really, really bright!). But don't be afraid of ISOs of 800 if necessary. Yes, there will be noise, but with the latest Canons, the noise can be removed (and except in formal shots, isn't all that unpleasant).

4) Yep--the 550s / 580s often underexpose, in my experience. I don't really know whether that's just because the metering is essentially reflective or because there's some funkiness there... but up to +1 stop FEC for flash power inside is not wild and about -2/3 stop for fill outside seems right. Any extra battery plan is a good one... take what you need, then double that <g>.

5) I shoot manual 95% of the time, but if I know I have enough light not to get me into trouble dragging the shutter I'll sometimes shoot aperture priority when walking around for candids...