Ambience and exposure advice for a wedding please

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Paul64

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Firstly, I hope that this thread is in the correct place.:thinking:
:help:I am hoping that there are enough people out there that can help me with this one. It's mostly in relation to exposure and ambience. I have been asked to be the photographer for my cousins’ forthcoming wedding, which I really did not want to do and declined many times at first, but agreed on the day that they laid her mother, my aunt, to rest. I have been lucky enough to have captured some ‘good enough’ pictures of events in the past, which is why she asked me to do this. The problem is, I want this to be right for her, I want to be able to capture the ambience of the first dance, which I know is going to be low light, without it looking brighter/lighter than it actually is, and I want to be able to capture the detail in the white dress without blowing it out. The kit I have is:-
Canon 550D.
EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS.
EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS
EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
At the moment I do not have a Speedlight, but that’s because I am in two minds about buying a bunch of Nikon kit as follows:-
Nikon D90
AF-S DX 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II
AF-S DX 35mm f/1.8G
AF-S 50mm f/1.4G
SB-900 Speedlight
Any advice on how to take a pic of the dress without blow outs, and on the happy couple in low light while maintaining the low light atmosphere would be greatly appreciated, as would any other helpful tips.
Many thanks in advance :thumbs:
 
Forget about ambience, correctly exposed is the same in whatever light. low light just mean you need fast glass. And if you want ambience then flash will kill it unless your aperture is wide enough or iso is high enough.

As for the dress, without blowing it would just need to meter on the dress, but then it'll come out grey and everthing else under exposed. It all depends on that particular frame you are taking....I just dial in compensation on the fly these days.
 
I would be tempted to get a few shots lit using a flash, perhaps in P mode and then either bounce the flash off the ceiling, or turn it off completely and get some shots in the ambient light. If you shoot in Tv, Av or M on the Canon it will supplement the available ambient light with fill in flash.

The problem is that you're not going to know what the ambient light's going to be like, for instance there could still be some natural daylight coming into the room or it could just be the lights from the disco, hence why I'd be inclined to get a few "keeps" using the flash as the main light source and then go for the more atmospheric shots with ambient light.
 
I would also worry about swapping to unfamiliar kit before a big event....or are you thinking of afterwards?

As above, possibly try for both, flash and without, but knowing the room before hand might help, and remember that few first dances happen on time, so even if the room has a flood of daylight, it might be gone when the dance actually happens. As Raymond says, when going with ambient, its a case of balancing and adjusting as you go as you move round the couple.
 
Rather than considering buying equipment you are not familiar with, spend the money on a decent flash unit and maybe a second body.

Practice using flash until you are 100% confident with it. If you do consider a 2nd body, think about one of the newer ones that have the wireless ETTL facility.

Steve
 
Raymond Lin said:
Forget about ambience, correctly exposed is the same in whatever light. low light just mean you need fast glass. And if you want ambience then flash will kill it unless your aperture is wide enough or iso is high enough.

As for the dress, without blowing it would just need to meter on the dress, but then it'll come out grey and everthing else under exposed. It all depends on that particular frame you are taking....I just dial in compensation on the fly these days.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the Advice Raymond, checked out your webpage and love that 3rd pic, the one of the bride. I am pretty sure I read on this site somewhere about compensation, + for black and – for white, by about a 1/3 stop if I am correct? Again, thanks for the response.


Russ77 said:
I would be tempted to get a few shots lit using a flash, perhaps in P mode and then either bounce the flash off the ceiling, or turn it off completely and get some shots in the ambient light. If you shoot in Tv, Av or M on the Canon it will supplement the available ambient light with fill in flash.

The problem is that you're not going to know what the ambient light's going to be like, for instance there could still be some natural daylight coming into the room or it could just be the lights from the disco, hence why I'd be inclined to get a few "keeps" using the flash as the main light source and then go for the more atmospheric shots with ambient light.
Click to expand...
Hi Russ and thanks for the response. Yeah I know what you mean about knowing what light there will be, and then there is my position in relation to any background lighting. I am still not looking forward to doing this, but it’s not like I getting paid for it anyway, but I would like to do a good job of it for her. I know she’s coming round this weekend so I will find out where the venue is being held and see if I can’t get a sneak preview somehow, so to speak. Again, thanks for your input on this, much appreciated.

Yv said:
I would also worry about swapping to unfamiliar kit before a big event....or are you thinking of afterwards?

As above, possibly try for both, flash and without, but knowing the room before hand might help, and remember that few first dances happen on time, so even if the room has a flood of daylight, it might be gone when the dance actually happens. As Raymond says, when going with ambient, its a case of balancing and adjusting as you go as you move round the couple.
Click to expand...
Hi and thanks for your comments Yv. I have used Nikon before with the SB-800 flash as it was then, but most of my togging was outdoors, so really, although I have used a flash, I haven’t used one enough. I was thinking of buying the Nikon and having two bodies for the shoot, and then selling one of them after the event, the Canon, as I am not that impressed with the results, but maybe that’s just the glass I have. I think I need to get out and start blasting a bunch of pics in different scenarios and see how things work out. I can see I shall deleting a heck of a lot on the day lol

Jelster said:
Rather than considering buying equipment you are not familiar with, spend the money on a decent flash unit and maybe a second body.

Practice using flash until you are 100% confident with it. If you do consider a 2nd body, think about one of the newer ones that have the wireless ETTL facility.

Steve
Click to expand...
Checked out your site and admired your work, and agree that the only way is practice, practice and more practice. I think the subjects will get a little annoyed after a while though, lol. Many thanks for the advice Steve, I appreciate your comments.

hangerhead said:
I'd read the following (dragging the shutter) and all related articles.
it explains how to use flash to help britghten the scene for detail, without losing the overall feel (or ambience) of the scene.

http://neilvn.com/tangents/2008/02/29/dragging-the-shutter-revisited/
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link Hangerhead, I’ll have to try setting up a scenario and working on that one. Had heard of dragging the shutter, but because most of what I do is outdoors, never really looked much further into it. Appreciate your comments and the link, many thanks.



To All, Thanks for your comments, I do appreciate them and the time you take out to respond to my question. I think that maybe one of my biggest problems here is that I don’t have enough confidence in myself to do the job when I should be approaching this with a more positive attitude. Obviously it helps when you know what you are doing, and I think practice along with trying to look into the venues is key here. Again, many thanks to you all.
 
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