Beginner Help!

[RADDERS76]

Hi, I've been asked by my girlfriend's brother to take some photos for his wedding party tonight for people that couldn't make the actual wedding. I'm not into this sort of photography as I'm far happier in a field taking long exposures! Any tips? Settings to use? I don't have an external flash only built in camera one.

Thanks
Paul

 

[ianp5a]

Beforehand, get the couple to notify those guests that they want pictures of them. Then recce a nice spot with a good background. Move things if necessary. Ask permission to go into a nice area if it helps. Check out the light, and the exposures needed at that stage.

Then when it comes to it, get help to round up all the right guests in as nice a way as possible. It's not always easy to drag reluctant people away from a party. Good timing can help though.

 

[HoppyUK]

You don't have a lot of options, but to make best use of the pop-up flash, I would use the kit zoom, and:

- find a well lit area if possible, and set ISO800 for starters. Be prepared to go higher
- shoot on Av (aperture priority) say f/5.6
- set Custom Function for 'Flash sync in Av mode' to Auto. It's under the Exposure tab. Auto is the default setting on Canons, so it should be already set unless it's been changed.
- in this mode, the camera will drop the shutter speed to balance the ambient light to the flash, preventing dark backgrounds and softening the harsh light from the flash. The danger is that shutter speeds can get very long so although the subject will be frozen by the flash, anything that moves will suffer ambient blurring. Shoot lots.
- if blurring becomes too much, easiest option is to switch the camera to P, which won't allow the shutter speed to drop below 1/30sec but backgrounds will be dark.