First wedding: need advice on pic

[kric2schaam626]

I photographed my first wedding over Memorial Day weekend. I had a lot of fun doing it and am hoping for more. For being my first one, I don't think it turned out nearly as bad as I thought. Some of pictures did turn out kind of grainy. Please help me, I am new to the technical terms of photography. I'm guessing I had a high ISO when I didn't need it? My flash was also being goofy when we were outside - another kink for me to fix. Anyway, here's the bridal party outside. Thanks for your help.

 

[musicaleCA]

First, a large portion of the image is soft. The softness is strangely shaped, which leads me to believe that it was caused by a smudge on the lens or an aberration in the lens itself. If the former, you need to clean your lens more often. If the latter, you need a new lens. I have highlighted the soft area in red below:

Second, the foreground is underexposed, while the sky is overexposed. The underexposure of the skin tones appears to have resulted in inaccurate reproduction of skin tones; they seem a little off to me.

There is quite a bit of noise in the image. Shooting at ISO 800 is entirely unnecessary in such lighting conditions.

The composition is poor, given that there is a woman to the right behind the groom. Her being behind his arm removes the effect that framing them with negative space (like on the left of the bride) would have had.

Fill flash in this image is a must. The EXIF says that you used it, but setting it on auto was not enough. You need to know how automatic flash metering works, how it behaves on Nikon cameras, and then adjust the exposure comp to compensate for lighting conditions. One should also pay attention to the clipping warning (that the D80 surely has) that appears on the LCD display of the image.

Pattern metering is ineffective in this situation because of the sky; spot metering on the skin or clothing (with appropriate EV bias) would be more effective.

Have you considered asking to work as an assistant to an established wedding photographer?

 

[Billhyco]

i would like to see some other pics as well.

 

[kric2schaam626]

I apologize, I uploaded the wrong picture. The first one was after I opened it and messed around with it. So the softness is my part on doing a blur using layers photoshop.

Here is the original picture, untouched. I did notice many of the flaws. As soon as I opened it, I knew that the ISO was sky high. Like I said, my flash was acting up too. That was not helpful at all.

And yes, I have considered trying to assist an established photographer in the area.

Thanks for the feedback. More would be greatly appreciated!

 

[musicaleCA]

In that, the foreground is very underexposed. The sky is fine and you should leave it be. If you want to salvage it then you need to mask an adjustment layer over the people and foreground and bring the exposure up there. My above notes about composition still apply. I too would like to see more images.

 

[kric2schaam626]

Here are some more pictures that I randomly picked out.

1.

2. Parents toasting bride and groom

3. Bouquet toss

4. Lighting is weird. Don't know how this happened. Is this a "cool" shot or just a mistake?

5. I think my timing here was perfect

6. Hung up her dress...


I tried to make sure this time that these are the originals and that I didn't try and play with them yet at all. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Barros VeeDub]

im still an amateur to photography period, but i like 5 and 6, esp 6. 5 seems a bit under exposed.

 

[ryan7783]

5 seems a bit under exposed.

a bit?

6 is great

 

[Sn00bies]

I myself am just diving into lighting, trying to understand it better and configuring the EV, flash comp, etc. to achieve better results, so I have a question about the first group picture.

This may be what you were explaining musicaleCA, if so tell me.

Is the point to use fill flash and lower EV to get a more even sky while still correctly exposing the foreground subjects? I haven't tested this theory yet, but if you have enough fill flash, and lower the overall EV so you can get a good balance between low enough EV to not blow out the sky, and enough fill flash to correctly expose the subjects... would that be the combination to get a perfectly lighted image? Or is that the wrong way to go about it?

 

[musicaleCA]

I think you're on to the right idea. Fill flash is pretty much a necessity in bright light if you want to properly expose both the sky and the foreground. There are plenty of ways to go about this, but personally, here's what I do: I use spot metering and meter on the sky. Then I set the flash to a power setting that, by experience, I think is close to the right amount of light to properly expose the foreground. Shoot a test shot, check the results. The sky should be properly exposed, so to adjust the exposure of the foreground, I can pump-up the flash's power. Alternately, one can open the aperture to increase the flash exposure, while compensating by stopping-down the shutter speed. However, in daylight it's easy to bump into the flash's max-sync speed; that's when a 2 or 3 stop ND filter can come in handy. The GN of a flash falls off VERY quickly when in high-speed-sync mode (I've only once been able to effectively use my 580EXII in daylight at 1/4000, and they're the most powerful flash available from Canon. ).

The bigger problem to overcome is that the first picture needs lots of fill. Hence, it would be useful to have two flashes with umbrellas to the right and left to fill-in the scene; that way one could get more, and more even light.

#1 is okay, but the flash is too direct. Would have been better bounced off the ceiling, with a gobo to block direct light on the cake. There are also multiple colour temps; looks like you needed a 1/2 or full CTO.

#2 needed more ambient light (higher ISO or shutter drag) and less flash as fill to get rid of the uneven exposure.

#3 is very underexposed. If it's not in RAW that can't be reasonably salvaged. Again, it needs more ambient. A shutter speed of 1/30, or ISO of 800 or 1600 would not go amiss.

#4 Motion blur like this can look cool, but 1.1s is too long for this movement. 0.5 would be the upper limit for me. This could have been accomplished by reducing ISO to 200. Furthermore, again, the flash needed to be gelled to match ambient lighting; something around 1/2 or full CTO.

#5 Timing is good, exposure is not. Again, you need shutter drag; at least another stop of light would help matters. 1/30 would have been a better choice. Higher ISO would help matters as well. Bouncing flash off the ceiling with a bounce card attached or 80-20 would not go amiss, to lift shadows of the groom blocking the light (this is something one has to anticipate and thus have the bounce card out or 80-20 on before one starts shooting the dancing). Flash will also help to stop motion, even at 1/30, but having a higher ISO and keeping the shutter speed the same would be preferable (letting the flash really stop motion; ISO 1600 and 1/60 would have likely worked nicely, or at least brought the image up a stop, into the realm of recoverability in RAW).

#6 Compositionally I find it appealing, but the hanger outside the curtain on the left I find distracting, as well as the blue plaster wall at the bottom. The image is also quite hot, and could have done with about 2/3 stops less exposure (or even an HDR with well-restrained tone-mapping). The image is also quite noticeably noisy. In this case shooting with a tripod and increasing exposure time to get down to ISO 100 would have been a good option. As it is, putting it through DeNoise or even a simpler noise reduction algorithm like that in Lightroom or Aperture will likely resolve the noise issue, though getting the cleanest image in-camera as possible is nary always preferable.

 

[kric2schaam626]

Ah, thanks musicaleCA, your input is much appreciated. I wish I could show you everything. Fortunately, I took everything in RAW format. Anyone care to see more?

 

[AtlPikMan]

So when are you going to give the wedding Couple the pics? What sort of package did you offer them?

 

[kric2schaam626]

Per my dad, (he did wedding photography and was very good at it, back in the 35 mm film days), he told me to do the wedding for free, since it was my first. I haven't delivered them their pictures yet. Trying to put everything together. They just want their pictures on discs. Any advice?

And I am supposed to do another wedding in September outside. Any advice there?

 

[AtlPikMan]

Well i'll just tell you, you've got more nerve than me. Im interested in wedding photography but havent made a move on it. Id like to shoot with a more experienced person before jumping right in.

My Advice to you is to and this is only my advice, take it with a grain of salt. I advise you to either hold up on the next wedding shoot until you get more experience or get a ton of experience before your next gig. Your shots suffer from a lot of beginner mistakes, mistakes people shouldnt have to pay for with their cash or their wedding day.
Ive been shooting since Sept 08 and i think ive gotten a lot better BUT, I know i dont have a handle on Fill Flash and getting it right when it counts, Check my Flikr tell me what you think...

Flickr: AtlPikMan3's Photostream

 

[Sachphotography]

1st weddings can be scary. I know a guy that is facing a lawsuit due to his first wedding. He took pictures and did not do a very good job. The people were hacked and are suing him. I spent about a month in the church and wedding area shooting random things and what not to ensure that when the wedding happened, I would be able to provide the best pictures possible. For your first wedding I would say eh...not horrible. You have to be careful with those things........Weddings are a scary things when you are just starting out.

Was that a paid job?