Help with exposure...

roxysmom · Jun 10, 2009

I have been dabbling in wedding photography for about 18 months now. I've done about 7 weddings with help and a few on my own. I have had very happy customers. Overall I set up expetations ahead of time that I'm still new in the world of photography. My clients are generally people with limited budgets so they have been very happy with the quality and quantity of pictures for the price. They also say I am very nice to work with. All compliments! However...

I know I need help with exposure. I'm just not sure what I'm doing wrong. I'm using an expodisc for white balance and I always use a fixed lens. Normally a 50mm 1.4 and I rent a 70-200mm fixed. I also take all pictures manually and in RAW.

I put a link to my most recent wedding below for feedback. I still have all the originals in RAW so whatever they order or want in their album I can still go back and do more adjustments.

I am looking for exposure help and of course opinions are always appreciated. The downfall with this wedding over my other one's is that she wanted outside photos but it was raining and very black/cloudy. We got in a few shots but not how I'd normally like them to look. In addition they were supposed to get married outside but had to find a church at the last minute. The church is ugly...point blank. However ugly it is my exposure should still be dead on and I just don't feel that it is.
http://justinemily.weddingherald.com/index.php/view_event.php

Big Mike · Jun 10, 2009

It would help a lot if you could show us some specific examples...rather than asking us to look though hundreds of images and comment on something as specific as exposure.

One thing I did notice, is that many of them seem to be lacking contrast, especially on the low/dark end. I'm not sure if the suits were actually black, but in many shots they looks like a washed out greyish tone.

Also, do you use a lot of on-camera flash? That can tend to make things look 'flat', especially when it's the primary light source.

bigtwinky · Jun 10, 2009

Looking at the first picture, it does seem a bit underexposed but it mostly just seems flat.

Do you use photoshop? I levels correction would definatly help make the colours pop more.

How are you metering? Are you using an Evaluative metering or a spot metering? It seems like you are meterring right in the middle, which is making her white dress a bit grey and his black suit a bit grey.

I am not a wedding photographer, I am not a professional. I have heard that if you have to chose to meter one or the other, meter on the bride's dress as she probably spent alot of money on it while the grooms tux is normally a rental. So aim to get the dress a normal white.

roxysmom · Jun 10, 2009

I will gladly post specific photos. I thought I could not because I'm not a member yet. I will download a few tonight and repost.

I think the "flat" comment i& lacking contrast is very true of these photos. I never use the on-camera flash I have a Nikon speedlight and I put a diffuser on top of it for the indoor shots.

I use photoshop exclusively but I'm not familiar with i levels. What is that?

The only metering I use is in the camera. I'll have to check if it's set on spot or not. Could that be a problem?

Big Mike · Jun 10, 2009

I use photoshop exclusively but I'm not familiar with i levels. What is that?

Levels is one of the most basic adjustment tools in Photoshop. If you are not familiar with that, I'd suggest you take some time to learn more about photo editing. You certainly don't need to become a photoshop expert and try to learn it all, but a little more knowledge will certainly help.

There are plenty of good books, or you might even take a class.
There are, of course, plenty of good web sites as well.
I'd suggest doing some reading HERE, starting with the Understanding Series and the tutorials.

farmerj · Jun 10, 2009

WOW.....

444 images? I would be cross-eyed trying to edit that many images at one event.

without the exif information, it's hard to see what you're doing.

unsharpen mask, level, histogram adjust are just some of the regular tools I use in the pictures I edit.

bigtwinky · Jun 10, 2009

farmerj said:
unsharpen mask, level, histogram adjust are just some of the regular tools I use in the pictures I edit.

Most of my images go through unsharp mask, levels, colour saturation (slightly). I also use the black and white conversion layer in CS3 and love the layer mask tool. Cloning, healing and such for more major work, but this is all basic stuff when I talk to someone who knows the software pretty well.

These are basic tools I learned in 1 photoshop course I took (20 hours total). They have 9 more levels I can take. Its a huge software.

ShotGunNik · Jun 10, 2009

LOL damn 9 more levels of photoshop to learn after 1 course? Sounds like fun though, I'd like to gain experience in photoshop as well....

roxysmom · Jun 10, 2009

What can I do when I take the photo so I don't have as much time post processing in Photoshop afterwards? What skills can I work on?

farmerj · Jun 10, 2009

I have been looking at what I do on a regular basis in Paintshop Pro and then see what I can do in the camera settings to make it "permanent".

I can get the sharpness and saturation close. WB I can custom set with the WhiBal card if I am going to be in an area for a long time and take lots of pictures.

But in the end, I have learned here on this forum and a couple others.

dSLR camera's are putting more and more control back into the user. As such, your Post-processing is becoming the darkroom of film.

You can't get out of PP with an SLR. At least not if you want more than just a snapshot.

atbawrps · Jun 10, 2009

From everything that I've learned about you in this thread, you shouldn't be shooting anyones wedding at this point. You should a) learn about exposure and b) learn how to use Photoshop or some other post processing software.

The photos in your gallery look ok, but nothing spectacular. They even look like they could have been taken in auto mode.

bigtwinky · Jun 10, 2009

When you open the image in photoshop, click on the lower right button to add a new adjustment layer and select to add a Levels layer.

This will open a window with a histogram. If the blacks don't reach to the left of the histogram, there is a little triangular button at the bottom of the histogram you can drag to the right to compensate. Same for the whites.

There is a third triangular button in the middle that allows you to adjust as well.

You can probably youtube a video that will explain better.

Doing this should not take very long. crop + levels + saturation + unsharp mask takes a minute or two, if even that.

roxysmom · Jun 10, 2009

To atbawrps:

I don't appreciate that at all. I have been reading and posting on this forum for 18 months now and I'm trying to learn. I established that I am newer and that I've had happy clients because I outline the expectations ahead of time. That is not even the point of my question. I mentioned this was not my best work and that I was looking for tips.

It's comments like yours that make people not want to be on here anymore. I posted my comment to get feedback and help increase my skills. How did your comment help in my quest? The only thing you did was put me down and tell me that I need to learn more but you did not provide me any tips. Thanks but no thanks.

roxysmom · Jun 10, 2009

Thank you bigtwinky I will try that for sure this evening. I appreicate the advice that I can actually use!

I just hope to continue to work on making them less "flat" and increase the sharpness. Maybe I took the originals and made them look worse. I do open them in bridge and work on some elements of them in bridge. Maybe I should stop that and go straight into Photoshop where I have more options to work with.

atbawrps · Jun 10, 2009

roxysmom said:
To atbawrps:

I don't appreciate that at all. I have been reading and posting on this forum for 18 months now and I'm trying to learn. I established that I am newer and that I've had happy clients because I outline the expectations ahead of time. That is not even the point of my question. I mentioned this was not my best work and that I was looking for tips.

It's comments like yours that make people not want to be on here anymore. I posted my comment to get feedback and help increase my skills. How did your comment help in my quest? The only thing you did was put me down and tell me that I need to learn more but you did not provide me any tips. Thanks but no thanks.

Sure I did... I said you should learn about exposure and learn Photoshop. Those are some solid tips right there.

For real, you shouldn't be shooting weddings and then coming to a forum looking for tips on exposure and photoshop after the fact. You should know that stuff before you shoot anyone's wedding day.

How would you feel if you paid a "professional" photographer to shoot your wedding and then find out she didn't even understand one of the basic principles of photography - exposure!? On top of that, she didn't know what to do with the images after to make them really pop and stand out??

Would you feel like you took a roll of the dice and maybe came away lucky?