Another First Wedding Thread?!

[DGMPhotography]

Hello everyone,

So I shot my first wedding a short while ago. The conditions weren't exactly prime. It was short notice so I sort of had to throw some things together. The location wasn't great... dark shadowy gazebo, bright background... but I did my best.

The full album is on my Facebook page - I'd really appreciate it if anyone can check it out and let me know what they think.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.637436336355675.1073741875.316638158435496&type=1

Thanks!!

 

[DGMPhotography]

Umm... I'm not sure who moved this thread but it should be in the gallery section... I'm wanting a critique of the photos, not the website..

 

[Derrel]

Trying to see it, but the FB server is giving a "down" message...

 

[MRnats]

FB was actually down for a few mins. The world must be ending. Or maybe it's beginning.

 

[The_Traveler]

Darryl, they seem pretty nice.
I would edit to 4 x 5 for most of the portrait aspect ratio.
On first quick look, this is my fave https://www.facebook.com/DaryllMorg...6638158435496/637436976355611/?type=3&theater

 

[ronlane]

^^^this. And I would file 13 this one. motion blurr with not rhyme or reason to it.

 

[Derrel]

Thank goodness you got this shot without a focus error or motion blurring detracting too much from it. https://www.facebook.com/DaryllMorg...6638158435496/637436989688943/?type=3&theater

What do I think? I think you need a mentor to drill into your head what the actual priorities are when shooting a news or wedding or other documentary event. First off, how to get the right "safe settings". This is a 1920's-era concept, a concept of the proper shutter speed and aperture range to ENSURE that the photographs will "come out right". I downloaded the manual for my 1938 Speed graphic a few months back, and they had entire lists of safe settings for all types of subjects. How to get say, a half-body portrait, focused right, ,and not blurred. And so on and so on.

You need to get a better understanding of focusing and shutter speeds and stopping motion. You desperately need a mentor to teach you what the actual priorities are in this type of critical situation. A lot of these are veryyyyyyy sketchy. I have some idea of how this happened, even without pulling any EXIF information, just looking at the pictures and 35+ years behind a camera tells me a lot.

It's too bad you didn't shoot this one in a lifetime event in SPORTS mode; it would likely have come out better. You mention that the ,"conditions were not prime," but the way I see it, that statement takes the blame off of where it belongs, which is squarely on your shoulders. Credit OR blame both go to the photographer in equal measure, depending on how well he does his work. This scenario was a daytime outdoor event in late August or early September, the brightest time of the year. And somehow you're missing focus and blurring shots with too slow a speed, a speed wayyy outside the safe zone. I feel bad for you because you have not had a mentor to teach you the basics of "Safe Settings" for shooting critical, once-in-a-lifetime events. I do not want to come off as being overly harsh or critical, but your progress on the fundamentals of exposure/settings, focusing, and depth of field being badly utilized is an ongoing issue for you. You really are not using the camera in the long-time, established manner that guarantees the best chances for successful shots. If you want to continue as a beginning professional, you need to improve on your basic, camera-setting and photography fundamentals. These images are so inconsistent in quality because you shot way outside the safe settings for this kind of a location, and the results are all over the map.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Well Facebook does detract some quality, but there's a reason for the motion blur.... I told you it was very dark inside the gazebo. I had my aperture at f/2 and my ISO was already pretty high and I still wasn't getting the inside of the gazebo (and the people) properly exposed. The gazebo was about a 4x4 little structure and I didn't want to use flash and distract from the ceremony since I was literally right on it. If I had increased speed it would have been too dark, and any lower and the background would have been way too blown out. I tried to compromise, and the bride is very happy with the pictures.

 

[ronlane]

Wait, it's facebooks fault? I was under the impression that compressing or lowering the size would "mask" some of the faults.

Credit OR blame both go to the photographer in equal measure, depending on how well he does his work.

Re-read post #7, SLOWLY and then read this quote. What was your ISO? On a bright sunny day, you should be able to get enough light at ISO 1600 to be able to get a fast enough shutter speed with f/2. (which I think may be too shallow of a depth of field for a moving subject.)

 

[DGMPhotography]

Okay, okay, I know. Maybe they're not that best, and I'm the one that took the pictures. I know.

But I don't think you realize that I TRIED to get the settings right. I know how shutter speed works. I try to keep it at least the inverse of my focal length, and around 200th for moving objects. I took this all into account. My ISO was at 500 for most of the pictures. I don't know why, and I've had others point it out, but my camera gets really noisy really quick, even as low as 1000 ISO, so considering the exposure triangle I did what I thought was best.

And in the end if the client is happy I think it's a job accomplished. However, I know I can always improve, and I am striving to. Perhaps I should have rented a camera with better low-light capabilities, but for the price she was willing to pay ($250), I probably wouldn't have made much if anything after renting and getting insurance and all that.

 

[sscarmack]

One piece of advice I will offer you.

If you like it, or even think you did an okay job. Go with it.

If your client likes it, and are happy with your work. Go with it.


Posting your work on the internet will do one of two things.

Be praised or be torn down.

It does not matter how cool you think your photos are, or how picture perfect you thought they were.

One person will come on and say "Eh, I would of touched of those rocks right there" or "Nice work, but I would of cropped it this way and remove this* from the picture because its distracting".

But in reality, they would probably make the same mistakes, bc after all, no one is perfect and we as photographers always overlook things bc we get caught up in the moment (Especially me).


Either way, you need to have thick skin nowadays on the 'internet', especially when it comes to personal work.

You do good work, keep it up.

 

[Derrel]

ISO 500 for low-light is a huge mistake. Huge. No two ways about it. Low noise level, but blurry images, and missed focus. On a wedding.

There is a thread on here about noise that resurfaced yesterday after a couple of months. I stumbled across it yesterday, and I saw that I wrote in it that I would prefer a noisy shot done at 1/500 second at ISO 1600 to a low-noise but BLURRY smear of an image. Every. Single. Time.

Get the shots sharp, and not blurry when you are shooting them. Then, later, use software to subdue noise, and then sharpen the images at the camera raw stage. A lot of people are unaware that they can apply a pretty heavy bit of sharpening at the raw converter stage! when opening the image, and THEN, later, apply even more sharpening, sharpening that is situationally-appropriate for printing or for screen display.

If you think "low noise" made these blurred, and out of focus wedding images somehow better than they would have been if you had gotten the shutter speed high enough to prevent smearing of the slow-moving people involved in a wedding, well, I can't help you with that opinion. Images that are under-exposed can appear excessively noisy. But the fundamentals of photography are to get the image recorded with the best possible chance for success. And I've been shooting pictures since the top speed of color film was ASA 200. And I can tell you that with a modern d-slr, if you cannot exceed ISO 500, there's a serious fundamental problem, or two, in the ointment. I cannot agree with sscarmack above, at all. The work done was not "good work". You need to address some very basic technical issues. You need some quality photographic instruction to show you what needs to be done.

 

[JustJazzie]

Thank goodness you got this shot without a focus error or motion blurring detracting too much from it. https://www.facebook.com/DaryllMorganPhotography/photos/a.637436336355675.1073741875.316638158435496/637436989688943/?type=3&theater
I downloaded the manual for my 1938 Speed graphic a few months back, and they had entire lists of safe settings for all types of subjects. How to get say, a half-body portrait, focused right, ,and not blurred. And so on and so on.

I am really curious to see this "cheat sheet!" Was it a free down load you could link too?

 

[Derrel]

I am really curious to see this "cheat sheet!" Was it a free down load you could link too?

It's from one of maybe four or five Speed Graphic manuals that have been uploaded to the web. I made a few screen captures a few months back when I bought the Miniature Speed Graphic, which is a VERY demanding camera to operate. MOST of the stuff in the cheat sheets is not applicable directly to a d-slr, since today we shoot on MUCH smaller pieces of "film" with much shorter focal length lenses for each angle of view, so the depth of field is much greater for today's photographers. But these tables DO show that, at one time, photography of even the simplest subjects demanded extreme attention to detail, and a really strong grasp of the **exact** distances and f/stops and shutter speeds and camera-to-subject distances; there WERE NO ZOOMS, so knowing how far away to position yourself and your camera was of critical importance.

Speed Graphic_DOF chart.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com


Speed Graphic_hyperfocal.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com


Speed Graphic_motion stopping.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com


Speed Graphic_safe set chart.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com


Speed Graphic_safe set_portraits.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

 

[JustJazzie]

It's from one of maybe four or five Speed Graphic manuals that have been uploaded to the web. I made a few screen captures a few months back when I bought the Miniature Speed Graphic, which is a VERY demanding camera to operate. MOST of the stuff in the cheat sheets is not applicable directly to a d-slr, since today we shoot on MUCH smaller pieces of "film" with much shorter focal length lenses for each angle of view, so the depth of field is much greater for today's photographers. But these tables DO show that, at one time, photography of even the simplest subjects demanded extreme attention to detail, and a really strong grasp of the **exact** distances and f/stops and shutter speeds and camera-to-subject distances; there WERE NO ZOOMS, so knowing how far away to position yourself and your camera was of critical importance.

Speed Graphic_DOF chart.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

Speed Graphic_hyperfocal.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

Speed Graphic_motion stopping.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

Speed Graphic_safe set chart.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

Speed Graphic_safe set_portraits.png photo - Derrel photos at pbase.com

Thanks a bunch for posting this for me! I will have to study then and see what sense I can pull out of it all.