Just before the kiss...critique please

Beaner96 · Jun 25, 2012

I was a guest at my friends wedding the other day so I decided to fiddle with my camera. I'm gonna call it a snapshot because I have no desire to get into wedding photography (or anything thing but a hobby and for fun) but I was pretty happy with how this turned out but I was wondering what you all thought. What can I do to improve it?

I shot it with my Canon Rebel T3i on a tripod with my EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Lens. I shot in Aperture Priority Mode with an f stop of f/5.6, exposure time was 1/500th, and ISO is 100.

Any tips would be helpful!

IMG_2683 by JadedFantasy, on Flickr

Guinness Man · Jun 25, 2012

Not bad

Pesonally Id get lower so it was more straight on. Anytime you shoot down on someone you make them shorter and... No offense, but on larger people its not as flattering. Good shot though

Beaner96 · Jun 25, 2012

Guinness Man said:
Not bad Pesonally Id get lower so it was more straight on. Anytime you shoot down on someone you make them shorter and... No offense, but on larger people its not as flattering. Good shot though

I 100% agree BUT we got there late and so we had to sit at the back because no more room lol. It's tiered seating so we were higher. The real photographer was in the only spot where there was a break in the crowd and I didn't want to move in front of family lol. I tried to get in behind her and sneak a shot but her head was in the way or it was high again lol.

Jaemie · Jun 25, 2012

It's a good photo, given the conditions and restrictions you faced. I wonder if this crop helps in any way:

The_Traveler · Jun 25, 2012

I'm with Jaemie.
Ditch the tripod, get the important stuff in the frame, get rid of the stuff that doesn't add, crop to 4 x 5 (much cheaper to frame and looks better in portrait aspect ratio), get them a bit off the top margin, add a bit of darkness in the midtones

Robin Usagani · Jun 25, 2012

Beaner96 said:
I was a guest at my friends wedding the other day so I decided to fiddle with my camera. I'm gonna call it a snapshot because I have no desire to get into wedding photography (or anything thing but a hobby and for fun) but I was pretty happy with how this turned out but I was wondering what you all thought. What can I do to improve it?

I shot it with my Canon Rebel T3i on a tripod with my EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS Lens. I shot in Aperture Priority Mode with an f stop of f/5.6, exposure time was 1/500th, and ISO is 100.

Any tips would be helpful!

My first question is.. why do you need a tripod when your shutter is plenty fast (or you could higher the ISO if necessary)
My second question is.. why do you think it was a good idea to come to a wedding with a tripod?? You want to be as discrete as possible. Thanks to you, now the pro photographer will probably have a big camera + tripod on his/her shots.

SwirlMe · Jun 25, 2012

I have to agree with Traveler and Jaemie

Beaner96 · Jun 25, 2012

Thanks Traveler and Jaemie your right it does look better with a tighter crop. I'll play around with it a bit and see if I can get it right I don't really like the grooms back being cut off.

I definitely don't think I NEED a tripod and it is always attached to my camera bag so it wasn't intentionally brought. However I was at the back so there was no one behind me and I had my 10 month old daughter with me and she needed to be fed so I just put my camera up on it while I did that and used a remote to take some pictures. I only had it up for about 10 minutes at most then it was away and I should hope that the photographer wouldn't have snagged me in any pictures being that I was about 30 feet behind her and the bride and groom were in front. I would use the term pro photographer loosely in this instance but that is another discussion lol.