Camera Labs

I went to a friend's wedding a couple days ago. I wasn't the official photographer; I was just a guest with a camera. Here is my favorite shot from the wedding:


Camera: Canon 7D
Lens: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 DC OS HSM Macro
ISO: 6400
Exposure: 1/60 sec
Aperture: 3.2
Focal Length: 23mm

This was the end of the first dance as a married couple. The lighting conditions were somewhat less than ideal. There was very little light inside the building, and there was an extremely bright light coming in through the open doorway on the right. So the ISO is pushed way up, and I had to add fill light in Adobe Camera Raw. I also had to apply a lot of noise reduction (Adobe Camera Raw in CS5 has magical noise reduction).

I also have a version where I cropped in tighter and used an adjustment brush (still in ACR) to really highlight the married couple:

I'm not sure which version I like better.

Any thoughts/comments/critiques?

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

That's pretty cool. If you ask me I prefer the first one. It has more sense of occasion, of a wedding. I’m going to a wedding this weekend, where there will be no official photographer and I am going to be the only one with a SLR so I am afraid the couple sees me as THE photographer. A bit scared since I only got it last week. Wish me luck.

good luck

Thanks for the comment. What kit will you be bringing to your friend's wedding? One thing to keep in mind when you're NOT the official photographer is that you'll miss a lot of the "standard" shots. You won't get to be standing in the aisle during the ceremony. Using flash, especially conspicuously (i.e., when you might be the ONLY one taking photos), might be frowned upon.

But it's important to not feel pressure to produce all of the "standard" wedding shots (or even a lot of them). If the couple really wants those shots, they should hire a photographer. If they're thinking of you as the official photographer without saying so explicitly (and without paying you), then you might want to tell them ahead of time to adjust their expectations.

Or you could take the opposite approach. I don't know what your experience level is, but if you want to get into wedding photography, a friend's wedding with no official photographer may be a good opportunity. Maybe you can make your photography services your wedding gift.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

Thanks. I will be using a Nikon D5000 with a Nikkor 28 to 80. (f3.3 to f5.6). As for the wedding we are talking more of portraiture rather than the ceremony itself which will be recorded on video. When I said a got the camera they were like "Great! Everything is fine!". I suppose they don't realize how much more complicated it is than just having the camera. Or maybe it's just us who take photography too serious So my real fear is that I don’t have the kind of personality to start saying “Look there, do this, move to the right”

I completely agree with that last comment. I'm the same way. I knew a few people at this wedding, and I was perfectly comfortable asking them to have their picture taken. But I was less comfortable taking time to pose them a certain way, and I was even less comfortable asking people I didn't know to stand for a picture. (I suppose I would have been more comfortable if I were the official photographer.) That's also why I don't generally do things like street photography.

I think you might find the combination of your D5000 and f3.3 (at the fastest) to be a little slow, but it depends on your particular lighting situation. I don't have any experience with the D5000, but the crops from Gordon's review look okay at high ISOs. I needed 6400 ISO and f3.2 for the above photo, and it was barely acceptable from a noise perspective. In less light, or with any more movement, the shot would have been lost.

Also keep in mind that since you don't have VR (correct me if I'm wrong), at your widest angle you'll be shooting an effective 42mm, so the common recommendation would be to keep your shutter speed faster than 1/42 of a second. I was able to get away with slower sometimes, because my Sigma lens had OS. But even then, during moving shots (such as during the dance), I had to keep my shutter speed faster and just accept the high ISO.

For posed portraits, though, I would think you'll be fine. And you can also rent a fast prime lens or a flash unit from Borrow Lenses (through the cameralabs support links, of course). Either should be relatively cheap.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

clean image. it should be pretty timeless...

my only nitpick is that you should've used a higher ISO if you couldn't freeze the image.

remember that most couples won't notice noise but more will spot a blurry image in a heartbeat.

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Thanks for the comment, palakaboy. Actually, I felt the opposite about the ISO. There's not much motion blur, except for the bride's right foot as she had just jumped up into the groom's arms. The softness in the image comes mostly from heavy noise reduction, not motion blur. And the only higher ISO setting is the H setting, 12800 ISO, which doesn't look pretty.

I think my biggest nitpick with this photo is that I cut off the groom's feet. As the dance was coming to an end, my camera was at my hip while I clapped with everyone else. Luckily, the BlackRapid strap makes it really fast to bring the camera into position, so I got the shot. But it happened so fast that I didn't think to check the feet.

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Body: Canon Rebel XS, Canon EOS 7D
Lenses: Sigma 17-70mm f2.8-4.0 OS HSM DC Macro, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 IS II, Canon EF 50mm f1.8 II, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 USM, Canon EF 85mm f1.8 II USM

Hi, theorigamist,
With you permission, and if you don’t mind, and since we commented this here, I’ll post the results of the wadding I went to, some of them at least. I began shooting with the old lens, but then, in the middle of the wedding, my father went to the post office and brought the 18-55 I had ordered and had just arrived, which was not that better but it meant AF and VR (Uff!).

CSC_0624 by Ivan Manko, on Flickr

(Sorry for posting them small, I just don't want to use too much space.)
DSC_0390 by Ivan Manko, on Flickr

DSC_0528 by Ivan Manko, on Flickr
That was during my first month with the SLR, and a couple of month later I assisted to another wedding, with an official photographer (a crappy one, with all my respect) an lots of SLR owners with kit lenses, so I used the opportunity I had to use a 70-300 with MF on my body, but same decent pictures come out:

DSC_0122 by Ivan Manko, on Flickr

DSC_0455 by Ivan Manko, on Flickr

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