 Josephine |
Outdoor weddings I been doing indoor wedding photography for about 6 months now and will be shooting an outdoor wedding from noon until 3 pm. What settings would be best to use? Should I shoot f16 and let the camera take care of the shutter speed or should I shoot in program mode. Weather is suppose to cooperate and be sunny, no rain.
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I don't know anything about your equipment. So, I'll just tell you what I would do. 1. Find shade and shoot all the group shots there 2. If you can't find shade, use fill flash 3. I shoot weddings at about 1/60 or 1/30. Sometimes 1/125. On rare occassion 1/250. So, I use larger apertures. I know other photo's who use small apertures, as you suggest. At f/16, I guess you'd never miss a focused shot. In fact, at f/16, why even bother focusing? Just set your lens on infinity and shoot all day long. But, then, you'd get all the crap in the background all the time. You want the focus to be on the bride, on her eyes, on her shoes, on the kiss. Use slow shutter speeds and large apertures for great effects and focus on particular details. 4. Program mode will probably be adequate, but I would rarely use program mode except in a pinch. When you shoot outside, depending on where you are, the program mode can be fooled by the sun, reflection off the sidewalk, sand, water, whatever. You need to use a meter. Which is why I say if you can find shade, you'll be better off and your cameras meter will be more accurate. Jerry
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Josephine |
Jerry, thanks for responding. Great advice. I use a Nikon N80 with Sigma 28-300 lens. Someone suggested I practice some shots on my own free time (before the next wedding shoot) using a polarizer. But if the sky is already blue I don't anticipate needing it. There's not a whole lot of shade at my next shoot. There is a lake which will be nice for the bride/groom shots. Can I use a polarizer (if needed) with fill flash out at a lake? I've never tried that. The ceremony will also take place out in front of a lake (no shade). Any suggestions as to shutterspead (1/125 or 1/250) for that part of the wedding since I will be moving around a lot to get different shots and angles? Thanks for the tips! Josephine
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Water in the background is tricky. This is where I use a digital to see how I need to handle the situation. Water glare can ruin your photos. I would take a trip out to the locataion at about the same time of day. Shoot with someone or something in the foreground using several different settings. First slow shutter speed, wide aperture. Next maybe a faster shutter speed, like 1/250 with a smaller aperture. Lastly, a fast shutter, like 1/500 or faster with an even smaller aperture. Take the exact same pic's but write down exectly what settings you use for each shot. What should happen, normally, is the smaller the aperture, the less glare you will get from the water. But, in my opinion, you loose focus on the subject. Now that's only when you are shooting people and the water is in the background. For other shots away from the water, your settings may be entirely different. Take a trip and shoot a roll or two carefully writing down the settings for each shot. Take them to your lab or a one hour photo (doesn't matter much, really) and evaluate the results. Doing this will alleviate much of the stress and insecurity about how to handle this event. Jerry
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