Family Wedding – My favourites!

[S_J_P]

Following on from my post about how shooting a family wedding made me feel, here are ten of my favourite images from the day. They’re all taken with a 6D and EF 17-40 f/4, EF 24-105 f/4, and EF 70-200 f/2.8 and processed in Lightroom.


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6562 by S.J.P, on Flickr “The Top Table” (Each table was labelled with a shellfish name to distinguish them)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6531 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Waiting” (The room where the ceremony took place)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6489 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Preparing” (The groom busying himself setting-up the tables)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-7287 by S.J.P, on Flickr “The Pensive Groom” (The groom checks his pocket for his speech)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6799 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Help Me Oh Lord!” (The registrar looks for inspiration)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-7232 by S.J.P, on Flickr “No Baby (Yet)!”


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-7212 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Touch The Rainbow”


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-7150 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Why Do I Always Get The Ankles?”


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6654 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Darlings!” (The grooms mother)


A&A Wedding 02-11-13-6676 by S.J.P, on Flickr “Pink!” (A guest)

[paulr5604]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Very Very nice professional photos

[Paulstw]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

I think you did an outstanding job on these. Better than my first attempt. I really need a 6D before the next one. You can just tell the IQ difference.

[paul linton]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Fantastic job.
All Images look so good.

Paul

[S_J_P]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Thanks guys

The 6D really did do me proud, I'm so impressed by it's performance at ISO3200. Reviewing some of the images, I'm also mightily impressed by the 70-200's IS and IQ, those last two pictures are taken at 1/20 and 1/45 and 200mm and have no right to be as sharp as they are! (I shouldn't have tried taking them really ) Check out "Pink"'s left eye at 100%, considering it's taken at ISO3200 and 1/45sec f/5.6 it's amazingly crisp)

[Montana 5]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Excellent result Steve.

Doug.

[Stan]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

6, 7 and 8 are the ones for me . With the first three the oof backgrounds are a bit too distracting for my taste

Stan

[Columbarius]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Did you arrange the rainbow with "him upstairs" in #6 & 7? Well done for taking advantage. I also rather like#5 - a nice unguarded moment. All in all a good set, well done.

[S_J_P]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Did you arrange the rainbow with "him upstairs" in #6 & 7? Well done for taking advantage. I also rather like#5 - a nice unguarded moment. All in all a good set, well done.

I was under instruction not to venture outside, for any reason (apparently it was too windy ) but when the rainbow appeared I managed to get the B&G (and bridesmaid) out for a few shots without the parents noticing :roll eyes:

The rainbow was the driver for my comment about planning, but being open to opportunity when chance presents itself

[lone pilgrim]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Stunning shots there, Steve.

I bet the bride and groom are more than happy with the results.

I'd never have believed you'd gone up to ISO 3200 on that last shot. ISO 800 is really pushing it on my 550d!

[DeeGee]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

[Les McLean]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Gosh, these are good, pleasant, creative variety, lots of laughter combined with the solemnity of the occasion has been captured very well.

I bet the bride/groom are well chuffed with them.

[Riggers]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Well done Steve. These are all superb. Very creative and very sharp.

You seem to have shot most of these in manual which I would find daunting especially when trying to get quick candid shots in rooms where it looks like the light might not be consistent. I don't think I could think fast enough to calculate the exposure so I would probably have wimped out and used auto iso in manual or more likely AV mode with a bit of EC here and there.

What was your thinking when deciding what shooting mode to use?

[tesarver]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

I can see why they are your favorites. Very well done Steve.

Tom

[S_J_P]

Re: Family Wedding – My favourites!

Well done Steve. These are all superb. Very creative and very sharp.

You seem to have shot most of these in manual which I would find daunting especially when trying to get quick candid shots in rooms where it looks like the light might not be consistent. I don't think I could think fast enough to calculate the exposure so I would probably have wimped out and used auto iso in manual or more likely AV mode with a bit of EC here and there.

What was your thinking when deciding what shooting mode to use?

Thanks Lee

As regards the use of manual mode, my choice came down to the flash-usage technique (from Syl's book), namely that flash images should be treated as two separate exposures, one for the background, and one for the subject.

The Canon flash system tends to meter and expose for fill-in flash in creative-zone modes (P, Tv, or Av) i.e. with up to 2.5 stops reduction in the flash intensity vs. what you may call a "proper" flash exposure. This is fine for relatively well-lit scenes, but can lead to unexpected results when light levels fall. The auto-system does switch to full flash-exposure (flash as key light) in P mode when light levels diminish to around 1/60 @ f/4, but Tv and Av will steadfastly stick to fill-in even at low EV's, which can lead to either underexposure and/or lengthy shutter-speeds (enabling safety-shift can help a little here). The upshot of this is that in P, Av, or Tv you are limited in your ability to treat the scene as two exposures and control those exposures separately and creatively. I could have tried to modify the cameras evaluation of exposure and flash exposure using exposure compensation (EC) and flash exposure compensation (FEC), but when the camera is in fill-in flash mode the flash exposure is affected by ambient exposure and consequently altering EC will change the required FEC, so it becomes complicated to achieve the desired balance, often with significant compensation amounts.

Switching to manual mode enabled me to evaluate a suitable background exposure to retain sufficient detail behind the subject so as to not get the usual bright-subject/black background so often associated with flash usage. Since lighting levels inside didn't change that much, once I'd settled on a basic exposure I could use it until I moved again. I then let the camera evaluate the required flash exposure (flash as main or key-light) in ETTL for the particular subject, and used the flash exposure compensation (FEC) to dial exposure down (usually by -1 to -3 stops) to achieve the desired balance of flash with ambient light, in effect I was dialling-in my own interpretation of fill-in flash whilst using the camera in a non-fill-in mode. This seems the simpler and more consistent approach to me, hence my choice of manual mode

In hindsight I think I could have tried auto-ISO in manual mode, but I've had problems with the camera sticking to 400 ISO when a flash is attached so I stuck with a manually set ISO as well.

I hope my explanation makes sense!