Artborghi gives you a few good tricks for shooting indoor wedding parties
Yesterday I had the nice opportunity to shoot pictures at a wedding party. I tried for the first time a EOS 60D with my 28-55mm f/2.8 mounted. The 60D is a nice experience, especially for sensitivity and burst mode – and it made me realizing how inadequate is my old camera… God’s will my Nikon D800 will be shipped sooner or later.
Back to the event, the party location had indoor and garden, fluo lamps, low lights, uneven illumination, people dancing and drinking… quite a nightmare for a photographer. Here are my basic tips if you find yourself in the same situation:
1 mount fast lenses, like the very good Canon 28-55mm f/2.8
2 use only stabilized lenses (IS/VR)
3 shoot .RAW and .JPG: the first to be corrected in Lighroom; the second to quickly visualize them with some fast software like XnView.
4 set auto ISO max at 1600, but be ready to switch to 3200 for the room darkest corners
5 outdoor sunset light and indoor fluo lamps need you set the right white balance (WB) whenever you switch location
6 in potrait or group picture people are still, 1/30 to 1/50 is therefore a good compromise to avoid high ISO noise
7 people unaware of you taking pictures move a lot: use a professional flash (avoid the built-in) or find a blurred compromise with high ISO and faster time around 1/80 to 1/100 …
8 … or just shoot underexposed pictures and try correct light and colors in Lightroom (the 60D requires Lr version 3.3 or higher)
… but especially, enjoy the event, good food and drinks are made to be eaten also by the photographer!
Nice pictures, but here is another tip:
9: bring back the camera so your colleagues can make boring plant pictures again 😉 (well, actually I wont need it anymore, so dont worry and enjoy the game instead!)
D.
so so … I already have an idea for the next photo lessons 🙂
you know D800 only can do 3fps. that’s a down side
I knew D800 is 4fps (and 6fps in DX mode plus grip) instead of 6fps of 5D MarkIII… as I am not a sport shooter I don’t think it will make such a difference to me, what about your experience?
Rubs complained about this 3fps thing of mark II — though I don’t know if he really had bad experience, or if it’s simply that the small number doesn’t look as sexy. I’ll be really in for renting one to test. You interested?
Oh BTW, a girl (whose name I shall not mention) complained to me that you were keeping shooting when people were eating 😀
I talked to a professional event/profile photographer before. He strongly recommend avoiding doing that: apparently a lot of image-concerned people don’t like to be seen eating in photos ;))
@ the 4fps: each .RAW Nikon is 45+ Mb … per second means 180 Mb – can I afford 6fps burst or I have to buy a new PC :D?
@ Renting D800 + 24-70 mm is 140 CHF/day, or do I miss some extra fee? We could split the renting … where do we go? It would be nice to have a sunny/cloudy day. Rotkreuz is already a good location for trying it!
@ The girl did not see the pictures, how can she complain in advance :)? Anyway, it is easy to delete pictures where smashed food, tongues and teeth are mixed together on funny faces 😀