Wedding Photography Tips

They have been ordered , should get them before the end of the week.

Glad you like the flash, it was just too an expensive piece of kit to keep for all the use I gave it, hopefully the 2 new lenes will wipe away the tears.

Brian, and is Mrs McBrian still talking to you?

Just out of interest, where have you bought them from? I got my 16-45 from Park Cameras but I've ordered the 12-24 from TechDirekt. Park delivered next day, TechDirekt order is on 2 week delivery ! ! ! They were out of stock at the time, great price though at around £450'ish. Well I think so, If you got yours much cheaper . . . I don't want to know.

I plumped for a 9 month deal at Warehouse Express (both in stock), although they are more expensive, it was all Mrs McBrian would alough, I have to pay for them myself, not from the depository. Ordered some Lee filters as well, ND soft grads and Soft Focus set, holder, hood and a range of adaptors.

I have to blame my niece for this, she graduated from Chesterfield Uni and is trying to get a foothold in the business, she has booked our first wedding for early August so I need to have the best gear I can get and get practicing.

Best of luck on doing the wedding. I've only done one so far (my mothers) and I've refused others since!

The one I did was back in the pre-digital days and it was quite a nervous time while the films were getting developed. At least with digital it'll be possible to check the shots as you're going along. The key I found for weddings was to be organised - I mostly did ok however I'd only brought one flash unit for my Bronica ETRS and it packed in on the day - I could have done with it for some of the outdoor shots as fill flash would have been useful. I had 35mm kit with me as well though (Z1p & MZ5) so I did have backup, but it's still not something I'd be desperately keen on doing again...

Here are a few shots from the day - apologies for the quality but the medium format ones were scanned from prints using not the best scanner in the world:

Glad nobody got stung with these.....and they say sharks only live in the sea.

Niblue
I'm actually very much looking forward to doing this. The good thing about this "First" wedding is that it's a church affair and there will only be the B&G plus seven guest's, not a bad one to see how it goes, we have plenty of time to get some practice in. We will have plenty of equipment, 4 digi (2 Pentax D's and 2 Canon 20D's) bodies and 35mm and MF film backups and 2 flashes for each system (maybe 3 if I can get an AF540FGZ).

BTW: I love the second B&W one.

Hi,

I did a wedding for a friend's daughter once, who couldn't afford a proper photographer at the time. I have to say that it's one of the most nerve racking days I've ever had.. until the pictures came back. That was using 35mm (ME Super), and my better half stood over my shoulder with a P&S and doubled up on every shot.. just in case.

One tip I can offer that was given to me though, and I may be teaching Granny to suck eggs here, but for the staged group shots, before taking the shot, get every one to close their eyes, and then get them to open them when you shout smile This gives a better than average chance of them all having their eyes open when the shutter clicks. This also gets you talking to them, as once the actual service is over, friends of the happy couple are generally waiting to get some food and beer down their necks, and if you can get them involved in the picture taking, then they don't look as bored in the final photos.

Right, off to darts now,

Cheers

Liam

Thanks for the tip Liam, very much appriciated as are any other.

Ok here's another tip:
Build your shot.
With groups and with the couple.
start with a simple lighting set-up....
pose your bride. take a shot.
add your groom. take another shot.
add your female entourage. take a shot.
add the male entourage. take another shot.
do the same for each family.
try to avoid firing squad line-ups and if possible, keep diamond/multi diamond head arrangements, and avoid all black suits on one side.
when I say take a shot I mean:
wide angle, then 3/4 length, then head and shoulders then close up, both horizontal and verticle for each step in the build up.
work quickly and be nice.
make everybody else go away then do the bride and groom alone.

Well you certainly sound fully tooled for the job and the limited group sizes so it should be an ideal starter, as controlling the larger groups was certain something I found a struggle.

Thanks - that was probably my best shot from the day. My mother and her husband look after children taken into care by social workers and that little boy was with them more or less full time for several years. They're still see him even though he's back with his family (he lives with his grandmother) and I know it's a picture they like. I'd expected to get shots like that using my AF 35mm gear but that one was actually a grab using the Bronica - I was using a metering prism and a handgrip though, which made the handling a lot faster.

FWIW, I have recently got the book "Capture The Moment" by Stephen Swain ( http://www.stephenswain.com/BookPage.htm ). If you like contemporary wedding photography, then there's a heap of useful information in there - both for the bride and the photographer.

A couple of useful things for group shots:
* Get someone to look after their bags so there's no handbags and bits in the shot
* Watch out for "ghost hands" where hands go around waists or on the shoulder of the person next to them.
* Check in the viewfinder that you can see everyone's feet
* Check in the viewfinder that you can see everyone's head!
* If the group as a whole is standing at an angle, or is deep, make sure you get enough depth of field. (I've managed to get the people on the edges blurred before! DOH!)

I've found the AF360 performs better as fill in flash in the High Speed Sync mode in P-TTL. (But the effective distance is about half, I believe - it's in the manual). This is certainly true with closer portraiture.

Have fun!
Matt

My first job was as a wedding photographer and I pretty much hated it at the time but now, thirty years on I realise just how much I learned about photography and more importantly dealing with people. The guy I worked for was an award winning wedding specialist. You would get fired for some of these amongst other things.

Men's hands on their companion's shoulder. Men seem to instinctively do this and both parties stand awkwardly plus bunch of bananas on the woman's shoulder.

People facing into the sun, so backs to the sun and subtle fill in flash. You get a free backlight and no screwed up faces but easier with a leaf shutter.

Shoot 6x6 cm and you dont have to turn the camera between portrait and landscape.

Carry a back up camera, flash and meter at all times. Main cameras were Mamiyaflex C330fs and a Yashicamat back up.

Test every piece of equipment, especially cables, before you go.

Arrive early and recce the venues before anyone arrives. Remove posters etc from church porches (pics of starving children and pro-life posters might not be appropriate)

Plan every pic in advance, you have to look like you are in control.

My personal nightmare: 4.30pm wedding in December with torrential rain in less than photogenic church. Decided to take most of the pics of ex-Miss Scotland bride at reception hotel. There was a power cut. Set up all the groups by torchlight shining the torch around so that I could see the edges of the frame but still managed to get some wall lights growing out of heads. To my disappointment no one bought the romantic pics lit entirely by candlelight.

Ken

wow we should've started a thread on wedding photography.
this is good.
You got digital, make it work for you...
at the park/or/church, have an assistant, and small memory card handy...
when you get a good shot of your couple set up put the small card in the camera, and take a few "test" shots, then swap cards back. get your assistant to layout your logo on one of the shots and print you up one 8x10, 2 5x7 and a whack of business card like wallets on your inkjet printer. give these out at the reception when the cake gets cut. make a point of presenting your "gift" to the couple, thier parents and wedding party. Have lots of business cards handy, because if you work the reception for dance photos and candids, that'll be where you'll get asked for your cards....
remember to have the 8x10 frame engraved.

Don - good idea
I've split these off from the original thread:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2508

Matt

To all

Many thanks for all the tips so far, keep them coming.

Don/Matt

Great having this thread dedicated to the aspiring wedding tog, my niece is (me too) very excited, she's found it quiet hard to get into the business as an employee sinnce she graduated, so we are going to see how it goes . I'd just love to get out of the engineering business but the mortgage has to be paid somehow.

Few more tips:
* Tell the bride to take it SLOWLY when she arrives at the ceremony - allow you to get some reportage shots.
* Move bottles and flowers that will block the way before the speeches start (so you have a clear view of B&G)
* Take some shots of the reactions to the speeches (rather than the speakers)
* Try and shoot the cake and reception before the ceremony - that way you get it before it's cluttered with guests
* Don't forget an umbrella!
* I like to get a list done before hand of the "must have" shots from the B&G. Then I reorder it to reduce the amount of movement for the group shots. I have the names on there, so I can yell out instructions as to who's in the shots - speeds things up tremendously (and doesn't burden the B&G on the day )

I'm sure there are more...
Matt