Yes, there was quite a bit of ambient daylight - it was next to the bathroom window.

1/180 at F16, ISO 200.

Thought I'd share this effort from this morning. I still haven't really got the hang of lighting, so I'd be grateful for any suggestions.

It was about 4mm across including legs, taken with the K10D and a 50mm SMC-A with all 65mm of extension tube. F16 on auto with the built in flash. Focusing as usual, by moving the camera, not the focus ring.

I tried using a diffuser for the built in flash, but for some reason the attempts with it were all massively overexposed, so I took it off. This was a bit under, which I guess is why it became a bit grainy when I brightened it up.

Well for one, that's not too bad, if the camera's on a tripod and you have a remote release. Reasonably sharp isn't even that difficult hand-held at 1/20 and 200mm with SR.

You're chancing it a bit, of course, for the big groups, where the likelihood of someone moving is very high, but you might get away with it. Just tell 'em to stand still...

And two, 200mm? On digital? For a wedding????

Anyway, I wasn't being entirely serious about green mode

There's always green mode.

For expensive pro photographers, sure, time is of the essence, and you expect a certain slickness.

But for a friend stepping in when the couple isn't in a position to afford a pro, things are a little different, I think, or it was in my experience.

Both times I've done this in circumstances like Pete's, people realised that I wasn't a pro, I wasn't making money out of it, and was inexperienced. They were lovely, as were the guests, and cut me a lot of slack.

If he rushes it and mucks it up as a consequence, it would be far, far worse, than taking a bit longer than people would ideally like.

I think Pete needs to get this straight with the couple in advance, so that they have realistic expectations.

I'd also suggest that he gets the best man, and maybe the bridesmaids too, to help out doing the inevitable herding of cats. The BM will also be in a position to calm people down if they're getting a little impatient, thus freeing Pete up to concentrate on the job in hand.

Do you really find this useful?

I find that with even moderately small apertures, the VF goes so grainy that although it's obvious that the DOF has increased, you can't really tell how sharp anything is.

Pete, I'm assuming you mean DOF (depth of field) - I don't know what DOP is.

Have a careful read of this article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_of_field

You can stop when it gets into the maths towards the end if you're not interested, but it should explain the effect of aperture on the range of camera-to-subject distances that will appear acceptably sharp on the image.

This is all completely separate from the way a lens is usually optically better towards its centre than at its edges - so if you stop down a bit you exclude light that has been refracted through the edges, and therefore generally get a little less distortions of various kinds.

Get depth of field straight first though. Any of the lenses you'll be using will be good enough wide open, so I wouldn't worry about edge quality for now.

Whereas controlling depth of field is very important. The bottom line is that the wider the aperture, the smaller the range of camera-to-subject distances that will appear sharp.

I think threads like this stretch the natural helpfulness of people too much.

There's a wealth of information on the internet, and merely typing "fast lens" or "stopping down" into Google yields hordes of helpful links. And a quick glance in the manual under "Specification" yields information about the memory card capabilities.

Now I'm all for asking questions, even dumb ones, since we often don't know what we don't know. And I'm all for being helpful, especially with newbies.

But it seems to me that not to go to even the slightest effort to find out something for oneself is taking advantage, somewhat.

It's nice to be a giver as well as a taker on an internet forum such as this.

I wasn't making a point, I was just kidding. AAMOF, I don't think K10D jpegs are particularly soft. They're realistic, AFAICT, which is much more important than making a fluffy kitten look like a porcupine.

But joking apart, you keep going on about how wonderfully sharp such and such a lens is, or a picture isn't.

But posting a picture with some whiskers nicely resolved tells you very little about how good the lens is, and nothing at all in comparison with anything else. It just says that your technique has improved, and that you've stopped concentrating on the wrong things at last.

If you want real evidence about how sharp a lens is, you have to test it under controlled conditions - why not have a go (other than because it's boring). If not quantitatively in line pairs per millimeter, at least qualitatively, so that you can sensibly compare, say, the 18-55 at 50mm with your 50mm prime.

Maybe not till after your wedding shoot, though. Wouldn't want to take your eye off the ball.

Yeah but jpegs are a bit soft, aren't they...