Need advice on taking wedding photographs


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Hi,

I've been asked by my sister-in-law to be the photographer for her wedding. I am both proud and crapping it though. All I have is my trusty Nikon D3000 with the 18-55 lens and a Tamron 70-300mm I bought at christmas. I've got a few things to invest in before then I know (couple of flashguns, battery grip and a few batteries, loads of memory cards and another lens or two).

Now, what the hell am I going to do?! From my other posts in the forum, I am sure you can see that I am concerned about taking the perfect photo, but this is something that will stay with me for the rest of my dying days if I screw it up!

What is my best bet for buying to get the best out of the day. I know I need a new lens, preferably a general purpose one that will allow me to shoot from a number of different distances and get the best quality from the pictures. Now, I've got time to get the funds together (at least a year from what I'm hearing) to buy one great lens. I've also got a Canon 400D with a 28-135mm lens I can use as a backup, so that's covered.

This is a fairly general post, I know, but any advice - even about how to prepare and practice before the day - would be greatly appreciated. If you suggest purchasing a new body, please be kind, I've not got a lot of cash to throw about. I'm looking at the moment to get the best out of my current body (D3000) so that if I buy a new body, more pro body, I can justify it as I've got the best from my own gear.

Cheers!

Andy

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My advice? Don't do it. Be A photographer, but not THE photographer. If you screw it up she will never forgive you, get her to hire a professional.

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Alright, I'm not going to talk about equipment. I believe a great photo can be achieved with almost anything, certainly with the camera you have now. Plus you've already mentioned the other side items that you're going to need on the day, so I would say you're looking good on that front.

So, on to the photos. Have you taken photos of people before? I've always found them very difficult in the past, since the person has to be at ease while at the same time you have to be able to arrange them in a position that will look good.

Next, location. Have they set the location yet? If they have, go and scout it out. You'll want to find various places around the grounds if possible, to add variety to the shots. Also, since at this stage you can't go predicting how the weather will be (of course we all hope that on the day it is wonderful and sunny, but you never know) it might be an idea to find some covered areas as well as ones in the open.

Are you going to be in the photography role during the ceremony? If so, take a look around the inside of the building as well. From that you may be able to find locations to take photos, as well as laying out a plan in your mind of how to get from one location to another without disturbing the ceremony.

Those items come to mind right now, I'm sure there are other things to contemplate.

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Haven't really done many photos at a wedding, but I'd suggest staying on the lookout for any moment that might be remarkable. If you see two people holding hands together, make a nice photo with the focus on the hands and in the background, the persons looking at each other.

Be sure not to miss the important moments (bride kissing, etc). Try looking at some tutorials on composition to get an idea of photos to make with the couple.

Stay calm and be sure to have a full battery at all times.

That's all that I could think of. Maybe some reflectors might be good, even though you do outside shooting.

Good luck!

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I'd recommend against doing it as well. A friend of mine recently took pictures at her mother's wedding and the rest of the family gave her a really hard time when the pictures didn't work out that well.

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I think the problem is my confidence. I had thought of me and the family going out for the day to a popular wedding location local to us and practicing for a few hours, just to see how i get on. I know that there will be a lot of pressure on me to get it right on the day, but i think this is going to be a good learning curve for me. At least I've got a year to prepare!

So far those comments are all great, just the sort of feedback i was wanting and needing to get right now. And all has been taken on board, especially the scouting missions.

Cheers!

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I think confidence is 80% of the battle. Are they wanting posed formal shots? Big loud voice for them, don't be afraid to herd people into and out of the shot, get a list of the shots the couple definitely want before the day, so bride (B), groom (G) plus B's family, BG + grooms family, just B's mum&dad, G's mum & dad, B + bridesmaids, G + best men, etc, etc, etc. Get this list, print it off and work through it when you're doing the formals, make sure you nail these in a nice location, very important about the background, don't have a random car behind half of the people, things like that. For this purpose it's very helpful if you can get to the location a few days before the wedding and scout out suitable spots to have formal shots, know where the bride will enter the main room from, where the reception area will be afterwards, are there any balconies you can run up to to get a cool shot of everybody from above?!

Fill flash, under expose -1 stop for the wedding dress, then you can always brighten it to suit in post production, better than blowing it out which you might do with auto exposure on a white dress.

Other than that be confident to approach people and get crowd shots, most people will LOVE having their picture taken, even though at first they may feint shyness.

Then stick a zoom on and catch close up candids, people laughing with a Champagne in their hands. Get your camera on AV so you don't have to worry about the light quite as much and get into the crowd and snap away, be cheeky!

'Try' not to stress, 'try' to enjoy it, there's no reason why it shouldn't be fun. If you're stressing and running around it will stress the bride out. Put a massive smile on your face and talk to people and you'll get smiles back.

Good luck mate!

P.s Your camera is absolutely fine. Be nice to have a 20-70 zoom and maybe a super zoom 200mm for nice candids, if you've got 2 bodies have one on each body so you don't have to swap over, even if you can borrow one from a friend, then if one camera dies your still good to go. Other than that I don't think I'd use many others, keep it simple until you know exactly what you're doing.

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You can either attend the event, or work the event as a photographer. You can't do both.

Do you want to participate in your sister-n-law's wedding with friends n family or do you want to work it like an employee?

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You can either attend the event, or work the event as a photographer. You can't do both.

Do you want to participate in your sister-n-law's wedding with friends n family or do you want to work it like an employee?

Best advice I can give is use a 35mm f1.8 lens. It's cheap, tack sharp and if you set it to around f1.8 you get some incredible bokkeh (blurry background). Really easy and takes all the types of portrait shots they drool over :)

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You can either attend the event, or work the event as a photographer. You can't do both.

Do you want to participate in your sister-n-law's wedding with friends n family or do you want to work it like an employee?

EXCELLENT advice.

I did video for my wife's brother's wedding. It was a lot of fun, but I had no chance to enjoy the ceremony, no chance to mingle with guests, no chance to dance, etc. I worked the whole time, from video of the ceremony, to video of the speeches, to video of dancing. After dinner I setup a video station where I interviewed friends and family and put what they said into a separate section on the DVD. The video turned out GREAT, and everyone LOVED it - but I have almost no memories of the wedding since I was working it the whole time...

Keep that in mind before you volunteer.

If you still want to do it, keep in mind that low light conditions will be your biggest problem. I would practice shooting people in low light in your house now so that you're more comfortable with it at the wedding. One thing to keep in mind - NEVER take a picture of someone while they're eating. That's rule #1. :)

EDIT: As for equipment, you might want to think about bringing both cameras with you. Put a short/wide lens on one camera (35mm, 55mm, etc) and put a telephoto type lens on the other body (200mm, for example). You'll get better results at a cheaper price with prime lenses. Then combine that with something like the Sun Sniper so you can have one camera at your side on the right and one at your side on the left.

Good luck!

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Hi, I would add to those who throw caution to doing this. It's the biggest day of a ladies life, I'd hate to be the one to ruin the photos. Go as a photographer, not the photographer.

Kerm offers some valuable advice (I'm going to nick it too).

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That Tamron is not gonna work. You need a fast (2.8 at least), sharp and fixed lens, since you will be moving more than you think. Both Canon's and nikon's 28mm 2.8 or 50mm 1.8 are cheap and adequate. However a prime 28mm 1.8 its ideal. Sigma makes one that has great optics and its not too expensive.

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If you want some random advice, please takes this one: Visit the place first and take 15-20 minutes looking for spots to be on. Imagine the weeding taking place right now and put yourself in the right place and momment.

This is by far the best advice I can give you. I am sure thare are beatifull spots and angles to use on the church. Use them. Poor lighting can be improved with photoshop, but the wrong spot or angle, the software to fix that isn't invented yet.

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Thanks for the feedback guys, really appreciate it. I think I want to do it as the photographer, but yeah, I can totally see why people would say be a photographer, but not the main one.

I think I could enjoy the day working it though. I'd get more of an intimate day with the entire wedding party, from the bride/brides maids getting a few shots taken at home getting hair/make-up done, to the groom/grooms men outside the church (or venue) having a bit of crack.

Think I just need to practice, practice, practice! I have a bit of a wild card to play though, as the photographer for my mates wedding has said he would allow me to shadow him for a coupld of weddings if I wanted to get a bit of experience in actually shooting at a wedding. Score!

Cheers for everything so far!

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I'd get more of an intimate day with the entire wedding party, from the bride/brides maids getting a few shots taken at home getting hair/make-up done, to the groom/grooms men outside the church (or venue) having a bit of crack.

Every semi-decent wedding photographer I've seen does this too. So, no offense, but that wouldn't be anything super unique :p

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the ONLY reason Women have weddings now is FOR THE PHOTOS.. My advice.. turn her down..especiallyif you do not have the confidence in yourself..

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the ONLY reason Women have weddings now is FOR THE PHOTOS.. My advice.. turn her down..especiallyif you do not have the confidence in yourself..

And the dress!

So, if you do go through with it, here's a tip. Get photos of the dress(es) :p

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  • 1 month later...

Hi,

I've been asked by my sister-in-law to be the photographer for her wedding. I am both proud and crapping it though. All I have is my trusty Nikon D3000 with the 18-55 lens and a Tamron 70-300mm I bought at christmas. I've got a few things to invest in before then I know (couple of flashguns, battery grip and a few batteries, loads of memory cards and another lens or two).

Now, what the hell am I going to do?! From my other posts in the forum, I am sure you can see that I am concerned about taking the perfect photo, but this is something that will stay with me for the rest of my dying days if I screw it up!

What is my best bet for buying to get the best out of the day. I know I need a new lens, preferably a general purpose one that will allow me to shoot from a number of different distances and get the best quality from the pictures. Now, I've got time to get the funds together (at least a year from what I'm hearing) to buy one great lens. I've also got a Canon 400D with a 28-135mm lens I can use as a backup, so that's covered.

This is a fairly general post, I know, but any advice - even about how to prepare and practice before the day - would be greatly appreciated. If you suggest purchasing a new body, please be kind, I've not got a lot of cash to throw about. I'm looking at the moment to get the best out of my current body (D3000) so that if I buy a new body, more pro body, I can justify it as I've got the best from my own gear.

Cheers!

Andy

Wow, what a thing to be asked to do eh? :)

I will try to give you some advice, seeing as I've shot a lot of weddings and I can relate to what you're about to go through, because once upon-a-time I embarked on a similar journey and that's led to me getting to where I am today with my wedding photography.

If you really are going to go ahead and do this, and you've got around a year before the big day, then you need to practice as hard as you can. I would advise you to take your camera out with you everywhere, everyday and be ready to shoot all of the time. That's what I do, and I'll happily shoot any work social events, friends birthday drinks, BBQ bashes, football matches and so on. It will help you refine your technical and practical skills and give you the confidence to shoot people.

The best advice I can give to you is to prepare for it as thoroughly as you can. You need to know your equipment inside out, and what it is and isn't capable of doing and that will give you confidence to tackle tricky situations.

As for the wedding day, it will be tough, but it will also be an incredible experience too. It's a high pressure situation, and whatever happens, however it goes, you will look back in hindsight and know immediately what you could and should have done better, especially if you carry on. It will improve you though, and oddly each wedding I shoot still seems to improve me. There is so much to learn and reflect on, and so much that only *experience* can give you. Definitely be a second shooter at other wedding's if you can, it will help you ten fold.

You need to get yourself into a position where you are not reactive to what's happening around you, but proactive. What I mean by this, is that you need to instinctively know what's going to happen next and that's hard without the experience. But a way to start is to get an itinerary from the couple with a list of timings and events, so that you know how the day is expected to flow. If you go and check out the venues, you'll be able to picture how things might unfold, and in what order and where people potentially will be and then you can pre-visualise what it is you want to capture and be ready for it. I tend to run someone's wedding I'm shooting in my head every day for at least a week leading up to their wedding and I know roughly where I will be, what I might want to shoot, to what settings I may need and what lenses. So, I'm well prepared.

When I first started out, it was easy to panic, especially if something went wrong or I missed a certain shot I thought was important. In the early stages, this bothered me and I'd be unsettled throughout the day but often got home to realise I had great stuff all around and that the couple themselves would never even realise what I might have missed, or that I was even anxious about it. So I've learned to relax, and move on. For each part of the day, there'll be opportunities for some great photos, but once you're done you've simply got to move onto the next stage and forget about what happened before.

You may also want to get someone to try and shoot as an assistant to you, as sometimes just having back up can help with your confidence, if that's a real problem.

As for your equipment, it's only average I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean with some additions that you won't do a good job. I own the Nikon D700, 14-24mm 2.8, 24-70mm 2.8m, 35mm 2.0, 85mm 1.4D and the 70-200mm 2.8 VRII. I also use a SB-900 flash gun and also have a Leica M8 too. You will most definitely want to make sure you have enough batteries and memory cards, or if you have an assistant, to get them to charge for you and also back photos up onto a laptop while you're on the go. If I was allowed only one lens to take, I'd take my 24-70mm 2.8, because it's range is so versatile that you can practically cover everything. You will however want different focal lengths and speed for different reasons, some which may be out of your control (such as low light) and in some churches, you will not be allowed to use flash.

If you'd like to take a look at some of my wedding work, there's a few pictures up on my blog. Hope some of my words help and good luck with it all!

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Yeah, I'd be leery of doing something like this considering what could be at stake. Some people take their wedding pictures very seriously and it could cause a lot of family stress even if you do your very best.

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Funnily i've been asked to do some wedding photography too...for my friend. And just like you i've never done it. i feel that my 18-105 lens is a bit weak for that.

Luckily though i wont have to take pics of ceremony...only in the nature places where newlyweds like to be photographed after the ceremony.

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