Wedding

[Eddie_UV777]

heres some shots I took of a wedding my friend had, I took about 500 photo's but I edited these late last night and they're only a handful.

remember I'm a noob at wedding photography and only had my D40 with 18-55 mm lens

[shredmaster]

nice shots / angles but they DEFINATELY need to be brighter. they are way too dark. mess with the exposure setting and the brightness as well without causing pixelation in the image. shouldn't take much if you are shooting in RAW especially. the 2nd one is nice as well but a little blurry. you have pretty good composition and such but they need to be brighter; way too dark. all the shots should be at least as bright or brighter than the 2nd one. church shots are rough so you should use flash whenever possible especially if you have a slow lens.

steve

[Distantshore]

Nice tips steve. I shot a friends wedding about 6 months ago and didn't get one good shot.

Good job Eddie!!

[JJEMMER777]

Not bad Eddie!!!

You've made so much progress since you started Keep it up and keep posting examples of your work

[michblanch]

I'll bet someone got shanked at the reception. LOL.

Only because the groom looks mad. Not because he's hispanic. (Not that there's anything wrong with that)

[jemsite]

you have to realize, you really don't have the equipment for good indoor photos. you'd need a strong flash and proper lighting know-how. the lighting/exposure alone ruins the photos to be honest - even if all things were otherwise perfect.

along with what steve said the out of focus (OOF) is too distracting. you should focus the brides eyes in portraits and these photos.

some of this is simply where you were standing... this can be fixed in the 4th photo (keeping a shallow DOF) by lining yourself perpindicular to the subjects... not have them angled and with the sharp exposure on the grooms cheek and soft OOF bride. photo 1 has too much subject tilt also as if you were standing too low with a wide lens. shoot that closer to 55mm than 18mm... glen

[shredmaster]

i can tell from the photos that you may have had the iso jacked way up to allow more light into the lens. that, coupled with the incorrect shutter speed, will cause the wrong light metering, allowing for pixelation and that sux! there is a lot of grain going on. if you are going to do weddings, you should shoot NOTHING other than RAW! i only shoot in RAW, even if i'm taking another dozen shots of my dogs.

photography is tough and lighting is hard to get. so many sources, different times of day, different architecture to bounce flash from, etc. like sound, you have to take everything into account. there are times when i truly get very frustrated since i just can't get that shot i'm looking for!!! and other times when i think i botched it and it turns out close to perfect and i wonder how it happened.

there are other shots too, that are close to perfect but the bride's eyes may be a hair blurry! just a small tiny hair off......and she will never notice it...but i will notice it. unless it is a classic shot that has to be there, it's gone from the group and no one will ever see it. i have learned to trim photos down immensely. we take an average of 800-1300 shots per wedding and an average of only 500-600 make the final cut. i am trying to keep the best of the best of the best.

it takes time. i usually load them all and delete what i don't want before editing. this takes care of all the dups and ones i don't like. i then edit what i want. then i go through them again and delete what i just don't like. then edit again, checking for last minute coloring or cropping or blemishes and last minute dodging / burning via photoshop. i do all my work in Adobe Lightroom. then i export the RAW files to jpg and look at them all again (usually about 600 at this point) and delete what i think isn't the best of the best during this 3rd passing. once i think i'm happy, i will rename them all in batch renaming. from there i upload them to my lab's servers so they can view their photos online. it takes time to do all this.

hey glen, i got those cards the other week......WB CARDS......man, will they save time!!!!!!!!!! got tired of hunting around each photo for the perfect WB.

good luck and have fun. it's expensive...just like guitars!

steve

[Eddie_UV777]

Originally Posted by jemsite

you have to realize, you really don't have the equipment for good indoor photos. you'd need a strong flash and proper lighting know-how. the lighting/exposure alone ruins the photos to be honest - even if all things were otherwise perfect.

along with what steve said the out of focus (OOF) is too distracting. you should focus the brides eyes in portraits and these photos.

some of this is simply where you were standing... this can be fixed in the 4th photo (keeping a shallow DOF) by lining yourself perpindicular to the subjects... not have them angled and with the sharp exposure on the grooms cheek and soft OOF bride. photo 1 has too much subject tilt also as if you were standing too low with a wide lens. shoot that closer to 55mm than 18mm... glen

thanks, that's the kind of stuff I need to hear!

and yeah I did all I could for the equipment I have, and it was a friend wedding who had to be done at a moments notice, he didn't have time to hire a photographer

[shredmaster]

here is an example of what i'm talking about in editing. this is a photo i'm still working on. nice shot but dark areas. lighten it up without blowing out the background or trees then dodge on the bride's face to bring her out more, along with the flowers from both girls. saturate the greens a bit to bring them out. if i was feeling more creative i would add a glow around her, slight gausian blur, if you will...but i'm not feeling that creative and there are too many photos to edit.

[jemsite]

your friend will be very thankful.

here are a few more comments per photo. please take this as constructive criticism and remember i'm brutal judging photos, even my own

i'm not sure the average viewer will notice some of these things but you will. i'm also no fan of photoshop excess - less is always more with photoshop - but but sometimes when the photos are flawed you gotta do what you gotta do or toss them.

Originally Posted by Eddie_UV777

remember I'm a noob at wedding photography and only had my D40 with 18-55 mm lens

you can correct this perspective tilt in photoshop but see how large the mans hands are and brides torso relative to their head. this is from using too wide an angle and too low which causes perspective distortions.

i also think the portrait orientation is too tightly cropped and not flattering to the brides figure. they're also both leaning back and inward.

Originally Posted by Eddie_UV777

what did you focus on here? imho this is the best photo but out of focus... great smile. might be sharpenable in photoshop. selective (over)sharpening her face could help too. i think this is too cropped also, framing wider (standing back not using 18mm) would benefit the photo.

Originally Posted by Eddie_UV777

another nice smile captured but needs a flash and F11 or higher aperature cause you don't want to have a shallow depth of field here. unfortunately the lighting ruined this along with the open aperature (to try and get more light).

Originally Posted by Eddie_UV777

this is a throwaway photo. see comments in my last post.

Originally Posted by Eddie_UV777

i like the concept but not the execution. lighting too dim and too shallow a DOF. i say that because it's not shallow enough a DOF to get a good effect nor to capture enough natural light. if you had a fast prime and shot this f1.4 or f.2.0 the picture would be dramatically different & improved.

also here i think the framing is perhaps off... what i'd do with all these photos is shoot a bit wider than you think and CROP the RAW images so you can play with framing on the computer. if you did that you could see if it looks bettter wider with more of the cake showing and forearm.

if you took 500 shots what you really should do is skim thru all the shots (i highly recommend lightroom reading RAW images) and delete off all the bad shots so you only work with the best ones. i'm not sure if you're a "spray and pray" type photographer.. i tend to think not. i don't do that myself but it's a valid way of shooting.

i just took a trip and only managed 97 shots on my dSLR (took more with a llittle elph along w/ video) but i just reviewed them and only deleted THREE upon first glance. i got some great shots alot better than i thought. sometimes you need to throw out more than half the photos, depending on the camera, lens, lighting and how you were actually shooting.. glen

[dannymills]

It just feels like you're making the coloured bits coloured for the sake of it.