im the wedding photographer. :P aparently ( rebel + noobness)

[Erickarim]

i got a rebel xti + 2gb card + uv lens.

i got two weddings coming and they asked me to take some pictures. church and indoor low light party. i know i need hardware, got (200-250)dls to spend. figure a flash. a new difussion lens maybe ? really no clue. ohh yeah. and some pointers :0

thanks for your help. the nobish nobtographer.

[Turn]

definitely a flash! I cannot imagine a wedding photographer without a flash! *shudders from his previous experience*

[Vich]

What's a UV Lens? Surely you meant UV filter, so then, what lens DO you have?

They aren't worried about quality if they're asking a newbee, or they don't understand that there IS something to this "photography thing".

Re Flash; you cannot often take decent indoor reception photos without a flash. Not a prayer. But otherwise - I'd discuss with them that you will most likely make some major goofs, but will probably get some good results too.

I compare it to bowling. An amateur might be expected to bowl about 60 to 80, and with occasional luck, you might get a few strikes in a row and get a 130 game (or 4 gutters in a row and bowl 40). Even with a 40, they'll have a number of "nice" photos. However; they cannot compare that with CWPhoto's 230, where you see knock-down performance shot after shot.

After your candid talk and the pressure's off; you'll know how much effort is appropriate. Still nice to do what you can, but do not think you can walk into your first wedding, shooting alone, and not make some major mistakes that will impact entire sequences.

PS: A decent flash will kill your $250 budget. You could rent for about $15, but you'll also need to know how to use it. Also; figure on 200 shots per hour. More practiced shooters can get that down to 60 or 70, but unless you're shooting at Medium Quality, you'll need a bit more memory (say 3 or 4 4GB sticks).

I am sorry to sound like some know-it-all (I'm not) and if they really aren't worried about some "critical shots" being missed (or the remote possibility of NO photos due to some malfunction), then it's a great opportunity for some practice. A good book is "Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories" Cheers.

[TheObiJuan]

you need something fast for indoor.
The 50 f/1.8 would be ideal.

[jonnahalf80]

The budget will suffice for a 430ex flash, which should cover his needs. That comes from a noob speaking, but a noob that has the 430ex and knows how underexposed low-light photos are without the flash! The XTi's on-board flash sucks.

[Spookonthe8ball]

Erickarim, I just had a simular photography experience. The guys on this board helped me a lot. I shot my Xti in complete manual mode along with a cheap bounce flash.
1st tip is to shoot in Raw mode. You have much better control in post processing the images.
2nd is to set picture style to Neutral with default settings for saturation, contrast and sharpness. In post processing you can vary the way the pictures look in a thousand ways.
Set iso to 400 if it's a darker setting. I had some noise in my pictures, but the free download of Noiseware community addition will clean those up nicely.
I had my bounce flash set for 400 iso film (it's an old one). Camera at f2.8 to f5 using shutter speeds from 1/40 to 1/80. 1/60 seemed to work very well. I had 100 pictures and they were all very usable except for the normal people with eyes closed kind of thing. A couple came out a bit darker than I would have liked because I didn't give my flash enough time to recover between shots. Shooting in raw saved my bacon on those.
When you first get to the church, do some test shots. It is better to have the pictures a tad too bright to capture highlights, but be careful not to blow out the whites. Good luck.
Spook

[Dawoofo]

Definitely go to the church building beforehand and take your camera to get an idea of the lighting in the areas you'll be shooting the most. Not a bad idea to phone the minister and explain what you're doing, and he'll probably be helpful and let you in to check out the lighting. Also, ask the bride and groom if you can come to the wedding rehearsal and get a whole lot of test run pictures while there.

As ObiJuan stated, the 50mm f/1.8 (~70$) would be perfect for your budget—provided that you're going to use the flash. Without flash, the 50mm has some focusing problems in low light scenes which could ruin the event for you and the married couple.

Once you've got your gear, practice, practice, and practice so you get to know the lens as well as how to use the flash. Also, practice cropping your practice pictures to 8X10s or whatever size the pictures will be to learn where you should have your subjects in the viewfinder. The XTi takes pictures at a 2:3 or 3:2 (depending on the orientation of your camera) ratio which is the ratio 4X6 pictures use, but chances are you'll want to crop to another ratio such as for 8X10s (4:5). There's a tendency to fill the viewfinder with the subject without remembering there's going to be a crop, and it would suck to have to crop off the bride's head or the bottom of her dress when you were trying to get a full length picture of her. :p

I would also suggest shooting the wedding in Av or Tv mode as manual is usually slower and might make you miss an important shot when timing is critical.

Also, look at all the wedding pictures you can to get ideas of the formal poses that will be expected. There are some excellent ones on this forum, but I would also search the internet for other photographer's wedding pictures to get as many ideas as possible. And ask the bride and groom beforehand if there are any particular pictures they want, as they're going to be very nervous on the wedding day and won't want to try to think about what they would like probably while they're getting their tux and makeup on. :)

Good luck, should you choose to accept this mission. :D

[Erickarim]

il get the speedlight 430ex (299 list in bestbuy, but il look for a cheaper place ).
and if i do get it cheaper il get the lens.

memory. i had a sandisk ultra II 2g. but i lost that some where :P. so i got a cheap 2gb. figure i can get another ultra II. or should i go higher. ?? extreme III? for a total of 4gb.

also i haven't ran out of battery in my shoots. figure i can fully charge the batery after the church service. but i dont know if il ran out. should i invest in a second batery ? its only 49 bucks. but i dont think il even need it.

a friend gave me a diffusion filter he had. should i use it >??>



il read some tomorrow.

thanks for your help.

[D Thompson]

memory. i had a sandisk ultra II 2g. but i lost that some where :P. so i got a cheap 2gb. figure i can get another ultra II. or should i go higher. ?? extreme III? for a total of 4gb.

The ulta II will be fine.

also i haven't ran out of battery in my shoots. figure i can fully charge the batery after the church service. but i dont know if il ran out. should i invest in a second batery ? its only 49 bucks. but i dont think il even need it.

I wouldn't even consider not having a backup body, much less a backup battery.

a friend gave me a diffusion filter he had. should i use it >??>

No. Any soft-focus effects etc. can be applied in post.

[Vich]

Some good advice here. A couple of comments.

Av mode on Canon Flash goes into "fill flash". Recommend sticking with P or M modes.

50mm is a narrow FOV for close subjects. Will be really useful for it's f1.8 but beware narrow DOF. Narrow DOF is pronounced (on 50mm f1.8) at less than 12 - 15 feet or so. Play with it extensively before doing the wedding so you don't have unwelcome OOF surprises. In other words; pay very close attention to the "plane of focus", and know what you can get away with. It's a good effect at times (like a bride in front of the slightly OOF bridesmaids), but not so if you wanted to get a good table shot standing 6 feet from the table (someone's going to be way OOF).

Do NOT use ISO 100 during nighttime flash photography. Suggest ISO 400 at minimum, but 800 (or even 1600) will give far better results. A cranked up flash has rapid fall-off for that awful Deer-in-the Headlights look. ISO 800 lets you use 1/8 the flash power (and collect 8 times the ambient).

Try to avoid flash photography in front of a wall. Not always possible, but for formals, don't "line them up" in front of a wall. Better to have a nice landscape or courtyard behind them.

Get the 4GB. You'll need it. If you can borrow an additional card from someone, you'll surely use it.

Buy an aftermarket battery - they're only about $15. I have 4 and I can't tell the difference (some Chinese brand). Of course, I can't vouch they won't explode one day, lol.

Someone said to keep your shutter speed at 60. Wow. I'd go for 1/125 (or at most 1/90) unless it's a fairly still moment and you have IS. Particularly on a 50mm lens. 17mm you could get away with 1/30 or so if you don't crop it much and you have good technique.

If you do use an UWA lens (anything below 24mm), beware that your camera will make whatever's closest (particularly a Bride's shoulder) look bigger.

Go for angles. Try to have NOTHING (shoulders, hips, face) squared off to the camera.

RE: My earlier post; sorry to be so blunt. Just that you'll feel a lot less pressure if you acknowledge that you'll make some errors. Do what you can to mitigate them and let them know they're better off with a Pro if they really care about avoiding goofs. Goofs will most likely happen, but it's not the end of the world.

One suggestion is to get a 2nd shooter. It's easy to do - just post on the forums and be sure to list your area and the date. Try to get someone who's photography you like and don't commit until you meet them. Half of wedding photography is about personality.

[anco85]

Wow!!

After doing my first wedding shoot this past weekend, there is one piece of advice that you need to know.

SEATING!!! make sure you get a seat right at the inner end of the church bench 2 or 3 rows from the front. That way you can photograph the ceremony with ease.

I had the luck of being placed behind a pillar and couldnt see much of the wedding, I had to get up and run around just to get some proper shots of the ceremony. The people were not really happy with me running around and "flashing" the whole place.

Tip no 2. When taking formals, dont be shy to boss people around, if they want great photos, they are going to have to do what you want them too. Remeber, this gets harder as the night progresses, alchohol has that effect you know.

Tip no 3. Get the details, Imagine your the bride(or wedding planner) and you want to show everything you did and all the trouble you went through planning and setting it up.

Tip no 4. Fire of as many shot as you posiblly can, rather spend more time shooting, than explaining why you didnt get this or that

Tip no 5. Relax and be calm, you enjoy photography, so this should be a piece of cake

Good luck

;)

[Erickarim]

im in el paso tx. but the wedding is going to be in chihuahua capital mexico, so renting is not an option. so il stock up on most things i can afford ( flash, memory card ) and look for a cheap battery, like i said its 40 for the generic in bestbuy, any common place i can find a cheaper one ???


he seen my pictures. most of them turning out crappy. but he cant afford for something better ( me being free and willing to upgrade my hardware for his party ). not really worried. il do my best and that will probably turn out much better that a crappy cheap mexican photographer.

[timmciglobal]

I've got little experience as a wedding shooter but I'd recommend this regardless of gear.

Make a list of shots you want to get (go look at online wedding albums, other peoples, what the bridge/groom want) then figure out when the'll likely happen and make a list.

No one wants to find out your only photo of the cake cutting is from aunt jen. Keep a list and check them off as you go so you atleast get the "popular" photos.

I'd also suggest experiment A LOT with bounce flash on 430EX (IE: aim the flash head directly up to at 70 degrees up if the ceilings are white or off white and under 10' tall.

Last but not least, SHOOT RAW. Exposure problems can be fixed in post a LOT easier if you've got raw versus jpeg. If you must have jpegs shoot raw+jpeg. Go to newegg.com and order a cheap 4 gig card if you need storage.

Tim

[Turn]

1st tip is to shoot in Raw mode. You have much better control in post processing the images.
2nd is to set picture style to Neutral with default settings for saturation, contrast and sharpness. In post processing you can vary the way the pictures look in a thousand ways.
Set iso to 400 if it's a darker setting. I had some noise in my pictures, but the free download of Noiseware community addition will clean those up nicely.
I had my bounce flash set for 400 iso film (it's an old one). Camera at f2.8 to f5 using shutter speeds from 1/40 to 1/80. 1/60 seemed to work very well. I had 100 pictures and they were all very usable except for the normal people with eyes closed kind of thing. A couple came out a bit darker than I would have liked because I didn't give my flash enough time to recover between shots. Shooting in raw saved my bacon on those.
When you first get to the church, do some test shots. It is better to have the pictures a tad too bright to capture highlights, but be careful not to blow out the whites. Good luck.
Spook

good advice I'd prob write this down
Tip no 2. When taking formals, dont be shy to boss people around, if they want great photos, they are going to have to do what you want them too. Remeber, this gets harder as the night progresses, alchohol has that effect you know.

Tip no 3. Get the details, Imagine your the bride(or wedding planner) and you want to show everything you did and all the trouble you went through planning and setting it up.

Tip no 4. Fire of as many shot as you posiblly can, rather spend more time shooting, than explaining why you didnt get this or that

Tip no 5. Relax and be calm, you enjoy photography, so this should be a piece of cake

Good luck

;)


all in all, practice a few test shots, find out what they want and then shoot!