Prime Lens Indoors (Wedding)
Discussion
All, thanks again. All brilliant stuff.
Tony - apologies, yes manual setting I get you know.. Like the black and white idea!
K12 - yeah the nikon has the focus light, I don't find it overly brilliant though if I'm honest. It blinks, but never stays constant? Is that right.. Never realised such an adaptor existed so thanks for the tip! I'll have a look now.. Not keen on renting, the wedding is tomorrow and keen to learn my own camera.
Expat - that is just what I am hoping to achieve. Great shots!
Simpo - your first point is exactly why I'm finding it a bit hit and miss.. Hopefully it'll be a sunny day. And I'll get a good few shots outdoors
Thanks all
Tony - apologies, yes manual setting I get you know.. Like the black and white idea!
K12 - yeah the nikon has the focus light, I don't find it overly brilliant though if I'm honest. It blinks, but never stays constant? Is that right.. Never realised such an adaptor existed so thanks for the tip! I'll have a look now.. Not keen on renting, the wedding is tomorrow and keen to learn my own camera.
Expat - that is just what I am hoping to achieve. Great shots!
Simpo - your first point is exactly why I'm finding it a bit hit and miss.. Hopefully it'll be a sunny day. And I'll get a good few shots outdoors
Thanks all
I did a few weddings with a D70, which came out three years before the D40, so it's not impossible. But I agree about the flash.
Just make sure that flash plus ISO 4,000,000 doesn't give you a white screen
The wedding is tomorrow so my advice is not to be experimental - stick to what you know and try to get them in the bag rather than trying fancy stuff and getting in a mess. It's very easy when under pressure to completely forget what your settings are and what to change when the shot isn't right.
Last Saturday I was kneeling in the middle of the aisle all lined up for the couple's grand exit - when the camera stopped working. But because I knew what to do, I got the shots.
Good luck
Just make sure that flash plus ISO 4,000,000 doesn't give you a white screen
justin220 said:
K12 - yeah the nikon has the focus light, I don't find it overly brilliant though if I'm honest. It blinks, but never stays constant? Is that right...
It should be constant; what you're doing is going back and forth through the plane of focus. It is very sensitive and quite unsuitable for a wedding IMHO.The wedding is tomorrow so my advice is not to be experimental - stick to what you know and try to get them in the bag rather than trying fancy stuff and getting in a mess. It's very easy when under pressure to completely forget what your settings are and what to change when the shot isn't right.
Last Saturday I was kneeling in the middle of the aisle all lined up for the couple's grand exit - when the camera stopped working. But because I knew what to do, I got the shots.
Good luck
Edited by Simpo Two on Friday 17th April 18:09
Simpo Two said:
Last Saturday I was kneeling in the middle of the aisle all lined up for the couple's grand exit - when the camera stopped working. But because I knew what to do, I got the shots.
stole a camera from a guest?!I had the end of my 70-200 lens fall off 10 minutes before a wedding - quick trip to the car / roll of duct tape and it worked throughout the ceremony and reception!
akirk said:
stole a camera from a guest?!
Nice idea! It was simply a flat battery - easy to get caught out as the last two bars go very quickly and I'm concentrating on other things. But I always have my bag with me and that has several spares.The closest shave I had was a tripod collapsing - I had it set up on a table and saw it topple - I've never moved so fast in my life - I caught it mid-fall. Maybe wedding togs are like fighter pilots - ie if you survive your first five missions, you're probably OK
akirk said:
Sadly you are not starting from a good place in terms of camera.
The lens is fine - there are plenty of pros who could use a 35mm very easily, no issues with that - and with the crop nature of the camera you have effectively the focal length roughly equivalent to normal eyesight, it will be fine, esp. for contextual / photo journalistic type shots...
The problem is the sensor quality of the camera, it is simply a bit old / poor for wedding photography. Whether in a church / reception, low light tends to be the norm and that sensor will not cope with it. if you can get hold of a flash then you can transform your abilities in the reception (flash in church not so ideal!)
most wedding pros now will deliberately shoot high iso - in the weddings / events I have done I have happily gone up to over 100,000 ISO in the right context - better to have a high ISO and a reasonable shutter speed, rather than out of focus images from a shutter speed that is too low...
to get the right image you need the right light level coming into the camera and in low light it is difficult to do that (even if shooting at 1.2 / 1.8 / 2.8) unless you can increase ISO... and the D40 is too old / poor - it also has the old style sensor before Nikon changed it, and it didn't cope with low light.
If you have any chance of borrowing a newer camera I would really recommend it / borrow a flash (read up on how to use it!) otherwise, still crank up the ISO - low quality from high iso is better than low quality from low shutter speed...
ref. flash - I mean separate flashgun - not the built in flash which is useless
Sorry I must have missed this earlier when typing a reply. Appreciate what you are saying. I'm reluctant to upgrade the body just yet as I still feel its way ahead of me, I'd like to gain a few more skills before laying out more money. The lens is fine - there are plenty of pros who could use a 35mm very easily, no issues with that - and with the crop nature of the camera you have effectively the focal length roughly equivalent to normal eyesight, it will be fine, esp. for contextual / photo journalistic type shots...
The problem is the sensor quality of the camera, it is simply a bit old / poor for wedding photography. Whether in a church / reception, low light tends to be the norm and that sensor will not cope with it. if you can get hold of a flash then you can transform your abilities in the reception (flash in church not so ideal!)
most wedding pros now will deliberately shoot high iso - in the weddings / events I have done I have happily gone up to over 100,000 ISO in the right context - better to have a high ISO and a reasonable shutter speed, rather than out of focus images from a shutter speed that is too low...
to get the right image you need the right light level coming into the camera and in low light it is difficult to do that (even if shooting at 1.2 / 1.8 / 2.8) unless you can increase ISO... and the D40 is too old / poor - it also has the old style sensor before Nikon changed it, and it didn't cope with low light.
If you have any chance of borrowing a newer camera I would really recommend it / borrow a flash (read up on how to use it!) otherwise, still crank up the ISO - low quality from high iso is better than low quality from low shutter speed...
ref. flash - I mean separate flashgun - not the built in flash which is useless
If it genuinely won't get any good pictures then fair enough, I will just plod away until I feel an upgrade is justifiable.
If I manage any good ones I'll post them up
justin220 said:
Sorry I must have missed this earlier when typing a reply. Appreciate what you are saying. I'm reluctant to upgrade the body just yet as I still feel its way ahead of me, I'd like to gain a few more skills before laying out more money.
If it genuinely won't get any good pictures then fair enough, I will just plod away until I feel an upgrade is justifiable.
If I manage any good ones I'll post them up
It is a perfectly good camera for 90%+ of occasions - sadly a wedding is one of the most challenging for low light - and that is a weakness of this camera...If it genuinely won't get any good pictures then fair enough, I will just plod away until I feel an upgrade is justifiable.
If I manage any good ones I'll post them up
If you are not shooting weddings regularly, then you probably need not worry, it was more a comment on this situation than the camera per se
justin220 said:
Out of interest, what would people recommend upgrading the body to?
Used D3100 from MPB Photographic if you're on a budgetUsed D3200 from MPB Photographic if you're on a bigger budget
Used D7000.... well you get the idea.
If you want new then ANY Nikon body will be fine. They don't make bad cameras these days. The only thing I would say is that the budget bodies don't have focus motors so you'll be needing AF-S lenses if you want autofocus. To some that's not an issue, but for me I would never buy a body without a focus motor. Why? Well I love the older AF-D lenses, and in relation to something mentioned earlier in the thread, I like the fact that you can feel when they've hit focus.
That might sound stupid but I don't want beeps and I don't like indicator lights. I use the back focus button and have learned to know exactly when the lens has hit focus on the chosen point. (I only ever use single point focus, I always want to choose my focus point and that's made a lot easier using the back button).
Well upgrading the body to anything fairly modern will be an improvement, if you look at the models then you have the D3xxx the D5xxx and the D7xxx.
The D3000 series (The latest is the D3300 and its surprisingly cheap) is aimed at beginners and comes with a built in guide on how to use it, it will be a big improvement over your D40X if you still want to learn, its easy to use especially with the guide on it.
The D5000 series (the D5500 being the latest model) are a little more advanced, if you want to push yourself and learn on your own then these ones are well worth going for, doesnt have the guide.
The D7000 series are for those people who want a bit more and have some decent knowledge on photography, more advanced than the D5000 series but they are decent (I have the D7100 and my D80 though I will be upgrading to the D750 next month )
Personally, I would go to a good photographic shop (Wex do have a shop over in Norfolk), also try Calumet (never had any problems with them either) and talk to them about YOUR requirements, that should point you in the direction and camera to suit your needs plus you can get a chance to play with them, also go look for reviews/comparisons on t'internet to see the differences between models.
Tony
The D3000 series (The latest is the D3300 and its surprisingly cheap) is aimed at beginners and comes with a built in guide on how to use it, it will be a big improvement over your D40X if you still want to learn, its easy to use especially with the guide on it.
The D5000 series (the D5500 being the latest model) are a little more advanced, if you want to push yourself and learn on your own then these ones are well worth going for, doesnt have the guide.
The D7000 series are for those people who want a bit more and have some decent knowledge on photography, more advanced than the D5000 series but they are decent (I have the D7100 and my D80 though I will be upgrading to the D750 next month
)Personally, I would go to a good photographic shop (Wex do have a shop over in Norfolk), also try Calumet (never had any problems with them either) and talk to them about YOUR requirements, that should point you in the direction and camera to suit your needs
plus you can get a chance to play with them, also go look for reviews/comparisons on t'internet to see the differences between models.Tony
Gassing Station | Photography & Video | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff