Wedding Photos - I would value your comments

[Yellabelly]

For the first 'real' outing with my new D200 I took the informal photos at my nephew's wedding last week.
Used the 17-55 and 70-300 with the SB600 for fill in flash. Small amount of PS to crop, sharpen and balance.



The minor kiss


The Major kiss



The beautiful Bride




The two beautiful daughters of two beautiful neices


I shot in programmed mode as jpegs 'cos I was not confident of shooting in AP/RAW. Had a number of disasters with missed focus especially between couples?? but it's a learning process

YB

[stigmundfreud]

in the first few you are either missing a reflector to balance out the shaddows or fill in flash

look at your framing, take teh group pic a few from the end - there is too much dead area above their heads and you've cut hands out. Stuff like that

[snapper seven]

(As a semi pro wedding photographer) I have to say these are really very good. I am amazed at the green hue you have got with the D200 though so am thinking you have saturated the colours a little??!
Also I think you have over sharpened the picture of the bride just a little too much- her face looks a little too 'coarse' but other than that I love the 'major kiss' shot and the groups are great. All very nicely done and crucially you have waited till the right time to er...'capture the moment'.

SS

[stigmundfreud]

sorry to disagree snapper seven but if constructive criticism is being sought I personally would not say they are good, at all.

As over used as the word composition is, not one of the images shows a good grasp of this as I mentioned regarding the hands and dead area, nor do any show a basic grasp of lighting. Its not something you can simply say do this and bam they would be better but with practice you can improve.

Nice enough images but I'd certainly not charge for any if I took them nor would I pay for any if a pro had taken them for me

So as a semi pro photographer what do you really think about them?

Edited by stigmundfreud on Wednesday 5th September 00:47

[Yellabelly]

Many thanks guys, point taken about the one framing error, I had not taken cutting hands off into account. I can now see the problem with the dead area above their heads, having tried a re-crop.
The group photos were taken with the SB600 as fill in flash with a diffuser but the head set at 45deg so it was not direct. Would it have been better without the diffuser and pointing direct?

The saturation is a bit heavy and I did change the levels several times and then left it as is.

Stig, harsh but lessons to learn especially as I hold no illusions about anyone paying for my 'practising'

YB

[flat-planedCrank]

Hi,

Some nice photo's as has been mentioned some areas stand out..


Photo's #1, #2, #3, #4:

The colour looks too saturated on the faces.
For #1 + #4, i'd perhaps spend a couple mins painting a mask for the foreground people so you could selectively-
-Reduce the contrast of the background slightly (very slightly)
-Increase the saturation of the background a touch
-Slight local-contrast increase for foreground people
-Sharpen the foreground people.

For all those you want to keep evaluating the photograph as a whole, its easy to 'detach' the people from the background with heavy-handed adjustments



In addition to the points already made in the thread, i'd try to remember to check the background whenever your taking a shot. Its very easy to get an elbow of a person behind poking 'un-naturally' into your lovley portrait Or if its unavoidably busy, reduce the DOF with a larger aperture setting.


(I'd add a bit of detail sharpening to them as well. Make them 'pop' a bit more. Personal preference really.)

Cheers.

[Andy M]

They're a decent crack for a first attempt IMO

You definitely should have shot RAW though, as it extends the possibilities with the images.

This guy was lucky to have some of the top wedding photographers in the world shoot his wedding, you May wish to try to 'copy' the styles of the photo's: http://www.xanga.com/garyfong1

[stigmundfreud]

Yellabelly said:

Many thanks guys, point taken about the one framing error, I had not taken cutting hands off into account. I can now see the problem with the dead area above their heads, having tried a re-crop.
The group photos were taken with the SB600 as fill in flash with a diffuser but the head set at 45deg so it was not direct. Would it have been better without the diffuser and pointing direct?

The saturation is a bit heavy and I did change the levels several times and then left it as is.

Stig, harsh but lessons to learn especially as I hold no illusions about anyone paying for my 'practising'

YB

dont ever be affraid of firing the flash head square on so long as shaddows are not a real problem (group shot) but the best thing is just to test, its different for different things. for the majority I'd have said a flat flash would have been ok. With regards to diffusers again its down to personal taste + situation. What colour difuser did you use as the skin tones are eitehr post processed to look a bit tango or you've gotten a gold one.

Another good tip (well to me its a good one ) is when shooting outdoors ignore the old rule about the sun behind the shooter. Get the subjects facing away from the sun (so behind them, play with where it is just makes ure the sun isnt in the shot unless needed) and use fill in flash. The speedlights are bloody good at all of that.

Also do not be affraid of playing with the manual modes but I think you mentioned you tried some group shots where some were in focus and others werent. Not sure what the mode is called on Nikkon but look for a-dep - this will focus on the closest subject and then the furthest, reset the camera on the closest and set the aperture to get the furthest in focus

[bd02]

I'm a novice too Yella and I took a load of informal shots at my sisters wedding a few weeks ago - my first time. I was quite pleased with my results and I put it down to not worrying too much about the technical proficiancy of my photography but concentrating on visual interest and composition. I think thats the key to informal / reportage... look for interesting and fun images - concentrate on capturing people's expressions (joy / tears / smiles etc). Also I'm not afraid to do a bit of processing on the old computer - learn how to crop to enhance composition, use sepia / B&W to create mood, blur backgrounds to direct focus to subject etc - but don't go mad and in particular don't over saturate as this takes away the natural look.

Hers's a few of my amateur attempts which I think illustrate these basic principles. All taken with my D80 and 18-200 lens. I just stuck it into P for most of the shots - used S a couple of times to set a high min shutter speed when kids where involved!









Dunno why the pics aren't visible - click on them and I think you might be able to see them.

Edited by bd02 on Wednesday 5th September 11:09

Edited by bd02 on Wednesday 5th September 11:11

Edited by bd02 on Wednesday 5th September 11:12

[_dobbo_]

Andy M said:

This guy was lucky to have some of the top wedding photographers in the world shoot his wedding, you May wish to try to 'copy' the styles of the photo's: http://www.xanga.com/garyfong1

How good is that wedding video?!

I noticed some points where the groom was wielding his camera - I've been told under no circumstances am I allowed to take my camera to my wedding. Wonder if I can use this video to try to change her mind!

[Yellabelly]

Guys, I very much appreciate your most helpful comments, Stig, FPC I will certainly take on board your comments as I can now see all of those issues you raise especially shooting angles for fill in flash, DoF and tone/saturation. It does look as if they have been tangoed!!!
bd02 good set of photos especially the tight cropping. Was that in camera or pp?

Many thanks all.
YB

[CY88]

bd02 said:

Hers's a few of my amateur attempts which I think illustrate these basic principles. All taken with my D80 and 18-200 lens. I just stuck it into P for most of the shots - used S a couple of times to set a high min shutter speed when kids where involved!

[CY88]

For what is worth YB, as far as amateur wedding shots go, I don't think that yours are too bad at all, even if the first few are perhaps a little highly colour saturated.

I remember when I got married, we really enjoyed seeing all of the pictures that our guests had taken candidly. We also left disposable cameras on each table for fun, in the hope that we might get a few nice candid shots of the diners. Alas, the kids quickly got hold of them and when developed we had around 150 write-off shots of things that only a 10 year old would be interested in ..... one little girl had obviously taken a whole blurry roll of the Christmas tree lights (December wedding.

[bd02]

Thanks CY. What was I doing wrong?

All processing including cropping done on computer

[CY88]

bd02 said:

Thanks CY. What was I doing wrong?

Not too sure, but I just lifted the "image properties" (right click on image, last option) from the flickr site and pasted each image address into your post instead.

Edited by CY88 on Wednesday 5th September 14:00

[bd02]

Cool thanks.

[snapper seven]

Stig - or is that Simon Cowell - I was intentionally kind with my comments to a fair degree as I think as a first attempt they were very good. I have seen much worse from people who call themselves photographers. As one guy on another forum said "Give a guy a camera, he thinks he's a photographer. Give a guy a saxopohone, he's just a guy with a saxophone"

Anyway I do see where you are coming from but I disagree with your composition shot re cutting the hands off, if YB had shot with the hands in then I think the shot would have been half way house between full length and a nice loose head shot which I think YB is closer to achieving and the result would have been unsatisfactory as it wouldn't have been either in terms of composition. I would however in that circumstance got them to all cuddle in more and got a bit closer making a tighter shot.

Wholeheartedly agree with your comments about shooting into the sun with the sun behind the subjects. I've had to do this a few times recently what with the really nice weather and strong sun we had. The amount of people that kept saying "I thought you weren't supposed to shoot into the sun" almost became tiresome
Of course it helps having proper flashguns and decent lens hoods.

SS

[stigmundfreud]

Not a Cowel but i like people to be straight to the point with my stuff so I'm the same I remember turning stuff in I loved only for it to be classed as less than toilet paper. Of course in the end I realised I was then trying to take the shots they wanted (tutors) but thought it I'm in it for me not for anyone else - people either like your stuff or not but when it comes to generic stuff like the style in question here (unless you do something different) its a case of play by the bog standard rules of thumb

yes with regards to the hands but they aer either in or not, if not cropped in closer

And to the OP you dont need to get hung up about RAW but shoot raw and it really can help. For instance your white balance can be changed after the shot, with jpeg it is stored in it and you have to pray you can alter it if its in the wrong setting. ie I shot a shed load of shots one night and they were all set to tungsten but as I had shot raw I could alter - also I find the flash white balance often isnt what looks best, with raw you can adjust the colour temp to whatever you want.

From what I gather though Nikkon dont supply (or didnt) any raw processing tools?

[Yellabelly]

Stig, straight to the point is no problem to me

I had been shooting RAW exclusively but bottled out as I misguidedly imagined a lot of pp before I could post the photos for the family. I have the Nikon Capture NX program which is a RAW processor but I've still got to get to grips with it.

SS, many thanks I will look to putting the sun behind with a fill in but would it be better with the sun to the side? I agree with the tighter grouping and making it more a head and shoulders shot. However I like the shot as taken as does my neice as it captures the essence of her family, but I will think about the framing of such photos in future.

CY88, thanks mate, I am still struck by your photo of the little ones foot, for me it is a powerful image.

YB

[flat-planedCrank]

snapper seven said:

Anyway I do see where you are coming from but I disagree with your composition shot re cutting the hands off, if YB had shot with the hands in then I think the shot would have been half way house between full length and a nice loose head shot which I think YB is closer to achieving and the result would have been unsatisfactory as it wouldn't have been either in terms of composition. I would however in that circumstance got them to all cuddle in more and got a bit closer making a tighter shot.

I find that it can be the 'confidence' with which the crop is performed that can help alleviate this chopped-hands effect. If something is clearly passing out of frame then the eye isn't so strongly drawn to it. Yet, if something is almost 'in two minds' about being in the shot, or is about to leave the frame, it can draw the eye and 'trap' it in that location.

All very subjective but interesting to discuss

Edited by flat-planedCrank on Thursday 6th September 03:19