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There is a YouTube video about this, but I found this page first: http://www.hsj.org/modules/lesson_plans/detail.cfm?menu_id=&submenu_id=&module_id=2&LessonPlanId=454

The YouTube video is by someone else and shows the egg and light.

 

Or, choose a lens, and spend the day working with just that lens.

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I was looking for a specific video I saw a couple of weeks ago and still have not found.  In my searching I came across this group of videos promoting a three day class video Bambi Cantrell put together: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4y5vsurR9k&list=SP03A97D22CE1BBA53&index=1

She seems to charge a lot.  She has beautiful photos in the bits we see.  She is an artist, not an engineer.  I think it would be worth paying attention to what she has to say about business, posing and art.  When she starts talking about her 1D and 1.3X crop factor affecting lens length and depth of field, I think she has no concept of crop factor, but it does not matter because what you see is what you get, and when she looks through the viewfinder and sees light, she can get what her customers want.  Watch the set, there is a lot of useful information.

I also came across a video by Doug Gordon, who seems to know what he is doing.  It runs 15 minutes and he does not waste a second.  It is all about posing bride and groom and neatly addresses Bambi’s “What do you do when your bride shows up an hour and forty-five minutes late for a two hour shoot.  This guy could get it done!  Pay attention to what he says about posing, camera tilt and watch the photos coming from the poses.  Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldrbq1LNf_A

Level, hands perfectly still.  You can use viewfinder elements to help level.  The 5D Mk III has a grid you can turn on.  Other bodies may not.  You can use the sides and top of the finder to align with objects in your view.  Then recompose.  Just like focus and recompose.  If you were doing landscapes, I would tell you to use a tripod and hot shoe level.  I’m not convinced that’s the way to go shooting models.  You can always adjust level in post.  ACR, Photoshop and Elements have different but effective ways of fixing tilt.  Figure out how your editing tool does it.  As far as hands perfectly still, VR/IS/OS has been a huge boon.  Having a good grip helps a lot.  There is still, and still enough, too.  It depends on how big your final print will be.  Joe McNally did a YouTube video called Da Grip.  Check it out, it is useful, unless you already use that grip, then it is just entertaining.

People tend to look at the brightest part of a photo.  They also look at the most in-focus part.  They should usually be the same part.  Usually the face.

One of the Bambi videos has an image by her with a lot of negative space, check the difference between her negative space and yours.  Focal length, fast glass/big apertures and physical distances camera to subject and subject to background affect how out of focus foreground and background elements are.  If you have f/1.2, you can blur almost anything.  The challenge is that if you only have an inch of depth of field, your model can move ever so slightly after you focus and will now be out of focus.  You may also move slightly while recomposing, and your model is now out of focus.   Picking your focus point and using Servo tracking may help this, I have not tried it.

Everyone has something to teach you.  Unfortunately, they may also tell you things that are incorrect.  Sometimes them telling you something that is incorrect will later lead to your enlightenment.  No one knows it all and there is a lot of misinformation and half truths being floated around as gospel.  Your job is to evaluate what you are told/shown and decide which pieces of information will help you.

 

Keep shooting.

 

 

 

 

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City boy here.  How long is a tractor?  I’m thinking your group is about 20 feet wide.  You are 20 feet away?  At f/2.8, DOF should be about 9 feet.  I’ll have to do some testing to see how the edge compares for sharpness.  Version II of that lens has a larger front element but it too is not an IS lens.

Your bride’s dress is a little dark, it could stand some dodging.

Did you apply sharpening to your photo?

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Funny!

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I’m with ArizonaGuy!  Stock up on guns, knives and perhaps bows and arrows.  Generally, in Canada weapons are not necessary, so I don’t have any.   I always have a couple of camera bags packed so I can grab one on my way out the door.  And, since I already have them, the batteries are charged and ready to go.  If you grab a couple of new bodies from the store shelf, you need to charge the batteries before you can shoot, and where are you going to get the electricity in an apocalypse?

By the way, if you are going to grab all those cards, you should grab some spare batteries too.

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Well… that’s what I was speaking of.  In the “Uncle Fred” photo, it looks like there is a fog over the groom and the man on the tractor behind him.  Which would you rather show, nicely exposed sky, beautiful colours in the dresses and uncluttered background or blown out sky, over exposed fields, lots of clutter and under exposed people?  OK, that’s a rhetorical question.

You can put the differences into words, but you really get the impact when you see both images side by side.  Your photo beside the bridesmaid’s husband’s is one of the best advertisements I have seen for using a knowledgeable  photographer.  Two or three side by side comparisons like this and any reasonable person would realize they got their money’s worth.  Good job!

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Content is currently unavailable.  Both links give the same message.  At least it didn’t show me my own page.

I have heard other photographers complain about this.  Some have something in their contracts, but if you and the bride have a contract, it is not binding on me, the guest, as I am not party to the contract.  Stressing the bride about her guests photographing over your shoulder may have the effect that all her friends choose a different photographer for their weddings.

Sometimes, the bridal party are taken to a venue between church and reception, there the photographer has the party to themselves for some period of time.  Then there is the question of when to get shots of family and guests.

This is probably the discussion to bring up the opportunity you have as a professional to have an assistant plus more and better equipment.  For instance, you can pose them with a bright sky behind them and light them with your flash, ideally perhaps an off camera flash with modifiers.  You get a nice well lit photo, the guy behind you with a point & shoot gets silhouettes.  Done well, it can be an opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of hiring a professional instead of “Uncle Fred” as a local pro refers to members of the point & shoot crowd.

 

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About colour/tones.

Unfortunately not all monitors are a created equal, or equally calibrated.   The notebook my wife uses for work has a terrible monitor, everything looks dark.  Cheap monitors have relatively low contrast ratios, and frequently, a glossy surface on the monitor.  Better monitors have a mat finish and high contrast ratio.  Ambient light in the room also affects the appearance.  Good profiling tools can look at the room light as well as the monitor when determining correct profile for  the video card.  My monitors are profiled with a Colormunki.  For those looking at my personal web page, who probably do not have a calibrated monitor, the front page has a gauge across the bottom — pure black on one end, pure white on the other and shades of grey in the middle.  It was built with Photoshop by plugging in the numbers, so there is no colour cast.  At each end, the gradations are smaller and finder so people can set their monitor’s brightness by eye.  It does not get them all the way to calibration, but it is better than nothing.

Prints are also problematic.  To view prints, sunlight is best.  Some inks shift colour more than others when viewed with other light sources.

Disclaimer:  This is only one grumpy, old, opinionated guy’s view.

So, once you are viewing the image displayed in a way that accurately shows colour, you probably want a natural looking skin tone.  Of course, it is your art, so if you want your subject to have green skin like someone from a B movie about people from Mars, or blue skin like Smurfs, knock yourself out.  Obviously black and white is not the way most of us see the world but it is a popular way of displaying images.  But, if you are doing a regular portrait, most people will expect normal skin tones.  If your model looks jaundiced, or like they have been eating a case of carrots every day for years, then your viewer may not enjoy your photos as much as they might otherwise.  An exception to all of this is if there is an obvious coloured light source that affects the cast.  Stage lighting at a rock concert or theatre production, for instance.

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“I don’t use Adobe Camera Raw, I use Lightroom and then Photoshop.”  Sometimes I use DPP to convert from CR2 but any time I have used Photoshop or Lightroom with a CR2, the first thing that opens is Adobe Camera Raw.  It is what does the conversion from your raw file.

I hardly ever bother with DNG.  It is just another format.  I like the file the way the camera made it.

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I have 600X CF cards and 600X SDHC for my 5D.  In my Rebel T2i I use Panasonic Class 10 cards.  The Rebel can write about 20 minutes of movie, continuously, and it can take 6 or 7 raw files in a burst and then be ready for another burst a second later.

I agree with Stef.  I have Bowens strobes.  Single shot is the way to go regardless of body or card, because if you take a two shot burst the second shot will be black, the strobes have not recovered.  If I use hot lights or speedlights, I can shoot faster but still, what’s the point, the model is just sitting/standing there.  Portraits and weddings are much slower paced than sports and wildlife.

I shoot all sorts of things and have never felt I needed the Rebel with class 10 cards to be faster.  That said, the new 5D has much better auto-focus so for shooting sports and some animals it is a better choice.  It also takes bigger, cleaner images, but it is about seven times the dollars.  For about twice as much again there is the 1Dx, which is also pretty impressive.

Decisions, decisions.

 

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Prices vary by country.  In the US, B&H Photo have a Rebel T3i body for $599 on their web page.

Curiously, in Canada, Henry’s is offering it for $499.99 and Canada is usually more expensive!

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“It only costs a very little more…”  Is the difference between say $500 and $4,000 only a very little more?  If the budget for the whole wedding is only $5,000, then $4,000 is a lot.  If the budget is $60,000, then perhaps $3,500 extra could be considered a little.

I think putting a more positive spin on it would be better.

You want to remember your wedding day with the best photos available.  Your day can be captured in a professional, creative way for an investment of only $$$$$$$.

Or something like that.

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I have a Rebel T2i!  The camera in my avatar image is a 5D Mk III, it was taken with the Rebel.  I got the Rebel to travel with, a lighter alternative to my bigger bodies.  It has been a wonderful body and has about 35,000 frames on the shutter.

The 1.6 multiplier is useful for figuring out angle of view if you are familiar with 35 mm film but not as helpful when speaking about other aspects of photography.  A 35 mm lens is always a 35 mm lens.  You can put a 10 mm lens on a 30D or 40D, and see the same view as 16 mm on a 5D Mk II.  At 100% view, it will be obvious the 30D or 40D image did not employ a 16 mm lens.   More thoughts about crop factor, and some images are here.

If you have a 40D, Rebel T2i and 5D Mk II, you can do the same tests I show.  A tripod and Photoshop are helpful.  Pick a scene, set up your tripod and mount your 35 mm lens on the 40D.  Pick something in the scene to centre the image on, then take the photo from the tripod.  Move the lens to the Rebel, mount it on the tripod and centre the frame on the same point, take the photo.  Repeat with the 5D.  Combine three images each at 100% using the 5D image as the base layer and the crop images as reduced opacity layers so you can still see the base layer.  I believe that will lead to enlightenment about sensor size and pixel density if you compare images with the spec sheets for the sensors.

Another page in the same area discusses depth of field.  The effect is easier to see with a longer lens.  A 100 mm lens for instance has a specific depth of field when focused at 10 feet, at f/8.  That depth of field is the same regardless of having a full frame or crop sensor body attached to the lens.  However, since you can fit more into the full frame viewfinder, you may move closer, and if you move closer, depth of field will decrease as you re-focus the lens.

A 35 mm lens is always a 35 mm lens.  A 100 mm lens is always a 100 mm lens.  Crop sensors really crop.  You can get digital magnification by cramming more pixels onto the sensor surface but bigger pixels do a better job of gathering light and result in a better looking image.

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That looks like the book.  I have the CS5 version, and a couple for various versions of Elements.  I haven’t upgraded to CS6 yet.

I’m delighted you like my edit.

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If you have an L lens, it should have come with a lens hood.  If it did not, you can still purchase one.  And you can get them for the rest of Canon’s lenses too.  Sigma lenses come with hoods, as do Canon’s L lenses.

Using a lens hood will greatly reduce lens flare, unless you are pointing the lens right at the light source, then you are on your own.

 

Flare is mostly a change in contrast.  I think it was browneyedgirl89 that put up some photos, with and without flare, so she may be able to comment.

 
This is your photo with lens flare removed. Right click and you can save it. The circle by her head was selected and contrast was adjusted, twice, with a bit of band-aid repair between and at the end. The flare on his leg was selected and contrast adjusted, then a smaller area was selected and contrast adjusted again. The band-aid tool was used to hide the seams, and the burn tool was used to darken the area down more.

You might like Scott Kelby’s Photoshop book. It is a good place to start because it is like a cook book. If you want this effect, here are the ten steps you have to perform to get it done. Then you move on to the next thing you want to do. After a while you can find your way around on your own.

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