3 Weddings...The first at Parley Manor

I had the task of shooting 3 weddings in a very short space of time at the end of June and just into July...a Thursday, the next Saturday and then the next Saturday.  I did two with my shooting partner Jenny and one alone.  Oh and of course I had to do my day job and all the usual family and household responsibilities, so I was rather busy!  All the events were very different indeed and rather enjoyable to be at despite the stress of working hard and having to do a decent job.

The first of the 3 was at Parley Manor, which is a really attractive venue and the whole wedding was to be held there.  Jenny took on the bridal prep shots.  On arrival I had the job of shooting the groom, ushers and best man, which was interesting as the weather was changeable and it began to rain. I managed to persuade the guys to remain on the bridge just long enough to grab this shot with authentic rain falling, which I liked, especially in B&W.  When working fast and especially alone I keep my workhorse lenses on the cameras...the Nikon 24-70 f2.8 and 70-200 f2.8 VR2 as they pretty much have everything covered.  I put the long zoom on the Nikon D700 and the short one on the D300 in this case.

We all sprinted for the cover of a small porch and I saw this shot, which I liked above the standard ones I took of the buttonholes.

I thought the usher playing with his phone while waiting to welcome people under a brolly was a shot not to be missed, especially as I could frame it decently and got a splash of colour from the flowers.

The wedding service was held in a dedicated marquee in one section of the garden.  I checked out the exposure and decided I would expose for the ambient light at ISO 800 or 400 and then bounce some flash off the ceiling or walls to lift the rather flat lighting and add some life to skin tones.  Before the service began I saw this delightful little girl against a bright green and coloured background and took a snap on the fly, which with a little cropping I really liked later.  A little bounced fill flash really lifted the skin tones against the difficult light, making the image really pop.  Setting the camera up in manual mode for the ambient light makes it much easier to shoot like this as I can control the ambient light with a quick flick of the shutter speed (up to max sync of 1/250th) and the TTL bounce flash sorts itself out wherever I point it.

Regarding the flash I often use a piece of art foam hair-banded onto the end of the speedlight and positioned to stop direct light going where I don't want it, like a half-snoot. This way I can bounce the light toward the subject off a nearby wall or window while ensuring all the light is indirect and getting more effective power from the flash.  Its great inside wedding service and reception rooms as it reduces flash power requirements, reduces recycle times and stops the flash blinding and annoying people.

  The actual wedding had to be held under a solid building, so there was a small structure a bit like a greek temple at the far end for this.  There was a row of pillars lining the front of this structure, which made my shooting position pretty hopeless while the couple were in there, but Jenny was shooting from the back of the marquee and so I held out and managed to get some much better shots when the couple emerged for the exchange of rings and the rest of the service.

After the service Jenny took on the groups while I headed for the large marquee where the reception was to be.

The bride had chosen an unusual and very vibrant circus theme, which went very well with the marquee and was very uplifting.  I quite like this section of the day where I have a little while to take wide angle and detail shots of the reception venue in all its glory before the hungry hordes descend!  I try to catch some so the couple remember it well, using a variety of apertures for selective blur.  This is where the Zeiss 100 f2 and Nikon 14-24 often come out to play, to capture the extremes of view I need.

I always try to get detail shots of the bride & groom's place settings to really personalise it

A jolly waiter or waitress adds a nice sparkle to the reception images

While I was getting these shots the bride and groom sneaked away from their duties for a quick peak at the reception venue.  Obviously delighted they grabbed a very quick kiss and I managed to get a shot on the manual focus Zeiss, so was happy when it was sharp!

During the meal I leave people alone as eating shots are not flattering and take the chance to eat, especially where the couple have kindly ordered us a meal.  I may take some table groups or look for interesting moments so I never relax.  This shot took a while to get perfect as kids don't stay still but I thought it was worth it...the same little girl who made a nice image earlier.  This was taken on the Sigma 85mm f1.4 @ f2.5.  This is a star of a lens indeed and I was very impressed with it on its first wedding.

After the usual speech and cake cutting shots we headed out for the formals.  By this time the weather was perfect with characterful clouds but lots of low, warm sun. The grounds at Parley Manor are so nice a photographer is rather spoiled for choice...a nice problem to have!

Having Jenny along too made me choose to take the Sigma 85 and 70-200, knowing that I couldn't shoot anything wide, but she could to give the shots some variety.  I used some very gentle fill flash on the D300 and 70-200 shots but used ambient light alone on the D700 and Sigma 85 shots.  It was actually hard to keep below flash sync speed as the light was quite strong.

Really liked the way this shot popped. D300 & 70-200 plus very gentle fill flash

Becoming one of my trademark favourite shots

The lovely Sigma 85...oh and a lovely bride!

Sigma again...super sharp lens @ f4 this time

The couple had organised some outdoor performers to add to the circus theme and this was a really cool part of the day with everyone coming outside for a while in what turned out to be nice evening weather.  The back light was bright so I exposed for ambient and used fill flash to blast a bit of light on the performers....I didn't mind if the lighting was a bit surreal or studio-like.

Then it was evening reception time and I always stay to get some shots of the disco or band and the first dance of course.  Despite the risk of noise and loss of definition in the images I feel its important to capture the ambience of this time so I tend to use a high ISO and get close to ambient exposure while using some really cranked-down bounce flash to lift things the tiniest bit.  I use ISO s of 3200 on the D300 and 6400 and above on the D700 where I have to.  I'd rather have a bit of softness and noise but retain the colours and light levels that were present.

D300, ISO 800 & bounce flash

D700, Sigma 85 @ f2.2, ISO 3200, ambient light only

 In terms of kit everything performed flawlessly on this day.  As usual my workhorse lenses were the 24-70 and 70-200.  It was nice to be able to use the Sigma 85 to add some variety to the images with very wide aperture shots.  That is one tasty lens with fast and accurate AF and I love the image quality.

Having started to believe that only full frame cameras could give really good results at a wedding, I decided to try and trust the D300 more to make life easier (e.g. less lens changes and having 2 focal lengths available simultaneouly) and was actually very impressed with it.  Especially in combo with bounce flash it takes great shots at ISOs that are perfectly OK in lighter indoor venues and even at up to 3200 for evening reception dances etc.  The D700 really comes into its own when shooting ambient light in really low lighting or where the dynamic range or lighting is tricky.  This time I tended to use the D300 as an equal rather than a backup and didn't regret it.  Common sense and a bit of experience in knowing the kit helps to decide the satisfactory performance envelope.

Having had a car accident last year I wasn't enjoying carrying huge lenses and cameras around my neck for 8-12 hours.  Handling them is tricky too as the straps tend to get entangled and there is more chance of dropping one as you pick up and put down so often.  I am already converted to the Optech pro loop straps, which consist of a broad, soft and elastic neoprene neck pad, that clips into short sections of strap that fit to the camera strap eyes.  You can unclip a camera for easier storage or when straps get in the way.  I decided to try the dual camera harness from Optech.  This has a broad neck pad that extends onto the back and straps that form a harness over your shoulders and under your arms.  The same straps that are already on the cameras clip straight into this harness allowing you to carry 2 bodies, one each side.  The weight is spread over your shoulders and upper back with nothing significant on the neck.  Its usable all day and great for weddings.  Two bodies and lenses can go with you ready to grab and shoot straight away.  For £30 its a bargain.

The black half-snoot for the flash is a brilliant bit of almost free kit as it enables you to flag the light at will and stop any spill into areas you don't want illuminated by direct light.  Its especially good when you have to angle the flash forward to get the reach or a suitable bounce surface.  This would normally cause direct light to hit the subject, but you can mask the flash to fire it in a very specific direction.

As for techniques, I am retaining what I did at last year's weddings as the formula seems to work......A combination drawn of my own experience and reading Niel Van Niekerk's excellent books and blog.  I tend to try and keep settings simple so there is less chance of errors and find that an aperture of f4 works well for most images using flash, as it its a stop down from full aperture, gives a useful bit of depth of field and decent subject isolation.  It also means the flash works at well less than full power so is more subtle and recycles faster.  The combination of manual settings for ambient exposure and a bit of bounce flash seems to do exactly what I want...retaining ambience, while lifting the flatness.  I soon learned that a working understanding of exposure and flash has to be intuitive...you can't keep people waiting or miss moments faffing with serttings.  It gives me a base line I can easily adapt and return to without getting in a mess.

I tried a trial version of Silver Efex Pro (plugin for Adobe Lightroom) for doing B&W conversions and loved it.  There are loads of preset choices and simulation of many film types that can all be previewed.  All can be customised or you can start from scratch.   I'm buying it for sure.  It adds so much more variety to the B&W images I supply and is fast in use.

I didn't feel intimidated by this wedding...the first of 2011 for me.  The benefit of having Jenny along can never be underestimated.  Not only is she capturing her own images but she is someone to bounce ideas off on the fly, share a laugh with and for kit security and backup.  We seem to naturally gravitate to different parts of the wedding depending on our kit, experience, and comfort zones and never have a cross word.  It just works.

Wedding marathon

I covered 3 weddings between 23rd June and 2nd July 2011 as well as being away for 5 days and doing my normal job too, so to say I have been busy is a conservative statement.

On two jobs I worked with my wedding associate, Jenny and one I did completely alone.  I'm pretty confident I did a good job and am getting some nice results.  I am basing my style on two main themes; firstly, trying to make the photography tell a story of the entire day from start to finish, with a mix of journo-type and more set-up formal shots and secondly, by being sympathetic to ambient light by using it alone, where I think its good and balancing it with flash where I think it needs some help.

Two jobs were licenced venues and the third was a church wedding.  Receptions varied from marquees in a country manor house grounds to a seaside hotel and a golf club. One was an incredibly passionate religious service, the others were purely civil services.

I found that my camera handling and general understanding of exposure, flash and camera limitations got me out of most tricky situations or let me adapt fast when things suddenly changed.  I also placed more trust and faith in my D300 on these jobs, knowing that I only had one full frame body, so couldn't shoot exclusively with that and I was very pleasantly surprised by its performance.  My chosen lenses also worked well and I was very impressed by my first professional outings with Sigma's 85mm f1.4 as well as my regular wedding workhorses, being Nikon's 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200 f2.8 zooms.  The Nikon flash units also sparked faultlessly with no delays caused by overheating or recycling times.  I am convinced that much of the time when problems are experienced, photographers are simply taking too many images and/or making the guns work too hard by not properly considering the ambient lighting.

I will report much more fully on each when I get the time as I still have huge amounts of editing to do.  In the meantime, here is one shot from each job that is perhaps less conventional.

Baby Photographs

Recently I have taken some images for friends and acquaintances who have newborns and have done the photography at some christenings.  I largely used the D700 body for its tonal control and high ISO capability.

For the first christening the minister did not want any photography during the service, but was happy to recreate the alter part afterward.  I was asked with little notice and didn't take a flash so shot everything in ambient light and the service was shot on the Nikon 24-70 f2.8.  There was serious contrast near the alter owing to sun streaming in but the main exposure was ISO 1600 at f4.  This also created white balance issues with the mix of tungsten, candle and daylight.

I tried to turn the lighting to advantage and took a couple of shots with the narrow beam of sunlight falling on little Toby but trying to keep the other persons visible within the shadows.  These worked better in mono probably because the effect was largely tone based.

At the reception the church hall had horrid muddy yellow walls and the lighting wasn't great.  As a result I converted lots to mono.  Little Jessica was shot on the Sigma 85 f1.4 at ISO 1000.

Same little girl, same lens, this time showing the wall!  It wasn't too bad in this shot.

Although the venue was cluttered and the walls that lovely yellow, I took a lot of snaps of the babies for people for them to remember the day.  Here is Henry

For another job I took some images of little Harry at his home.  It was a nice, bright day so I went for high key look using light in the conservatory and bouncing flash from behind and to one side.  I used a knitted blanket to keep tones high but keep the baby theme.  The following were shot on the D700 and Zeiss 100mm f2.

Back to the 24-70 for mum and baby shots.  I used an ambient exposure locked in manually and bounced flash from behind and to the side where the natural light was coming in.

At Jessica's (not the same Jessica as above!) christening I had more notice for and knew what to expect at the venue.  This time the minister agreed to natural light limited photography in the service and I tok some with bounced flash afterward.  Again I used the Nikon D700 with 24-70mm f2.8 lens.

Now to some more baby shots in the home, this time of Jake.  This time I shot in a nursery with modest light coming in through the window and bounced flash to get more light in.  Jake is a real little wriggler so it was hard focusing the Zeiss 100!

To the 24-70 for the family shots.

And finally, not forgetting that we have our own little boy, Theo!  Strangely I haven't taken many formal shots of him, rather tending to take family snaps instead, as it not a "job!"  I have lots I love but here are a few recent ones.

Exposed for ambient light in the background and fill flash used to kill the contrast

2 Primes and a Zoom

I had a rare free day today and decided to go to Kingston Lacy Bluebell Wood to do a bit of photography.  I chose to take the Nikon D700 body as there is no penalty in quality when raising ISO a bit to get depth of field by stopping down, or when shooting in low light.  It mainly omits the need to carry a tripod and makes shooting very flexible...I spend lots of time crouching, kneeling or laying down to get more intimate angles when shooting these flowers and a tripod would be awkward, slow and in many cases impossible to use.

As an interesting exercise I took the Carl Zeiss 100mm f2 Macro Planar, the Zeiss 85mm f1.4 Planar and Nikon's 14-24mm f2.8 zoom.  I was curious to see how my use of the lenses and their qualities or issues would affect the images with each.

I am not one who subscribes to the concept of shooting all landscape type images at f16.  I love using wide apertures and selective focus to highlight what I want and blur other areas of the image.  This controls the composition, aids perspective and leads the eye to the subject, then draws it away into a softer background.  In fact its surprising how much you have to stop down to get sharp focus through the whole image depth on full frame cameras...and its only really possible at all at wide angles.

First up was the Zeiss 100 f2:

At f3.2 fairly close up, the flowers and foliage zing with colour and contrast and the background is there and recognisable but soft.  Specular highlights are smooth and controlled

Focused on seat at f4.  The lens handles the contrast between shadow and highlight very gracefully, managing to hold detail in all.  Nice smooth blur into the background but objects retain their form and identity

Much closer focus at f3.2 has completely blurred the background to a smooth wash.  The flowers in focus really pop with contrast and sharpness.  There was a big tonal range here with a bright backlight and the lens has again controlled that gracefully

Wide open at f2.  No evidence of spherical aberration and nice blur and control of contrast.  Personally I like the natural vignette and its very easy to focus this lens.  This lens is very sharp and contrasty at f2 already.  There is a slight contrast increase at f4 but that's it. Awesome.

Next up was the Zeiss 85mm f1.4:

Straight into wide open at f1.4.  Focus is on the tree trunk and rendition is sharp.  Often this lens has a very hazy look due to spherical aberrations wide open and it is evident elsewhere here, giving a very graceful blur.  This is a hit...at least 50% of the f1.4 images were a miss.  Not easy to focus either wide open or stopped down a bit (owing to focus shift).  The minimum focus distance is 1 metre, so no macro!  Same colour correction as the 100f2 but the blur is slightly different.  Edges are somewhat more defined, but have a rounded, soft quality and again, extreme contrast is rendered well.

Stopping down to f2 gets rid of most of the haze, though interestingly it is still evident here on the point of focus, which was the branch across the path.  Lovely colour and handling of the highlights from sun illuminating some areas

Stopped down to f2.8 its goodbye to spherical aberration... at f5.6 the lens is popping with contrast and sharpness while still handling the backlight well.  f5.6 is nowhere near enough to render focus throughout and the point of focus is the tree in the middle distance.  Nice softening into foreground and background.  This lens keeps getting sharper to f5.6

Finally it was the Nikon 14-24mm f2.8:

Wide open here at f2.8. Despite the wide angle there is quite graceful blur off the narrow focal plane.  Love the vignette at the widest setting of 14mm as it so highlights the subject.  Sharp wide open.  I did have an unexpected issue focusing at 24mm wide open, when it was back focusing at close focus distance...never noticed that before....I know it focus shifts a bit but not wide open.

f5 and close up.  Its amazing how wide this lens feels on full frame...actually quite hard to get good compositions lots of the time as shots look "empty".  As a result I spend lots of usage at 24mm, as here.  Great sharpness all over the frame and nice background softening of the trees.

A natural, traditional type of shot for this lens.  24mm at f8.  Not far off front to back sharpness and lovely and crisp into the corners with no chromatic aberrations, despite backlight and high contrast edges.  

f5.6 at 24mm.  Very nice rendering in strong backlight.  This lens can be prone to flare with its massive front element.  In sharpness terms the centre is pretty much there from wide open with the corners sharpening rapidly to perhaps f5.6.  The corners are probably out of the focal plane much of the time owing to field curvature.  Are the blown/specular highlights controlled as well as the Zeiss lenses?  Not sure.  This is one of the later Nikkors with Nano crystal coat and they seem to have good contrast rendition.

The Zeiss 100mm f2 is as close to a flawless lens as I have come upon.  Its fully and easily usable wide open.  Yes you need a good eye to focus, but when it looks sharp it is and there is no spheical aberration.  it drops into blur quite rapidly and because it focuses close up, backgrounds can be totally smoothed away.

The Zeiss 85mm f1.4 seems to give inconsistent results when used wide.  This is probably a function of the spherical aberration making the actual focal point difficult to determine and making focus inconsistent.  There is plenty of detail there but its sometimes hazy.  Some images pop and look great...others have no real sharp area.  The drawing is very gentle and even though its not possible to get the extreme blur of the 100mm, bokeh is rounded and smooth.  Stopped down it loses the RSA and gets sharper to f5.6 but has major focus shift, which makes it a good idea to check results and focus bracket a few shots.  Despite its close focal length to the 100mm, its a very different lens and gives a special look to certain images.  You do have to learn how to use it and accept plenty of misses along the way!

Both Zeiss lenses handle colour and contrast the same when at peak performance.  They also have a knack of retaining detail in shadows and highlights and where highlights are blown they are generally graceful and inoffensive.  Manual focus is a joy...smooth and precise.  My 85mm is fully manual with an aperture ring and no electronic coupling.

The Nikon 14-24 f2.8 is undoubtedly the best wide angle zoom there is and up there with the best primes.  Maybe I'm just not good at wide angle, but I find 14mm too extreme for most stuff on full frame, but when I do use it its great.  The lens is sharp, contrasty and has nice blur, often highlighted when using its ability to focus quite close and make a composition interesting.  Close focus is such a big issue and makes the lens much more versatile...without it compositions of subjects like flowers would be empty.