Friends of mine had a wedding recently, I was one of the guests. I knew that they would have a photographer, but still I decided to do some photography just for the sake of experiment. Besides it is always good to have several people shooting such an event : different style. different angles, etc.Considering that 16-50 is still in the maintenance, I opted for Sigma 18-35. I did not bring flash with me, because I wanted to make full use of available light and I did not feel like lugging it around.
The experience was mixed. On one hand F1.8 was very useful to keep the ISO low, on the other hand the depth of field was too shallow, due to a rather limited space inside the wedding palace. The camera was set to TAv mode, because I needed fast shutter speeds and a matching Auto ISO. I shot mostly from F1.8 to F2.8. Surpisingly there were lots of misfocused shots. Sometimes I was not able to figure out if the subject is not sharp due to the high iso, or if the lens failed to lock the focus properly. In most cases it seemed like the lens was only a tiny bit off, but considering the sharpness of the lens, it was instantly noticeable. Still the shots that were successful, were good enough for some really heavy cropping. 35 mm was frequently not long enough, but the combination of this lens and Pentax K-3 allowed to compensate for that during the post processing. The images that I shot inside and some of those shot outside were processed in DxO, to achieve better noise reduction. Certain images were processed in Lightroom and Exposure 4.
In most cases I was shooting in the background, so to say, not to interfere with the main photographer. Sometimes I was shooting the scenes the other photographer set up, but I did them from different angles and different distance, so the couple for not posing for me, which made some of the shots more interesting. Here is a link to the album with the rest of the shots I chose to upload :
https://flic.kr/s/aHsk1YFA8Z .
The couple is heading towards the limousine, that will take them to the wedding palace.
Listening to the speech
The groom is putting a wedding ring on the bride's finger.
The kiss to seal the union.
The couple "attacked" by curious asian tourists.
Posing in the fortress wall niche.
The bride and the sea.