[Stagnant]

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.

[JinDesu]

Supposedly the 18-35 has a bit of trouble with focus when shooting wide and fast.

[Stagnant]

I noticed some abnormal focusing behaviour at around F4 and sometimes faster. F 4 seems to be sort of a turning point. On the other hand the last shot was at F1.8, but 35 mm and focusing was perfect.

[JinDesu]

That's a little weird, AF is performed with the lens wide open typically.

[VoiceOfReason]

Supposedly the 18-35 has a bit of trouble with focus when shooting wide and fast.

I've had to recompose on mine wide open about 10% of the time, but I generally catch it.

[pentaxk3user]

Thanks for posting your photos . I'm a beginner and looking at the numbers helps me learn Thanks .

[bdery]

The bride and the sea is a magnificent image. I think if I had taken it I would go crazy and try all sorts of things in post (make it dreamy, or B&W, or some cross-processing maybe).

[Stagnant]

The bride and the sea is a magnificent image. I think if I had taken it I would go crazy and try all sorts of things in post (make it dreamy, or B&W, or some cross-processing maybe).

Thank you ! Well it did unergo some post processing in Lightroom and Exposure 4 to make it more juicy. Highlights on the dress were one of my main concerns, I did not want them to be blow out, so the post processing madness was not an option for me. I can upload the original raw, for you to tweak it to your liking. Would be interesting to compare two different approaches. My post-processing philosophy is to keep things as close to reality as possible (of course there are certain exceptions).

[bdery]

I can upload the original raw, for you to tweak it to your liking. Would be interesting to compare two different approaches.

If you want and are not in any hurry

My post-processing philosophy is to keep things as close to reality as possible (of course there are certain exceptions).

I generally do that too, but some pictures just beg me for more exotic treatments.

[bdery]

I played witht he pictures a bit, and in agreement with the original poster I display them here. I'm not claiming that they are better, they are simply a different take on that composition.

Hi,

I played with the picture for a while yesterday night. Here's what I got.

First, I cropped the image to change the mood (the first composition was fine, I wanted to try something else). I also fixed the blue patch of sky on the top left, which I found distracting. I boosted clarity, increased the exposure of the dark tones (see how the hair gets texture and detail? and increased saturation of the blue channel. Sounds complicated but really easy and straightforward in Lightroom.



Note that on my work computer the hair detail sin't all that visible, on my calibrated home screen it's quite different.

My second creation was simpler. I used the preset to create a B&W by using the blue channel, then again increased exposure of the dark tones and lowered the general exposure a bit, applied the lightest touch of clarity, and here it is:



I then did the exact same thing (clarity, dark tones) but instead of the B&W I used the Cold Tones video preset, increased contrast, and here it is (that one is my favourite)



Another one which I love was done by using the Selenium preset, boost clarity (I didn't touch the dark tones for this version, it's better this way), add vignetting (lightly) and here it is:



Lastly, I used the cold cross-processing preset on the cropped image and agani boosted the clarity and dark tones exposure:



the picture as it was is great, I really, really like it. I just saw many moods that could be created by playing with it. The model appears gorgeous too, her posture is excellent, the arms at the back, shoulders set wide, back straight, that's fantastic.

This was fun, I hope it was helpful!

[phoenixvision]

Generally speaking...there was really no need to shoot so open during the ceremony especially, the camera can handle the iso, and especially with movement and wider shots, the smaller aperture would give you more clarity and general focus to cover more of the frame.....Unless you are trying to catch a tight shot and want some dof...there seemed to be plenty of ambient natural lighting where that wouldnt be an issue....The k3 can easily handle at least 1600 iso....when you are shooting the ceremony you generally want to cover it with clarity and with more than one subject in focus....of course you can open up the aperture for a nice portrait, or close up of an element from time to time....but its not worth sacrificing the focuse, especially on a lens that isnt built to perform with high optical quality wide open...

[Stagnant]

Generally speaking...there was really no need to shoot so open during the ceremony especially, the camera can handle the iso, and especially with movement and wider shots, the smaller aperture would give you more clarity and general focus to cover more of the frame.....Unless you are trying to catch a tight shot and want some dof...there seemed to be plenty of ambient natural lighting where that wouldnt be an issue....The k3 can easily handle at least 1600 iso....when you are shooting the ceremony you generally want to cover it with clarity and with more than one subject in focus....of course you can open up the aperture for a nice portrait, or close up of an element from time to time....but its not worth sacrificing the focuse, especially on a lens that isnt built to perform with high optical quality wide open...

That's a valid remark. To get proper dof in that case I would have had to stop down to 5.6, which would most likely result in ISO's around 3200. In most cases I try to avoid going that high. On the other hand, I shot a concert in a dark club and even at 1.8 the ISO was anywhere between 6400 - 25600 to keep the shutter speed high enough. I did manage to eliminate most of the noise in post processing, but I had to resize the images to make them more usable. But again, dark club and ceremony in a wedding palace require different post processing in my opinion. Besides, this lens performs perfectly fine at 1.8 when paired with K-3.
Don't get me wrong, I agree, that more dof is welcome in these conditions, I am just not too enthusiastic about high iso.

[jmerchant]

It's too bad about the 18-35, on paper it sounds like such a great lens, but hearing all this about it's focusing issues...too bad...I love the bride on the beach, great shot.

[Stagnant]

This time it was a wedding of my cousin. Same set up as in the previous shots, except for the last one - a flash was used. All in all the lens and camera behaved in a rather predictable fashion. The light in the wedding palace was quite unfavourable for photography - a mix of day light and artificial light. I did not quite like how some of my shots with the flash ended up, but again it was my first ever experienced of shooting with the flash. I can post some more images, where flash was used, for those who are interested.

[Nicolas06]

For the one with flash; why did you use direct flash?