[Ron_Man]

Link in signature to see the blog for the wedding (as well as previous work).

About 3 weeks ago I had the chance to shoot a wedding for the first time and overall I thought it was a great experience. I did want to get some things off my chest though.

For this event I used a K-3 and K-5. I also had a K-7 in the bag but ended up not needing it. For lenses, I rotated between the Fantastic Plastics, DA35 and DA50, as well as the 18-135mm. I do have a DA* 55mm but I was reluctant to use it because of autofocusing issues I've experienced after dropping it a few years ago. I had some other lenses but I was happy with the fantastic plastics enough that I stuck with them.

One of the things I know I'll need is a Macro, particularly for the ring shots. The DFA 100mm is on the list. I wasn't terrified of taking ring shots without a macro but with the DA35 I was comfortable with stopping down some and satisfied with the results.

The weather was supposed to be thunderstorms all day. The couple was about 90% committed to keeping the wedding outdoors, which of course I was prepared for. Luckily, the sky cleared up some and allowed us to have a mostly dry time (although the grass with muddy). The cloudy sky also made the highlights awful on the couple when shooting Av priority and even -1EV was not helping. Although I am fine shooting Manual, I would have preferred to go Av priority for the wedding. It seems that both cameras weren't able to meter correctly under such conditions.

As my luck would have it, I was forced to shoot the wedding with 2 Cactus RF60s and a V6 on both cameras. I had the AF540 and AF360 but managed to break both of them in separate incidents prior to the wedding. Since I'm starting out and not making much profit off my photography yet, buying a new flash was out of the option so I made due with the 2 flashes I had. I would have loved to have another flash on the body to bounce but didn't want to risk anything and left the lights setup in the reception hall (the groom was literally on the dot with the itinerary and emphasized we needed to hurry for almost all our shots). So I ended up shooting a lot of wide open and high ISO. This affected my indoor shooting in poorly lit rooms for the getting ready shots. In hindsight, I would have gone back to the reception hall and grab one of the flashes and bounce it. Oh well.. It turned out fine for the most part - except for when the flashes overheated at the wrong time during the reception

I was shooting the RF60s at 1/64 to start off and not going too crazy on the trigger. But for some odd reason they both overheated and wouldn't fire and it happened right at the bouquet toss and the garter removal and continued with this behavior for several more minutes. I found it frustrating that I had to power them off and back on and get them to work again. I even stepped them up to 1/16 and 1/8 with even more shutter action and they were fine the rest of the night. Kind of inconvenient. And if I had it my way, I would definitely have 4 flashes and 2 backups.

I know the K-5 has been regarded as a great low-light camera. That was not the case for me. The room was nearly pitch black and the K-5 hunted all night with whatever lens I put on it and even with the green beam it would just hunt all night making it useless for much of the reception. In other events I've shot at where there was some light I had no issues but this wedding was a learning experience for that kind of lighting environment. Good thing is that the K-3 had no issues focusing at all whatsoever. What an amazing camera on that note.

I could go on but I'd be complaining and being critical about myself. Rather, I hope to get some good constructive criticism out of you guys and will appreciate it a lot. This was a great first time wedding for me, nonetheless. The couple was awesome and so friendly and it couldn't have gone any more perfect for a first time. I have 4 more weddings this year to shoot and looking forward to them. This first one was a good learning experience no doubt.

Wedding aside, I now need to figure out some things on the web side. I do notice some compression and it's more noticeable than I am comfortable with (and that goes for all my photos). Anyone have suggestions on exporting from Lightroom? Feel free to critique my work either way. Thanks

Hope you enjoy.

[wissink]

I shot my first wedding in January. I had the same issues of very low light. We weren't allowed flashes in the church and the couple were so scattered they didnt' stick around for photos. Most of what we got was at the reception using a Westcott Orb with Yongnuo IV and TX. The low light stuff was a nearly impossible balance of desperately trying to bring down ISO even at F4 1/50 I was going in the ISO 4000+ range. Add on subject movement and man... Oh and no one except the daughter had any awareness about smiling nicely. I attribute that to her being in her early twenties and a product of the selfie generation. She always looked great. The times the bride smiled you kind of wished she didn't... and the brides' mother... ouch.

Anyways, I can certainly appreciate your struggle. I wish I had more opportunities. I was technically the second at this wedding but had more knowledge, more confidence, and technically better gear. I'm hoping to go K1 eventually for the low light issue. I'm not a fan of ISO 3200 or even 1600 really on my K3. Though I might decide otherwise if I ever printed anything.

For web, I believe if you research what sizes each platform compresses / resizes images to, you can use lightroom to do the resizing. I believe it does a better job. At least you have more control. Other options I've used for showing people images before giving them any are Adobe CC's public collection (if they have the direct link), Google drive shared folder (read only?), and one I have but haven't tested is format.com's client proofing. I also use LR plugins for Facebook and Format.com for direct uploading. I haven't compared this automated method vs the manual export and upload method.

Not sure if any of this helps, but I wish you well on your next four weddings. If you were close, I'd ask to jump in as your second!

[narual]

Thoughts (based on text, not photos - can't look at them right now):
A grainy high-ISO photo is significantly better than a not-grainy blurmonster. Especially at web sizes.
Going black & white covereth a multitude of sins, and in many cases will look better, especially if it's grainy.
The K5 autofocus is weak in low-light vs its successors - you might be thinking of people on here comparing ISO performance vs K3, or the autofocus of the K5-ii (as compared to the K5), maybe?
Reception is a party. Treat it like a party. Wider angle - larger depth of field. (Maybe 1 camera with a hyperfocused wide prime that you just point & shoot without having to focus, the other with a zoom for catching closeups)
Easier to get macro ring shots before the wedding when they're polished and untouched. Our photographer got ours from the best man while I was getting dressed. There were a few closeups on our hands during the ceremony and later, but we spent enough time posing for him without having to wait for him to switch to a macro setup.
Keep in mind that the couple has spent a very large quantity of money to throw a party and they'd like to participate in it, not sit in front of the camera for hours. (I'm still a little annoyed at our photographer for keeping my wife occupied while he messed around getting lighting perfect for formal photos with his medium format film body - which never got developed because [insert lame excuse here] - positioning the lights, sure, but messing with exposures, he should have been able to do with a tablecloth.)

[Ron_Man]

Thoughts (based on text, not photos - can't look at them right now):
A grainy high-ISO photo is significantly better than a not-grainy blurmonster. Especially at web sizes.
Going black & white covereth a multitude of sins, and in many cases will look better, especially if it's grainy.

I would have gone the b&w route also. However, my clients threw a clause in the contract to do no b&w photos whatsoever. Fine by me.

Thanks for the other points too! Now that I think about it, going wide and getting close would have been a nice touch for the reception. I stuck with the DA35 for the most part because it worked well enough for me to continue with it.

[aikilink]

I would have gone the b&w route also. However, my clients threw a clause in the contract to do no b&w photos whatsoever. Fine by me.

Thanks for the other points too! Now that I think about it, going wide and getting close would have been a nice touch for the reception. I stuck with the DA35 for the most part because it worked well enough for me to continue with it.

Hi, and great job on your first wedding! Obviously it's a big event, and stepping back and assessing your images critically will be your best route to improvement, and I'm sure you're already doing so.

I won't comment much on the composition or other details, as I think they are very nice images, and flaws that I see are also known by you. One thing I will definitely suggest is to take a close look at high-contrast areas while editing photos. I'm seeing quite a significant amount of chromatic aberrations (purple and green fringing). My guess is that these images were taken mostly wide-open or on high-offending lenses for chroma. If you edit with LR, it really is a very easy fix, and something to watch for in the future.

Best of luck on your future weddings!

[slip]

converting to black and white is a great way to make photos with bad lighting look better.
As far as macro lens goes, you might consider a 70mm focal length as it will be more useful with informal indoors shots (like bride and groom getting ready etc.)

Randy