[Scorpio71GR]

When I was still doing weddings I took two camera bodies, a flash, and three lenses. The DA*16-50, DA*50-135, and the DA*55. With those I had everything I needed. I always went to the place where the wedding was happening at least a day early. I wanted to know what the lighting was going to be like and what kind of torture I was in for. Some churches allow flashes, others do not. I also wanted to scout out the best shooting angles. I would try and talk the minister or whoever was conducting the wedding if possible to get an idea of the ceremony. Going to the rehearsal is a major plus as your can get a real idea of what will be occurring. Extra batteries are an absolute must. For the K50 I would get the battery adapter and use AA batteries instead. The K50 battery does not last that long. If you wanted an all in one lens to do it all the DFA 28-105 would be my choice.

[BruceBanner]

Somebody I know did a wedding as a favor for a friend. She took exactly one camera body with one battery. Nothing went horribly wrong, but she had a big moment when the battery started to die. Luckily the service was still on and she was able to charge enough juice back into the battery to continue shooting after the service. It could have gone very pear shaped, that was a a lucky escape.

Heh... that just sounds incredibly naive or dumb, one battery, one camera... good lord

[Jim Dandy]

Greetings all - Mission Complete! Friends still friends, wife still talks to me and I learned a LOT. May even put to use another time... Advice on the forum was a great starting point to delve deeper and I undertook a cram course in gear, techniques and practice. Shot with 3 cameras - wife took the Canon with kit lens, a TTL flash and modifier to get the bride prep shots, misc stuff and reaction shots. I used two Pentax bodies with zoom lenses to shoot details, groom prep, the venue, the ceremony and reception. Fast prime for the formals. Lighting was late afternoon with harsh sun/shadow/streaking through tall trees.


I scouted location 3 times and done test shots with full setup the last 2 trips, using wife and friends as stand-ins. I opted to place the formals with their back to the sun and light with high speed sync flashes on stands with wide open aperature. I used various softboxes, umbrellas and such until I found placement and combinations I liked and then set that up for the actual event. Cactus RF60X flashes and Cactus V6ii triggers worked flawlessly with K50 and K3 and were easy to control flash power from the transmitter mounted on the camera. The Cactus flashes don't need a separate trigger and support HSS or standard sync on the fly. Used second V6ii trigger as a receiver with Shanny TTL/HSS flash (Pentax) to get a 3rd flash when needed. The Shanny worked well as on-camera flash in TTL mode for other shots and worked well with the receiver for HSS. Don't think the power control from the trigger had any effect on the Shanny though - I set that flash power manually on a separate group just in case.


The ESDDI ETTL flash for the Canon supports HSS and master/slave modes and even comes with a 2.4G trigger for off-camera use. Planned on piggybacking the ESDDI trigger onto the Cactus transmitter to get a 4th flash/backup if needed but the ESDDI does not seem to support HSS in slave mode. Could get standard sync to work from the piggyback trigger setup and manual indicates HSS available in slave mode but no such luck. Will have to play around more to test all the variations and limitations of hss and standard sync with the Cactus V6 (only does standard sync and will only talk to the V6ii units with the correct (not latest) firmware installed), V6ii and flashes. Lesson learned is that although cross-compatibility is possible, there are lots of variables and quirks and it takes lots of research to narrow down the purchases that MIGHT work. After purchase, even more digging into the troubleshooting and FAQ to see why things aren't going as planned. Single manufacturer across line simplifies the setup but there are still issues and in my price range, I could not find all the options I wanted in one brand.


I really liked the effect I was able to achieve with HSS and fast glass - both to control the background and to get better subject lighting. Another benefit is that shooting Raw and processing through LR, the shadow and highlight sliders effectively handle background and foreground separately. The background responds to the shadow slider with little effect on the subject and the highlight slider deals with the subject with little effect on background. The areas needing the opposite touch worked well with the adjustment brush to selectively mask and adjust shadows on faces or bright areas in the background. Only a few photos needed more extensive work in PS and most of those were for other issues - closed eyes in a group of 12 with 11 people smiling and wide-eyed. Fortunately I had enough shots to do some selective editing.

Lots of other lessons learned, but the key takeaways for me are having an assistant, being flexible and being ready for challenging lighting. Lenses worked great to get the shot but sometimes the light made results unusable to salvageable to okay. Took LOTS of shots so was able to put together a complete event for them and even have some wall-hangers in there too. But, I would like to up my keep ratio and know where I need to put my practice time.


Thanks again for all the advice and encouragement. If I can provide any from I have learned I am happy to pass on. Cheers and good shooting!

[Jim Dandy]

Reference shot to get HSS exposure. Used Tav setting to get baseline of natural lighting at wide open, ISO 100. In mixed shade so set WB in LR to "shade" and "auto" for any adjustments. Room for better post but was a lighting check. 2nd shot is with same f and ISO but adjusted shutter for exposure with HSS. Still testing at this point but proof of concept working so I moved on to other tasks and came back another day for more shots with full gear setup.

Attached Images

   

---

Last edited by Jim Dandy; 07-29-2018 at 09:42 PM. Reason: add text

[BruceBanner]

Not bad, imo it's slightly overkill, bring ambience up a tad and bring flash power down, but a lot of that could be fixed in post.

[LensBeginner]

Very nice!

[Wasp]

Excellent work!

[Jim Dandy]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! My lovely assistant has been modeling different setups for me to practice and I really like the HSS possibilities. Recruited some other folks and have some scouted locations to try the next level of shoot. In line with what Bruce was talking about, LR makes adjusting fore and background easy with the shadow (does the background really well) and highlight sliders (subject) with very good separation of the two. A little LR masking as needed to fix face shadows and it is much easier to get the look than doing a mask in PS and applying blur and adjusting levels, etc. Just like the darkroom days, the more done in camera, the easier the final look is achieved. Hate when people are right like that...

[beachgardener]

G'day mate and welcome to the forum

fast 35, 50 and 77

[victormeldrew]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

[VoiceOfReason]

Hi and welcome! Stick with f/2.8 zooms and you'll have weddings covered.