[D4rknezz]

Hey guys,

very noobish question here, but how do I set my camera for taking picture at noon? With wedding reception happening around 10 or 11, invariably you will always take the formal shots outdoor when the sun is the harshest. Every opinion welcome, please also state if you have done weddings...

Challenge setup : Group shot, sun at 11-1pm, hot spot on the bridge of nose for every individual, hot spot on forehead, and hot spot on tip of cheekbones.

Solution 1: Find a shade. (how many of you religiously do this?) What if they really, really, want the particular background.

Solution 2: Photoshop (I have just found out a reasonably exposed shot (Some hot spot, some neutral, some shadows on the face)...i can't recover the overexposed spots. Thats how hot the sun was? )

Solution 3: Create a shade : (How many of you do this?)

Solution 4: Refuse to shoot

Solution 5: Shoot, chalk terrible formal photos as part of wedding, make it up with better pictures in the next few hours....formal photos are not shown in blogs and facebook anyway.

Solution 6: Fight the sun. decisions to be made:
- Metering mode at spot : Do i try and meter the hot spot? If i can do that (given that the hot spot is very tiny) - it will underexpose the whole face. Worse, in the bright sunlight reviewing my shots will be tricky to see how underexposed they are. Sure, there is a graph, but can't see if the shots are in focus. Metering the underexposed areas seems to be a bad decision.
- Metering mode at centre weighted: What does this do, exactly for this particular situation? As i focus on the bride's eyes, it will probably meter her face and areas around her head and comes back as a bright scene, therefore underexposing the whole area.
- Metering mode at whole scene: This may get the whole group underexposed.

Solution 7: Flash fill.
- Will this help solve the issue? can it overpower the sun? How many always do this? How do you meter for this? Any compensation?

These issues makes me not wanna take pictures at noon. My inclination is to buy a sunbounce. But you'd need a help to carry it around.

Any sharing of experience...would be appreciated

[JinDesu]

Noon sun, white bride's dress, and black groom's suit... you are seriously fighting the world here!

And if you are shooting by yourself......

[D4rknezz]

Noon sun, white bride's dress, and black groom's suit... you are seriously fighting the world here!

And if you are shooting by yourself......

Yes....I was. I am used to studio, and I feel like..the perfect world for me would be to have :

- 2nd shooter halving the time of finding a good exposure setting for the group.
- 2nd shooter helping find a shade
- 2nd shooter helping with opinion and backup images
- 2 helpers with either portable strobes to overpower the sun , OR,
- 2 helpers with 6'x6' sunbounce each.

And then I realized most wedding shooters either work alone, or have a second shooter only. They dont carry portable strobes, they dont carry sunbounce.
And then I also realized I dont usually see formal group shots in their blog postings..or if i do, it looks like they are in the shade.

The question is, Are they in the shade, did they create the shade, did they fight the sun, or did they work with post processing?

So how do they do this...get crappy shots and chalk it for a loss...10-15 shots out of the 200 in the day, or they know something else I havent taken into account yet.

[dominikkolendo]

i think its obvious but remember:
if you're in flash distance use it for any outdoor portraits so folks don't look like zombies with dark spots under their eyes.
the only thing the bride ultimately cares about is how pretty she looks in the photo, not how "good" the photo itself is.

[Gareth.Ig]

Advice from one noob to another so take it for what it is. I say Solution 1 & 7 combined. Put them in shade and hit them with flash. It keeps them from squinting in the sun and as long as your flash is strong enough allows you to balance the exposure of the group and the background and you get a nice sunlit look to the photos. You probably want to play with that ahead of time though as you don't want to have to do too much experimenting on the day of.

I'd also visit the shoot location and pick out the best spots ahead of time.

[Gareth.Ig]

And I don't see why a couple of off camera flashes would be a big deal to have with you. If you've got it use it.

[Kerrowdown]

Think I'd be praying for an overcast cloudy day that way you get the biggest diffuser there is.

[D4rknezz]

@Kerrowdown hahaha...its heat wave after heat wave here.....

@Gareth yeah -i need to figure out my transport method. I had 2 bag each with its own camera, and a tripod, and a flash, and a lightstand...was really wieldy and at the end they stayed in the car.

@dominikkolendo thanks - ya, sometimes i forget this.

Any other opinion or experience welcome.