RAW can help a little when you blow the whites, but probably not enough. You really want to have the camera's display set to show blinking hightlights so you can adjust on the spot. Keep the dress, and you can pull up the tuxedos later. By the way, especially if you use RAW format, you'll want many many more gigs of memory than you ever expected. While you're at it, bring a bunch more batteries, too.
Churches often have spot lights on the stage resulting in very heavy contrast between the center of the stage and the edges. One church I know of actually goes out of their way to make sure the bride 'pops' on the stage. It looks nice to us humans but the camera sees a big bright patch surrounded by a dark void. Another issue would be mixed lighting. If you adjust for the room lights then the sun lit areas go blue. If you adjust for the sun light areas then the room lit areas go yellow. Try auto white balance, especially if you will be moving around a lot. One aspect of wedding photography you probably haven't experienced yet with this trial run is the posing problem. 16 people are standing on the stage staring at you and wondering what to do. Four more are wandering around somewhere nearby. There are two levels of steps, four kids, three ushers, a few greeters, some flower arrangements, the wedding party, and you have to arrange them all. You DO like public speaking, right???? How about doing people sized jig-saw puzzles? With a time crunch. Despite all the work, it always seems like you missed something obvious, afterwards. A head is too far over, feet are not pointed the right way, someone's hand is stickout out over a shoulder, etc. Brian -- Brian Dunn Photographic http://www.bdphotographic.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
