On Jun 30, 2012, at 5:31 PM, Larry Colen wrote: > Three weeks ago, a friend asked if I could videotape his wedding, and get > some photos. We had met a few months ago at the memorial for a mutual > friend, the one in "One eyed Jack" in the annual. I said I would, warned him > that I'd never photographed a wedding, apart from one when I was in high > school, and refused offers of money. > > Before the ceremony, I got some greycard shots, put the 16-50 on the K-5 and > the 77 on the K-x. I set up my camcorder at what seemed like a reasonable > location, and once things got started realized there wasn't much more I could > do with the camcorder. In retrospect, I should have asked John's widow if I > could borrow his 5DmkII, I also probably should have set the camcorder up in > a back corner of the alter so it would have seen the faces of the couple > rather than the face of Father Jeff. If I were to do weddings for a living, > I'd invest in a few of those "go" video cameras, which are small enough that > they could be strategically placed in bouquets to unobtrusively get much > better angles of the ceremony. > > Other things that I learned: > The K-x is not the camera for shooting weddings, there is no way of telling > what it's focusing on. I lost several fairly important shots that way. The > K-5 is close to good enough, but not quite there.
Selective single spot focus or manual focus are your only reliable ways to work here. Manual is best if your eyes are good enough. Mine used to be. But single spot can work well. Multi-point focus is out of the question with any camera for this type o work. Your trusting the camera to guess correctly. I wouldn't do that with a Nikon 800. > The 16-50 is a bit too wide for shooting the ceremony. Two cameras are required. When I was shooting weddings, I mounted the 16-50 on one body and the 50-200 on the other. Didn't have the 60-250 then, but that would be my second lens now. > The wedding couple had even less experience getting married than I had > photographing weddings. > The ceremony started without my getting any warning. > > The long and the short of it, I got some decent photos, but weddings are not > the sort of photography that I do my best at. I do much better at the method > of successive approximations, trying things until I get them right, rather > than fast paced, don't miss the moment, even without warning, photography. > > After the ceremony and reception, the groom asked the best man and I to kill > some time with the bridesmaids, two from Colorado, one from St. Petersburg, > so that the happy couple could "have a little bit of time alone". The > initial thought was touristy stuff in Monterey, but we ended up heading down > to Big Sur instead. I spent my afternoon in "Big Sur with three Russian > bridesmaids" sounds a lot more interesting than "I spent the afternoon in the > back seat of another guys Prius while we schlepped some tourists around". > > It's going to be a while until I get through all 1200 or so shots from > yesterday. Apart from the obligatory ceremony, reception and posed photos, > there are actually a few things in Big Sur worth taking pictures of. I did a > quick pass through the pictures from the ceremony so that they won't have to > wait two weeks until things settle down for me again. > > http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157630360497840/ > > -- > Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est > > > > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
