A Beautiful Bride - An Informal Shoot

[Harry Lavo]

Well, these aren't formal wedding photographs (although I have done a couple) but are informal photographs taken at my niece's wedding Sept 12th in Lancaster, PA.

Since I was not shooting in any official capacity, I used the occasion to see what I could do with a couple of recently acquired consumer lenses instead of my usual fast primes and zooms. The two lenses were the 18-105VR and the 70-300VR. Both are 3.5/4.5 to 5.6 lenses. These and a lumiquest diffuser over my built-in flash were all I had to work with. It was a rainy day and the ceremony didn't start until 6pm, which made the slow lenses even more of a handicap than I had anticipated.

The bride, my "kid" sister's youngest, was absolutely gorgeous and the shots I present here are focused on her. Although I got a couple of good ones of Mom and Dad thrown in as well.

The first shots were all informal from out-of-the-way places as the wedding party set up for pre-ceremony shots with the professional photographer and assistant who were doing the formal shoot. Notice how useful auto-iso is in such a situation.

#1 Bride and Mother - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/60s f/5.6 at 105.0mm iso500

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#2 Bride and Sister - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/60s f/5.6 at 105.0mm iso280

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#3 Bride herself - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/60s f/6.3 at 105.0mm iso1100

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Then there was the ceremony itself. I was seated behind a woman who was using a P&S and constantly getting in my way, and the professional photographer set up in the aisle to my right and behind me with her telephoto lens, so I couldn't lean out too far so as to block her.

So while I got several decent shots, none of them are drop-dead shots. Here is one near the end of the ceremony to illustrate (notice this is an iso 3200 shot, spot metering, I left the flash off during the ceremony). And of course, the pump-fist finale.

#4 The Ceremony - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/50s f/5.0 at 50.0mm iso3200

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#5 We Are Married, Hallelujah! - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/60s f/5.0 at 35.0mm iso1600

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By the time the wedding party was getting to it's post-ceremony formal shots, it was deep, deep dusk. The official photographer was using flash...I put on the 70-300VR and did not use flash, in order to stay back and out of the way. This was a real test of the 70-300 and I was 3+ stops down and iso3200 for most shots. For the car shot, I switched in my 50/1.4...only time I used a fast lens...but it was still an iso3200 shot even at f/2.2 since it was quite late.

#6 Serene and still lovely - Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR Zoom 1/25s f/7.1 at 145.0mm iso3200

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#7 The Bride, Groom, and his restored Nova SS - Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR Zoom 1/60s f/2.2 at 50.0mm iso3200

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Finally, on the dance floor. I took some shots with flash and some without. This was without, and has some NR applied. But it is the best shot of the reception, in my opinion.

#8 The First-Dance Kiss - Nikon D300 ,18-105 f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF VR DX
1/60s f/5.6 at 105.0mm iso1800

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And as a coda, those who produced the beautiful bride:

#9 Father Jack G. - Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR Zoom 1/80s f/7.1 at 300.0mm iso3200

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#10 Mother and "Kid Sister" Anne Elizabeth - Nikon D300 ,Nikkor 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR Zoom 1/30s f/7.1 at 300.0mm iso3200

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So what did I learn?

a) An 18-105 with VR is no substitue for fast primes or the Tamron 18-50/2.8 at shorter focal lengths.
b) The 70-300VR is a wonderful lens for low-light shooting although with more light I would still have preferred the 80-200 f/2.8.
c) I will never, EVER try to shoot a wedding in the future without the SB-600.

And, oh yes, my beautiful niece is now a beautiful married woman!

Just thought I'd share my experience. Comments and critique are welcome.

 

[mbg914]

Nice Work Harry! Would like to see what the good glass would have produced.

Michael

 

[rdle]

Very good self-critique and comments. All valid.

 

[zahidkm]

i would never go iso 3200 on a Dx body but thats just me. did you run any noise reduction on the grainy images?

 

[silver]

i would never go iso 3200 on a Dx body but thats just me. did you run any noise reduction on the grainy images?

+1, although I have no experience of the d300 and perhaps as new dx cameras come out the high iso will get better,. just looking at these the 3200 I would not class as usable (edit actually looking again it seems to depend on the light, the dance shot at 1800iso looks very noisy - the outside shots of mum + dad at 3200 look a little better and the earlier ceremony at 3200 isn't too bad)

think equipment does help, and there's 2 areas where it really comes into it's own,. high iso and flash,. though if you can use flash then the high iso issue is less important

 

[JustinD]

I think your self critiques are all correct. There's a lot of motion blur in pretty much all of the images, obtrusive noise in most, and at least one missed focus shot (the trees in the background are in focus and the bride and her husband are bokeh'd).

Congrats to your niece!

 

[Gary7770]

They all look soft and noisy to me.

Really wish you had used the fast glass and saved the experiment for someone that wasn't family.

Gary

 

[Harry Lavo]

Nice Work Harry! Would like to see what the good glass would have produced.

Well, Michael, they undoubtably would have been better, as they were at my other nieces wedding where I did much of the formal work. I find using the better glass in addition to isolation helps me focus on settings more....the VR can kind of make you lazy about shutter speed.

Of course having this wedding take place between 6:00 and 7:00pm on a rainy day didn't help.

Very good self-critique and comments. All valid.

Glad you feel that way Roger.

i would never go iso 3200 on a Dx body but thats just me. did you run any noise reduction on the grainy images?

Not on most of them....as I had no intention of printing them larger than 5x7" at 300dpi, and on most of them one really has to strain to see the noise. The dance photo and some others did need treatment, and I actually had to back off the treatment at the expense of some noise on the dance photo.

+1, although I have no experience of the d300 and perhaps as new dx cameras come out the high iso will get better,. just looking at these the 3200 I would not class as usable (edit actually looking again it seems to depend on the light, the dance shot at 1800iso looks very noisy - the outside shots of mum + dad at 3200 look a little better and the earlier ceremony at 3200 isn't too bad)

think equipment does help, and there's 2 areas where it really comes into it's own,. high iso and flash,. though if you can use flash then the high iso issue is less important

Your edit comments are right on; that is how I would rank them as well. But I do not consider any of them "unusable"....I also find it interesting that the noisiest, the dance shot, was done at iso1800, not iso3200. I think the difference is that I cropped this one pretty heavily.

I think your self critiques are all correct. There's a lot of motion blur in pretty much all of the images, obtrusive noise in most, and at least one missed focus shot (the trees in the background are in focus and the bride and her husband are bokeh'd).

Congrats to your niece!

Hiya, Justin. Good to hear from you. I guess one man's "obtrusive" is another's acceptable, at least for 5x7 prints. I do agree that if I were doing this as a professional job where any of these could be requested at 8x10, I might find the noise "obtrusive" or at least noticeable. But I did this as an amateur shoot, and simply wanted to see how VR on sloish lenss performed (or didn't) under real-world circumstances (both VR lenses were new to me).

I am a bit puzzled by your comment of "motion blur" on virtually all of them. I see people movement on two due to too-low shutter speeds, and I see possible slight blur on the car shot (ironically the one without VR). The rest are sharp at the focus point, even when viewed full-frame.

They all look soft and noisy to me.

Really wish you had used the fast glass and saved the experiment for someone that wasn't family.

The family has professional shots as their main source; I figured mine and a cousin on the bride's father's side would be good non-pro shots...we both shot out of the way of the pro photographers....and then of course, tons of P&S shots from various folk. I did not want to carry around a ton of equipment, and just decided to see what I could do "lite". I learned a lot, both pro and con by doing so.

 

[Mattes]

Hello Harry.

As already mentioned, you missed the focus on no. 5 and 6 (woods and tie are sharper than the main subject), and your slow lenses limited you in some way.

But apart from this, your images show a lot of participation and empathy, which often is missing in a professionals work.

I think, your shots are a good addition to the "standard shots" provided by the pro.

Regards

Mattes

 

[Harry Lavo]

Hello Harry.

As already mentioned, you missed the focus on no. 5 and 6 (woods and tie are sharper than the main subject), and your slow lenses limited you in some way.

But apart from this, your images show a lot of participation and empathy, which often is missing in a professionals work.

I think, your shots are a good addition to the "standard shots" provided by the pro.

Regards

Mattes

Thanks, Mattes. I forgot to mention in my response to Justin that indeed the "pump fist" shot (#5) is out of focus....what happened was the couple walked very quickly and I focused on the grooms right shoulder after they turned. By the time the shutter was pressed the focus had shifted to the minister's head (and to the woods behind).

You've got really good eyes for #6. This was originally a shot of bride and groom, but the groom moved his head rapidly, so I cropped only to the bride. The focal point was the grooms left shoulder...and at 146mm / f/7.1 I didn't think the depth of field would throw focus off on her...I don't know whether or not the slight blurring was focus or whether she might have moved slightly (at 1/25ss it wouldn't take much). At any rate, at 5x7" I don't think the softness ruins the picture.