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BackInTheGame

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Hope you don't mind the shout-out. Waiting for my wedding photography book, I have been studying flash. My experience is that of the average shooter who rarely uses flash. I have used off-camera for macros, but that is pretty much the limit of my adventurism.

There is so much good stuff on the web I am amazed. There is info on what to do with myriad background situations and different sized venues. Wow. A person could sink a lot of money into this stuff.

I have an SB900. I would like to have a couple of SB600s or 700s, and I think I would like a couple of soft boxes that would not fill my CRV to the rafters. I think I would like to take my grandson to the wedding venue a day or two early (he is going to be my helper). I can use him to test some things.

Something I have wondered about is LED lighting. Have you used that stuff, and does it have advantages? I don't know that I will find as much help on the web using LED as I do using direct flash and soft boxes.

I have read enough to know that lighting is the number one concern for me, as far as equipment is concerned. I decided on the D7100 for a backup. Beyond the wedding, it has more uses for me than a D600. My D800E is going to carry the burden at the wedding, and the D7100 with a softer shutter is going to be my candid camera. I bought a D5100 for my grandson a while back, and he is getting pretty handy with it. He will get to use the D7100 at the wedding a little, but he really likes to get his hands on the big camera when I'm not looking.

I have ordered all the high speed memory I will need, and I think I am good on lenses. My 70-200, 85mm 1.8G, and my 150mm f2.8 are going to handle much of the load. I have the 50mm 1.4G, the 35mm 1.8G and a 16-28mm f2.8 that should serve well on both cameras. I think my primary concern now for equipment is the right kind of light. I will travel to Phoenix in my CRV, and I might need to carry one or two family members. It will be tight, but I can ship some of the stuff ahead (not the cameras and lenses).

edit: the wedding will be in the h9ome of the bride's parents, and I will learn what I can about it. Might need to fly out there for a couple of days to study. This wedding is going to be expensive for me, I think.

--
Roy
 
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I'm not eNo but best of luck on your endeavor. Sounds like you have enough to be concerned about to worry about adding another lighting strategy with LED. They can work but I'm not crazy about them for weddings. If you master the flash adjustments and learn how to dial in the perfect fill light on your guns, you'll be good. Don't over-think bringing/setting up too much lighting gear, keep it simple, focus on the action, your settings and have a good time.

glo
 
Thanks very much. I worded the title wrong because obviously I will need all the input I can get. You are probably right about LED perhaps overloading this horse.
 
I should have said so in the title. Otherwise a PM would have been enough.
 
I shoot weddings and only use LED lights selectively. I reserve such use for the bride and groom romantic/dramatic shots. I use a cheap cn-126 LED light that you can buy off of amazon. This is not done often but just for some "different look" shots. The issue with led lights are that to make them effective, you need them to be increased in brightness which means you are kind of blinding your subject with them and this why they work better when you can use them sparingly and when your subject is not looking directly at them. You can also run into color balance issues with different units so a grey card is usually needed. I dont suggest you throw them into the mix. Just use flash.

Btw, I ordered that book on eno's recommendation also. I have been shooting a long time but still love reading books on the subject. I am always willing to learn new things. I am almost half way in and I think it is a great book. You should be able to get a lot of helpful advice from it.
 
OK, in brief:
  • For flash, during a wedding reception, one flash on camera (bounced, always!) in TTL mode as commander, 2 flashes strategically placed around the dance floor controlled with Manual power (virtual constant light spot lights) triggered from my on-camera flash. Yes (groan!) I use CLS/AWL for triggering, but will eventually invest in a radio trigger setup that let me do the same thing (not cheaply, though). Go to the Strobist site for some great tips.
  • Based on what I'm seeing (banding), I wouldn't want to trust a D7100 for weddings. I know those are extreme examples, avoidable through proper or close-enough exposure, but my D7000 wedding experience was mixed on the IQ (reds for skin tones) side, so I'm a bit leary of DX sensor that keep pushing the MP at this point. I'd really council you to go all FX for weddings, especially when you add the consideration of shallow DOF for those dreamy backgrounds.
  • Lenses: experiment a bit, but in my experience, less is more. 70-200 f2.8, 85 f1.4, 50 f1.4 and 17-35 f2.8 are my go-to lenses now. I have other great lenses -- 24-70 f2.8, 105 f2.0DC, 135 f2.0DC and even the 28 f1.8G, but those tend to stay home. The other lense I do carry for detail shots is my trusty manual 55 f2.8 AIS micro.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Los Angeles wedding photography that seeks the heart and spirit in each image
 
Thanks for the input. My choice of the D7100 is more about telephoto than weddings. I really like the D7000, except the AF system was a bit weak compared to the D700. I expect the D7100 to be much better, but we all know about expectations, don't we.

Since the wedding will be in Arizona I expect a lot of outdoor daytime, running to indoors and outdoors in the evening. The D7100 will be for candid shots, and for just in case. But the D800E will be used for everything possible. I have done a lot of available light shooting with it, and frankly, I have never taken better photos. I once thought the D700 was as good as it gets or ever would get, but a D800E is a whole other world. File size means nothing when you get what you get from that thing.

So I really am depending on FX, but only from one camera. I just don't see a use for the D600 beyond the wedding, and I hate to buy it just for that. And I can see instances where a DX sensor might be handy, perhaps with the 85mm lens or the 70-200. I don't really know what to expect, but if distance changes happen fairly quickly, a little reach could be handy. And if it is paired with the 16-28 I can see where that might be handy as well. But I don't know any of this. Just trying to guess with it while buying a backup that I can use as a primary for wildlife and sports. The D800E is a cropper's dream camera, but nothing beats a filled frame.
 
is whether the D7100 and D800 color rendition will be close enough so you can't tell which picture came from which. This becomes an issue if you take photos of the same/similar subject under the same lighting (as might happen during the ceremony) with both cameras. The D7000 and D700 did not match up well for me, while the D600 and D700 seem to be nearly equal in color rendition. Can't 100% speak for the D800 vs. D7100 vs. D600, but I think the FX sensors will be closer in color profile. YMMV.
 
The last thing to worry about is matching the D800 color with D7100. How hard can that be. Plus you can hardly tell any difference between the two. I can mimic D800 files to match Canon files easily.
 
amobi said:
amobi wrote:

The last thing to worry about is matching the D800 color with D7100. How hard can that be.
Click to expand...
Ha! You haven't lived until you've tried matching color between two sensors of different technology. My first foray into this came with the D80 vs. D90. The D7000 and D700 were brutally dissimilar. It can be very hard, actually. Hopefully that's not the case between the D800 and D7100.
 
eNo said:
eNo wrote:

is whether the D7100 and D800 color rendition will be close enough so you can't tell which picture came from which. This becomes an issue if you take photos of the same/similar subject under the same lighting (as might happen during the ceremony) with both cameras. The D7000 and D700 did not match up well for me, while the D600 and D700 seem to be nearly equal in color rendition. Can't 100% speak for the D800 vs. D7100 vs. D600, but I think the FX sensors will be closer in color profile. YMMV.
Click to expand...
 
I shoot both d800E (primary) and D7100 (backup or 2nd cam). Assuming one gets the WB correct and is using a raw converter mature enough to do the conversions properly (in my case, NX2), you shouldn't have much of an issue getting similar color.

I agree the d700 vs d7000 was a huge difference - never could get d7000 files to be anywhere as nice as d700 files. Key is it's easier if you're using two cameras from roughly similar generations as Nikon does try to keep things somewhat constant within each roughly similar generation. The d700 and D7000 were a couple generations apart...

-m
 
eNo said:
eNo wrote:
eNo said:
amobi wrote:

The last thing to worry about is matching the D800 color with D7100. How hard can that be.
Click to expand...
Ha! You haven't lived until you've tried matching color between two sensors of different technology. My first foray into this came with the D80 vs. D90. The D7000 and D700 were brutally dissimilar. It can be very hard, actually. Hopefully that's not the case between the D800 and D7100.
Click to expand...
 
anotherMike said:
anotherMike wrote:

I shoot both d800E (primary) and D7100 (backup or 2nd cam). Assuming one gets the WB correct and is using a raw converter mature enough to do the conversions properly (in my case, NX2), you shouldn't have much of an issue getting similar color.
Click to expand...
That's very good to hear. No idea why Nikon (or Sony) went so far off the mark with the D7000. As much as I loved it when shooting it by itself, it wasn't a good partner to any camera other than itself! That and my D80 vs. D90 experience really left me very queezy about shooting different cameras for the same shoot.
 
Member said:
BackInTheGame wrote:
Member said:
eNo wrote:

is whether the D7100 and D800 color rendition will be close enough so you can't tell which picture came from which. This becomes an issue if you take photos of the same/similar subject under the same lighting (as might happen during the ceremony) with both cameras. The D7000 and D700 did not match up well for me, while the D600 and D700 seem to be nearly equal in color rendition. Can't 100% speak for the D800 vs. D7100 vs. D600, but I think the FX sensors will be closer in color profile. YMMV.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
My guess is that Nikon every once in a while re-evaluates what they want "their" color to look like. The D3/D700 generation had pretty hefty response on the red channel compared to what came later. Great for those who knew how to expose properly, but also led perhaps to some of the "blown red channel" complaints. The red channel response got scaled back with the 7000 and current generation sensors, it appears. Won't be surprised if a D5 / D900 / D8100 or whatever it might be in a few years changes the game again.

-m
 
eNo wrote:

OK, in brief:
eNo said:
  • For flash, during a wedding reception, one flash on camera (bounced, always!) in TTL mode as commander, 2 flashes strategically placed around the dance floor controlled with Manual power (virtual constant light spot lights) triggered from my on-camera flash. Yes (groan!) I use CLS/AWL for triggering, but will eventually invest in a radio trigger setup that let me do the same thing (not cheaply, though). Go to the Strobist site for some great tips.
Click to expand...












This is a recipe for disaster, buy one tt1 mini for camera & 2 tt5's for remotes, run commander mode from on camera flash as usual. Done no more BS IR.
 
Hey, eNo;

I was fooling around yesterday with color, and I got a couple of photos that show the problem I have with bounce. It is easily corrected in this case, but you can see the great difference the simple ivory color of the patio roof has on flash compared to direct flash, and I have a lot of trouble predicting this stuff if there is more than one color of surface that will bounce the flash. Direct flash is like piped-in outdoor light, and for me it is much easier to deal with usually. But as I said, I don't use it very often. The actual color for this patio scene is actually something in between the two images here.

Shaun_Nyc mentioned something I have been looking at, but that pocket wizard stuff is super expensive. Still, it would be nice. I think I will look around for used. But when I have a bright white ceiling, I like bounce as well.

Direct flash







Bounced flash



 
Personally, I actually prefer that 2nd photo. It's warmer and softer. Yes, if you're bouncing against a bright red or glaring blue wall, that's not so good. But lighter shades of cream, white or even brown do OK. If you want the color of the first shot, in PP, use the eye-dropper WB tool (in NX or LR) on the white section of that pillow, or for bullet proof results, insert a reference card in a reference photo, and use that to reset the white balance on the real photo (w/o the card).

Going back to bounced flash against non-pure white walls or ceilings, I mostly find that it gives a more natural "in the room" feeling, and if done with the right balance, it looks like room light rather than flash. BTW, gelling the flash may also help. CTO/Orange in a room with incandescent light works nicely, though you do lose some flash power (or have to boost flash power, eating up more batteries).
 
eNo said:
eNo wrote:

Personally, I actually prefer that 2nd photo. It's warmer and softer. Yes, if you're bouncing against a bright red or glaring blue wall, that's not so good. But lighter shades of cream, white or even brown do OK. If you want the color of the first shot, in PP, use the eye-dropper WB tool (in NX or LR) on the white section of that pillow, or for bullet proof results, insert a reference card in a reference photo, and use that to reset the white balance on the real photo (w/o the card).

Going back to bounced flash against non-pure white walls or ceilings, I mostly find that it gives a more natural "in the room" feeling, and if done with the right balance, it looks like room light rather than flash. BTW, gelling the flash may also help. CTO/Orange in a room with incandescent light works nicely, though you do lose some flash power (or have to boost flash power, eating up more batteries).
Click to expand...
 
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