1st time wedding with ambient light (lensrental)

Woutorius wrote:

Hi All,

I am an amateur photographer (mostly on holidays or occasionally with friends). Friday is my sister's wedding where she asked me to take some photos (after the official photographer left, so no pressure for perfect shots) of the dinner courses, people and anything I like. The scene is indoors (restaurant) with ambient lighting in the evening.

I can use my iPhone 11 or camera x-t20 (she doesn't care) but iPhone is of course my last/backup resort. Normally I would use my xf 18-55 but would like it to try out something new & better and consider to rent the xf 50 1.0 or xf 56 1.2 (slightly favoring the xf 50 1.0 due to faster AF). However I have minimal experience in low light, or with prime lenses.

Do you have any suggestions or tips how to handle this best / which lens is the better one (if any of those two)? I am also doubting if the focus area will be to small (just a couple of cm) although I am looking forward to the bokeh, not sure how this works out in practice. I mainly want a couple of cool pics, shooting a couple of times for a few minutes and mainly enjoy the party (non shooting).

Spray and pray may be your friend!!!

If I were you, I would: set your drive to CL Low Speed Burst; don't be afraid to crank up the ISO (the noise will add to the atmosphere); get up fairly close - long shots are no fun!; if you're shooting people sitting at table, try and get your camera more to their eye level; ask your subjects to strike a pose (i.e. keep a bit still) - and insist that any motion blur and out-of-focus areas are all part of your art!

As you say, you're not the main wedding photographer, so have some fun!

ps try and practice with your rented lens the day/night before and look at the results on your computer