1st time wedding with ambient light (lensrental)

Woutorius wrote:

BDevils wrote:

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).

Learn how to bounce flash either on camera or off. You don’t need a f/1.0 to get shots in low light.

Thanks for mentioning. I actually considered this option, but have not enough experience with flash (and no time to learn anymore). Also (if there are other options) I don't enjoy a flash at an elegant diner, were my pictures are just as a bonus.

I totally get it being only like a day away so you probably can’t get ahold of a cheap flash on such short notice unless you got an awesome camera shop nearby.

However, if you ever get some spare change, you can get a cheap flash from Amazon like Neewer. Bouncing flash is actually a lot easier than it looks. Once you get your camera set, you just need to point it at a wall or ceiling and adjust the flash power. Direct flash can be used too but it doesn’t give the best looking results imo.  I believe the X-T20 has a pop up flash so don’t be afraid to use that.

The only real option in your situation is to open your aperture wide, set your shutter to like 1/125th or 1/160th and rely on your ISO to get you where you need to go. Lower than 1/100th and you’ll probably get some motion blur if they are moving. The f/2.8 on the wider end of your zoom may be able to get you by. If you don’t like how noisy the image gets, just shoot it in b&w.