1st time wedding with ambient light (lensrental)

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).

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

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).

Hmm, just my very personal opinion, but for me the stated lenses would be too long, concerning focal length, when shooting indoors as you describe it. As another poster already mentioned, maybe better think about the 35mm f/1.4 or the 23mm f/1.4, these lenses are regarding focal length just more versatile and flexible and still enable nice subject isolation and bokeh.

The main problem with fast lenses: You have a really shallow depth of field when shooting them wide open and it needs good technique to produce then also good images in such low light situations. It's definitely not just point and shoot with such lenses to get the desired results. Even cranking up ISO and shooting wide open you sometimes will also still  struggle to get the desired shutter speed, another factor to take into account.

Flash could be an alternative and solution, but if you have no experience with such style of shooting you will also struggle to produce the desired results.

So my recommendation: Get yourself a fast lens or a flash, whatever feels better for you, go to the wedding and just try. And if it doesn't work out don't worry, there was an official photographer who gets paid to deliver the wedding mages, and you just enjoy the wedding of your sister, a really important day for her and all her family.

Herbert

Paulmorgan 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).

9 times out of 10 low light equals bad light and not even a fast lens will help you,

Pick up a small supplementary flash, something like the Fujifilm EF-20.

I completely agree with this.

If I was a pro wedding photographer I would absolutely want to have a flash for when it’s necessary, but it’s not like you can’t take a decent looking photo indoors without one, I usually prefer the natural “look” you get with the available ambient light despite the loss of some technical IQ and some extra cleanup in post. Go check out the venue ahead of time and see if you can manage at least 1/125” at a reasonable ISO (Fujis are very capable at high ISOs).
I shot these recently (as a guest) and they look just fine to me (preferable to the flash shots the pro got, IMO) This light at this place wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but was still quite poor. I used my trusty X-T2 with the 56 f/1.4 (mostly used around f/2 - f/2.8) and an X100V (23mm). Both worked well, though I probably would have used the 16-55/50-140 if it was important to not miss anything. For a single prime, the 35 f/1.4 would have probably been my go-to, but in a very small venue the 35 can be a little cramped. In this larger space the 56 was actually a bit short for me as I was making an effort to stay out of the way of the hired photographer.

I would rent the 35mm f1.4, set it to f2, shutter speed to 1/125th and go for it.  Let the ISO do it’s own thing.  I think a 50mm/56mm will be too long for a confined space like a restaurant.

I know they say that you should not use black and white conversions to mask noisy pictures but I would set the camera to Acros or B&W and embrace the grain.  It would also give you a repeatable style.  Don’t get hung up on technical details but instead try to capture emotions.

Given that it is this Friday I think that’s your best option.  I would for the future though look at getting a small flash like a Godox 350 (perfect for small cameras), put it into TTL and bounce it off the ceiling or a wall.

I'd consider 35 1.4 instead, the lenses you are thinking of are going to likely be too long most of the time for anything but upper torso portraits in a situation like that, if not too long, you'll have to back up far, but something could be in the way, like a table/other people...

NM, I see you already did that...good choice.