EOS 5D3 - shooting first wedding on Saturday

[nikosap]

I´m not sure but I think you have to overexposure your pictures

"change to Av with +2/3 or +1 stop EC"

[kaihp]

Thank you.  You must shoot to the right.

What do you mean by shooting to the right?

"Expose to the right", meaning that you should try to expose as close to maximum, without getting (large) burnouts. This is the area which is to the right in the histogram when you chimp.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

[cpsico]

1. Shoot raw
2.watch for expression
3. Yes ettl can under expose a bride shot by herself, but a bride and groom right next to each other will be fine. For just shooting bride dial just the flash up one stop, use spot meter and preflash off dress with back button, you will need to preflash every time you check picture. I have autoplay set to off and only chimp when I need too.
4. Do not use auto ISO, practice before hand with settings and ISO
5. A tripod is a must for formal pictures in church after ceremony.
6. Have an assistant to help you

[Scott_McPhee]

So - I should shoot +1 stop over for all shots?
(And not blow the highlights!)

[bdunbar79]

So - I should shoot +1 stop over for all shots?
(And not blow the highlights!)

Most of them.  Just watch your flash, fill flash, I usually set negative FEC on those, but still slightly overexpose for the ambient light.  If you're not using flash, I'd shoot right, yes.  Experiment before you go.  You'll quickly see what we mean.  Practice on white shirts.

[prestonpalmer]

Hey Scott,

Let us know how it goes!  Have you considered an apprentice program for more specific wedding training?

http://www.brovadoweddings.com/blog/photography-apprentice/

[cpsico]

So - I should shoot +1 stop over for all shots?
(And not blow the highlights!)

No only for the bride by herself, and only if you spot meter off the dress, if you shoot in only raw you will be able to correct any exposure issues

[brianleighty]

I shot my first wedding a few weeks ago.  Had a 5d3 which I used a 24-105L and the 70-200mm 2.8 ii time most of the time.  2nd camera was a 60D with the 10-22mm on it for group shots and 60 mm macro for detail shots.  Also had a 50mm f1.4 for when I had to use ambient indoors.  Usable shots on the 60d only went up to about iso 3200, noisy even then.  Had a number of useful shots as high as 25600 ISo on the 5d3, but had to use Nik DFine to noise reduce most shots above 10000 iso.

The 580exii was in the shoe most of the time.  I gelled with a 1/2 Cts because when I scouted the location it was a dark interior lit with only incadescents. The gel stayed on during out door shots.  Added a nice warming when I dialed back with FEC.  I would ditch the lightsphere and go with a Rogue lightbender.  More versatile IMO. Great for bounce, flagging, and quick snoot.

I tried shooting mostly in manual, but dropped that quickly as there was just too much happening most of the time.  Went back to manual for tricky shots, but mostly went Av with auto iso and used flash with FEC. 

I learned the hard way to take a little more time chimping.  Had some nasty tree branches in the background of many of my group shots.  Had to spend a LOT of time in post getting rid of them.  I was more focused on setting up the groups and dealing with dappled light near the edge of the shade.

MarkB, does the 5D Mark iii let you do auto iso when you're using a flash? That's one feature I'd love to have both my 5D mark ii and 50D immediately go to ISO 400 if they detect you have an external flash.

[bdunbar79]

So - I should shoot +1 stop over for all shots?
(And not blow the highlights!)

No only for the bride by herself, and only if you spot meter off the dress, if you shoot in only raw you will be able to correct any exposure issues

Your statement is correct.

It's not too easy fixing a gray dress in photoshop or LR.  Better to get the color correct.  I just meter for the scene, then dial in about +1.7EC.  You can practice this beforehand on a white shirt.  Auto ISO will get it gray.  I'd rather fix overexposed background than a gray dress, which cpsico is getting at.  I'd be careful not to blow the highlight on the face out of course, but if her face is brighter than her dress, then you're probably in the wrong lighting anyways. 

[Jamesy]

MarkB, does the 5D Mark iii let you do auto iso when you're using a flash? That's one feature I'd love to have both my 5D mark ii and 50D immediately go to ISO 400 if they detect you have an external flash.

My experience with AutoISO and my 580EXII's is the %d3 stays at 400 ISO when in AutoISO mode.

[Scott_McPhee]

Auto ISO is good for me as its one less thing to worry about on the day.
I can shoot indoors without flash and not worry about shutter speed settings.

Any of you guys had problems with flash lens shadow shooting with the 24-70 f2.8L or 70-200mm f2.8L?

Lens hood on or off when using these?

[MarkB]

My experience is that the auto iso locks at 400 when the flash is attached.  I put 400-1600 when I posted earlier because I thought you could set it to that, but I haven't figured that out yet.  This stinks IMO.  I forgot to go manual with the iso and lost some shots.

[Jamesy]

My experience is that the auto iso locks at 400 when the flash is attached.  I put 400-1600 when I posted earlier because I thought you could set it to that, but I haven't figured that out yet.  This stinks IMO.  I forgot to go manual with the iso and lost some shots.

Cool - I thought I was missing something. I think it locks at 400 - I wish they would add more latitude in that regard - it would be easy as a firmware update.

[rhommel]

The larger issue is pattern noise. It starts to show up at 6400 on the Mk II, and it's dominant at 12800. It's pretty much unfixable at that point, short of heavy duty NR software. That's where I get my "speed limit" from. Noise doesn't bother me, as long as it's random or appears so. If it looks like film, or can be made to look like film, I'm fine with it.

Others will have a lower tolerance. I suspect most of them never shot high speed photographic film like I have.

12,800 is still usable... I think

following photos were taken at ISO 12,800 with 5D3...

[Brendon]

The larger issue is pattern noise. It starts to show up at 6400 on the Mk II, and it's dominant at 12800. It's pretty much unfixable at that point, short of heavy duty NR software. That's where I get my "speed limit" from. Noise doesn't bother me, as long as it's random or appears so. If it looks like film, or can be made to look like film, I'm fine with it.

Others will have a lower tolerance. I suspect most of them never shot high speed photographic film like I have.

12,800 is still usable... I think

following photos were taken at ISO 12,800 with 5D3...

rhommel - What NR software did you use?  Did you purposely desaturated and reduce contrast?  Might be the crappy monitor I'm using right now too!  I personally (not be critical just backing up my point below) would have pulled the exposure up a bit on the top image.  This gets very iffy if you shoot at 12800.

I shot my first wedding with the 5Diii two weeks ago and found that 3200 was my comfortable limit because with flash and low light photography I find the need to pull the exposure and shadows up on a regular basis.  You could argue that this is my fault and I should be exposing farther the to right but shooting manual and trying to keep the camera ready to swing around to any angle in the reception hall keeps me from pushing things too far on the manual settings.  If you clip highlights, they are gone and that can happen easily at these ISOs and the changing lighting from the DJ's and videographers.  Don't get me wrong, I shot a decent number of 6400 shots of people dancing so that I could speed up the shutting but keep the background bright but these shots tend to be forgiving in the sense that they have a lot of variation in them (light and dark).  I would hold important shots like the first dance and cake cutting to 3200 and below to make sure that you can recover a little in post. 

The fact that Auto ISO locks the camera at 400 when a flash is turned on is a death nail in my opinion.  Personally, I like flash subjects to balance more with the background which usually means ISO 1600 and up for wedding receptions.  Lots of manual set remote flashes can get the background exposure up as well but that is very dependent on the venue and how many flashes and flash stands you can afford!