Well, the wedding went well, different, but ok. For a
couple moments I was thinking that there were banjos
playing in the background. A few members of the
extended family were a bit odd, but at least,
collectively, they possessed a reasonable quantity of
teeth. This was a different wedding, but the people
weren't as strange as some I've photographed.
I shot two rolls of 36 exposure Portra 160NC in the
IS-3 and two rolls of 120 T400CN in the Mamiya. It
was a very clear day and HOT! We made use of the
shade as much as possible for photographs, but being
an outdoor wedding we were very much at the mercy of
the climate. The minister made me take my tie off and
I didn't argue with him. After all, I was the only
one dressed beyond blue-jeans and shorts.
My nicads died an early death in the G40. I think I
have a cell that shorted out. I used "fill-flash"
during some of the portraits, but primary fill
lighting was my large white umbrella reflecting
sunlight back into the shadows. The pond and horses
made good natural backgrounds and there was a couple
decent trees to use for props.
One shot was really neet of the couple. I got them in
the standard "hold" pose with a couple horses
nose-to-nose in the background.
For this wedding the 35-180 zoom of the IS-3 was
wonderful and I used the lens extensively at either
the 35mm point or in the 150-180mm range. It was so
bright yesterday that it was difficult to get a decent
bokah without extending all the way to 180mm. The
Mamiya had the 100mm lens on it (normal for 6x7) and I
gave plenty of crop room around the subject. My
exposures were all over the place, given the open
shade situation, and I'm very glad I was using T400CN
with its extremely wide latitude.
Something that worked against me yesterday was the
"sun-bake-factor" where your braincells are cooked
beyond the ability to think your way through proper
exposures. I ended up putting the IS-3 on program
mode with fill-flash turned on (using built in flash)
and just guestimating the exposure with the Mamiya. I
did have the OMs packed in the jeep just in case, but
didn't need them.
This was the first wedding I've photographed where I
felt that I was completely out-of-sync with exposures.
Last year when I was phtographing for another company
I used their Canon A2 cameras and hated the fact that
there was so little "control" or even "mental/visual"
confirmation of proper exposure. I'm so used to the
"analog" style metering display in the OM-2S that it
is completely second nature to set aperatures for
ambient/flash exposures. The IS-3 with the
"modern/standard" digital display is not as intuitive
and requires "reading" the display instead of just
seeing the position of the bargraph.
I was very much aware that my braincells had ceased to
properly function so I had enough wits about me to put
things in program mode and let the computer bits
figure things out. The trust in program mode does
come with experience and for the open-shade I knew
that it would work just fine and definitely better
than me.
I put the effort into composition.
The couple was happy and even with all of the above
comments I'm more than confident that the pictures are
of professional quality and will be highly acceptable.
Sometimes, it doesn't matter HOW you get the
pictures, but only that you DO get the pictures.
To be fair, I'm a perfectionist with my photography
and anytime that I feel that I'm "not in control" I'm
disappointed.
I broke my "no eating" rule as she made ribs.
Ken Norton
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