Yo y'all,
I was asked to shoot some very good friends' 6-month-old (well, 8 months by
then) daughter's baptism in April. As it's been a while since I shot the
last event of that kind, and with the new generations of films recently
launched by basically all manufacturers, I asked the salesman at my favorite
photo store (a very active photographer himself, using Nikon AF, though
(yuck! :-)) for a recommendation. He said he had very good experiences with
Fuji X-tra 400 and even 800 - very nice colors, and a grain that allows
printing even large picture sizes with pleasant results - and favored them
even over comparable professional grade films. I have always liked the
results I got with Fuji films in the past, but have no experience with these
particular ones, so I'd appreciate any thoughts/comments/alternative
suggestions.
I went to the church where the event is to take place last weekend to check
the shooting conditions there, and they seem to be pretty good for an old
church like that. White walls on both sides of the altar which should be
pretty good for bouncing slave flashes. I am thinking about using a small
one on each side, and the flash on the camera on TTL. I figure the small
slave flashes bounced off the walls (about 3 - 4 m from the center of the
altar) should be weak enough to make the light a little softer without
overexposing the TTL-controlled shot (any thoughts on this?).
However, if the weather conditions on the day of the baptism are anything
like this weekend (overcast and hazy, but bright) , I might not need any
slave flashes at all, as the high (and fortunately unstained) windows above
the altar (on both sides and behind it, the wall behind the altar is
rounded, with the altar in the middle) might permit enough natural light to
pass to get a shutter speed of about 1/45th, so the flash would just add a
relatively small part to the overall lighting. I'd prefer this solution as I
believe in using natural light as much as possible and don't really like
using flash at all.
I'm planning on using the OM-4 and OM-2n with the 3.5-4.5/35-105 and the
3.6/35-70, and possibly the 2/85, for the ceremony.
It looks as if I'll have the privilege of being allowed to move around in
the church during the ceremony, which should be a big advantage.
During the informal part I suspect the IS-1000 recently sniped on German
eBay (for the curious - $ 116.- incl. sh, ex to ex+ condition, A-200 H.Q.
1.5X converter and Action Case A included) is going to see a lot of use.
I've shot a few weddings and baptisms in the past, with good results, but I
still get nervous every time as these one-time events that can not be
repeated make possible screw-ups much worse than usual.
MtFbwy,
Volkhart
--
Volkhart Baumgaertner email: kyu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
MausNet: @MGN
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