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[OM] Re: thoughts on shooting wedding

Subject: [OM] Re: thoughts on shooting wedding
From: "Wayne Culberson" <waynecul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2005 09:22:46 -0400
This is part of the learning curve I'm in with the C5050. For those 2
candlelight shots the camera was just turned on in P mode, everything else
was just the default settings.

A few days before the wedding I went to the Inn to try to figure out what I
was up against for lighting, backgrounds, etc. Of course it was mid-day time
when I visited, and I knew the wedding would begin about the time the sun
was setting and continue on into the evening. So I was trying to anticipate
which windows might have sun coming through initially, and telling the
innkeeper which windows would need to have drapes closed, or something in
the inn that might need to be moved. I noted the ceilings were about 12 to
15 feet high, and painted beige, so they wouldn't work for bounce light. I
tried to note what was around for incadescent lighting that might be turned
on, and asked a few questions about it.

Of course when I actually arrived, all that scouting ahead was useless,
except for being prepared for the ceiling height and color. I wasn't
anticipating the entire downstairs of the house (with the exception of the
kitchen area which was fairly bright) being lighted by 50 to 100 candles,
and maybe two or three lamps with a 25 watt bulb, all other lights left off.
The upstairs where the bride and bridesmaid was preparing for the wedding,
was more brightly lighted though. Then in a couple of rooms downstairs that
had candles only, they did turn some lights on for the opening of gifts,
then off again later, etc, so things were constantly changing. Perhaps if I
had known beforehand all the lighting conditions of the various rooms
(pictures were taken in all rooms including the kitchen), and I had
sufficient knowledge of the camera and how it reacted to those various light
colors and intensities, and I had had opportunity to test them out before
hand, so that I could have preset the variables in the camera to meet the
conditions, I could have set them up in several "my modes", and then all I
would have had to do was remember which "my mode" number corresponded to
which lighting condition of which room.
Or I could just let Portra do all that for me, as it does it much better
anyways, and concentrate on things more important and enjoyable at a
wedding.

That is not to say the C5050 doesn't have a place at other times. About half
way through typing the above paragraph, I grabbed the C5050 and shot this
picture through my living room window.
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3184729

Wayne



> Have you tried setting one of the preset white balance settings or a
> manual WB setting? When the camera is set for auto WB, it has to try to
> guess what the lighting is and come up with something like a daylit shot
> (Unless you tell it through a WB setting, it can't know what the
> lighting is.). Looking at your samples, it appears that it may only use
> a central portion of the image to do this. So in a very complex
> lighting/subject situation like this it is easily confused and changes
> color balance depending on what is in the central portion of the image.
> I don't know specifically how the 5050 works, but I imagine it is like
> others, where choice of a fixed WB is just that, the camera breathes a
> sigh of relief, quits trying to figure anything out shot to shot and
> just uses the same WB for every shot. In you wedding setting, I would
> find a shot that gives me the look I want and set one of the custom WBs
> to that setting. Even if the WB turns out to be off a bit, at least it
> will be consistent and the same adjustment may be applied to all the
> shots in the same setting and with the same fixed WB setting. If you
> then go outside the next day and shoot without changing the WB, you will
> get interesting results.
>
> With RAW, of course, one may lalter choose and change the WB at will, as
> that processing isn't stored in the RAW file, but done when it is
> converted to TIFF, JPEG, etc.
>
> Moose


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