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Tangentswedding photography – and some homework ..April 5, 2009
Some of the questions that I’m most often asked about here, relate to wedding photography. Advice on a whole range topics such as posing people, business advice, album design .. and sometimes even lighting. Amusingly enough, I sometimes get asked this a few days before the newbie wedding photographer is going to shoot a first wedding. Regardless of the photographer’s experience level though, my advice is usually fairly succinct … that it is indeed time to do some homework.
Filed under: resources,wedding photography — Neil vN @ 11:13 pm
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mix ‘n match lenses ..April 4, 2009  Two images from quite a while back – a photo session on New Year’s Eve in Manhattan. We stopped at various places in Manhattan, including the steps of St Patrick’s on 5th Avenue where I took these photos. On this shoot I used a number of Canon zooms, and the Sigma 14mm for some ultra-wide shot. All the images where I used the Sigma lens, clearly stood out. Not for sharpness or distortion .. but for a color cast. (The Sigma is actually a terrific lens, especially for the price.) The images with the Sigma lens are much warmer than the Canon lenses. Neither wrong nor right … just different. Different to the extent that it took effort to correct the WB differently for the images taken with the Sigma lens, than the images where I used the other (Canon) lenses. For those two examples: left: Canon 16-35mm f2.8 // right: Sigma 14mm f2.8 And no, the light didn’t change between the two images, and no, it’s not a camera issue either. Even changing the WB as Kelvin settings using DPP, had the same effect – the Sigma lens was clearly warmer than the Canon lenses. So the point of this post is that this kind of difference in the color characteristics might between lenses, might be a consideration when you consider an off-brand lens. Fortunately I didn’t use the 14mm lens often, so this wasn’t a real problem for me. But I can see how it would be a real pain to spend extra time to constantly correct WB for a specific lens, in any shoot, for such a change in color. (Assuming of course that there is much less change in the color characteristics within a brand.) I’m sure that there is the likelihood that these kind of color differences exist for different lenses within the same brand. But I also suspect it will be less noticeable than this, and less of an issue. Personally I’ve never particularly noticed this problem before when using all-Nikon or all-Canon lenses. This might then be a valid consideration – to consistently only use lenses only within a certain brand, for a more efficient workflow.
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Filed under: digital workflow,gear — Neil vN @ 10:11 pm
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with a little help ..April 3, 2009
Someone recently emailed me to ask me what lighting I used for this portrait of the groomsmen. I did explain this in the Flickr group, but wanted to expand on a key point again. When lighting groups like this, I don’t try to get all Rembrandt on the group. Instead, I have a preference for even light. A simpler approach where everyone’s face is equally well lit, with no cross shadows .. all of which makes for a faster workflow. You also have less risk of the chance of a weird shadow spoiling something. In this instance, the light was from two Q-flashes that I was bouncing into the ceiling and wall behind me. I wanted a flood of even light. The Q-flashes were the older T2 models which I use purely as manual off-camera flash. There is a slight problem though .. light falls off to the background, which caused the groomsmen in the back to not be as well exposed as the guys in the foreground. This was worsened by there being a slight overhang where I was standing – and this blocked the light that should’ve reached further up the staircase. But in the image above, the groomsmen in the back are well exposed .. but I had a little help in post-production.
Filed under: digital imaging,digital workflow,flash photography,lighting,wedding photography — Neil vN @ 2:04 am
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Aisha, the belly-dancer ..April 2, 2009
Aisha was the star at a recent party where she performed as a belly-dancer. Through several dance routines, I had the luxury of having enough time to move from just the safe shots, to playing around and getting more diverse images …
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