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Scenario Kit: Wedding

Right now, when I'm talking wedding, I'm excluding reception cause from me reception counted in that event, um, so you kind of have to figure out what's going to work with you between crossing the two of these, but for me, you would want a camera with high I s o capabilities, the reason is it's first of all, you want to be able to pump up that I s so when you are in a low lit situation like the church where you can't use a flash, you need when you need to have that flexibility. Um, but another reason as well, is if I'm photographing that reception and I don't want to have to have a long handheld shutter speeds field get that ambient light when I'm using flash, I could pump up my s o to allow what the reception hall looks like or, you know, the feel, the romance that they've created in that room, it's going to be more flexible for me to build the use hyatt esos and have them not have a lot of noise so that's one of those cases where you might want to invest in a camera that does have th...

at capability, if you do a lot of weddings, my wedding kit, yeah, you should, only one coming out of you. Changeless continent, when I shoot weddings, which, by the way, I haven't in a while this has been about well, the last one and I shot was last year, but, um, it's, not the focus my business anymore, but what I would do is I would have two cameras out of two cameras with me at all times, and I would have one with which segways into this perfectly, I'd have one with a twenty four to seventy and one with a seventy, two hundred, so I could quickly switch between the two if I needed a wider shot. So for example, if I'm the on ly shooter and there's, not a second shooter, I know already the way that I'm shooting, how an album gets designed when I'm designing, I think of it kind of like a movie, I want an establishing shot of the scene, but then I also want a closer shot to introduce the character, for example, the bride. So what I would do is that states the first dance I real quick grab my twenty four to seventy two shoot, but then I could also put on a seventy, two hundred. It kind of depended on the event, but that's what I usually had with me if I had to choose one? It would be twenty four to seventy most of the time because they're using those flexibility seventy could still get a decent head shot as long as you're not really far from the couple um definitely in the reception and there's a ceremony, it was these two because I needed the close shots of the two of them together in the exchanging of the vows and all events and then I would have my twenty four for the wide shots you know, to actually capture the church, so those are my two go two lenses don't get me wrong, I I definitely had other lenses in my kit, but what I kept right there on my camera that I had to have would be those two um, I would say the next thing after that would be on this camera, the eighty five millimeter, one point four for all the portrait's that I would do and there are more and they can keep going, for example, I had a macro lens that I could get close the pictures of the ring and jewelry, but after the preparation, once they're preparing at the house or whatever that lens would stay in the car wouldn't come with me in the bag because I've gotten the shots that I needed with that so it kind of would change depending on where I am and I knew what I needed throughout the day um this is an instance also for shooting weddings where you would consider an image stabilized land so when you're looking at price is the difference between a non stabilized lines and an image stabilized lens if you shoot weddings, it would be useful especially since I know you're going to come out of those situations where there's not going to be flash allowed and you still have to get those shots and so you saw even with me when I'm shooting at thirty two hundred eso without image stabilization I had just a little bit of camera shake so that would be my recommendation is to invest in it this lens in particular, you know, having a seventy, two hundred with image stabilization will give you a better quality um next you wanna have at least one flash that you can get off camera and weddings in particular would be a time for me where I would say it would be teal because that bride coming down the the aisle and you want to make sure that the exposure is right as should you makes your entire way down, we'll be detail, not manual for me. I mean, if you're doing manual makes a lot of sense when you have complete control s o tio but I your studio strobes which is manual everything so cool wade got the video too so after waiting okay, great um okay so one and this is what I was saying before one camera one flash is ideal and that's a lot of times let's say that we're the bride's getting ready is just hideous if you can find a white wall and a clean background it's not hideous anymore and you've seen that we showed that to you so at least one is ideal I mean two is great for production value but also in case you drop one backups to have a backup and you could have one that's new and one that's safe use manual for as a backup or something um and I was a big fan because I didn't have the money to buy two camera bodies um I had a fellow photographer that I met a professional photography association with people meetings who um sometimes when they would shoot weddings I would lend them my camera and advice first so that I could have two cameras and we just had a had this agreement listen everyone should do that but I didn't have the money for two cameras and I wanted to have a backup yeah this is this is minimal gear to get the job done this does not mean this is the business approach where we're not putting all of our eggs in one basket if you go to a wedding you have it's your obligation to rent or find a second lens a second flash extra batteries, extra memory cards um you need a backup of all the basic necessary equipment especially if you're documenting someone's important day and it's also a business decision you can't just say camera broke sorry how's the wedding so yeah and and renting is a good solution not to be like I'm so old but there weren't really good rental places when I was really shooting weddings, eh? So now I mean I have used wants her to go a bunch of times for different rental needs when I don't want to buy a lens on one little houses are great next day shipping next day shipping and it's inexpensive it's completely worth it so then you want some kind of flash modifier for sure because you're going if you're going to be used your flash yes, that balance but you can't always so I used a flash bender and just I like this because it could roll up and fit my camera bag so it's nice and simple and then lastly something for white balance something um my, uh my color checker would be what I would choose over an expert disc or a great card for what I'm talking about right now, which is kind of the portrait part in the preparation part and things like that it's much more portrait versus an extra disc might be better for like mixed light event where you can't control it but I I usually would choose this or the wedding ceremonies to I mean, you're not going to say, hey, bride, groom, hang out in my color checker like that's, where you would always use an expo disc because normally, as he saw yesterday, it's the first dates, crap lighting, and we're kind of at the mercy of that, you know, we can't really go into control, but a great idea with color check her passport would be to go in ahead of time is and those lighting conditions are going to change, so just set it on the steps of the front of the church and photograph it there. So if you don't have the expo disc totally agree, having a nice reference like that is definitely a great way to start, and just we discussed it here that with some people in the audience were saying, well, what if I just go take a bunch of sample photos, do that, scout the location, walk around, shoot your color checker, and then you have them to reference later, and just to reiterate what he was saying it is basically if you put this on the front of your camera in the ceremony, if you still point the light, the extra disk at the light that's hitting them, you have to be next to them to get pretty close, I mean, it's still either the overhead lights, which you'll be able to detect here, or the window's, or something like that so you don't have to be up next to them. So I do have both of my kids, but general, what I had with me one way or the other that's going to be super versatile, it's going to let you in controlled environments of environments like contract is pretty awesome real quick, and that might be a little slow on keep coming back to this expo desk, okay to my mind. Okay, I'm taking a picture and I'm sitting here taking a picture of you guys let's say, we got these ugly florescent above with these nice day light balance ones that are right in the studio. Okay, my mind says my light that my camera seeing to make that each is what's pointing straight at you guys, okay? And coming right back in if I'm using the expo card, I'm watching you, you'll use it for lloyd balance, you're kind of going up out of an angle, kind of mixing the light's rather than right at the subject. Is there a reason why you answered the question and the other thing with, you know, you won't want to put my camera on a matrix media ring or spot metering or without matter when I'm setting with the expo disk so matters much yeah that part doesn't matter as much you answer the question though, because we're aiming it at the mix of light okay, so it's like the different kinds of meat a ring if you're only meter and just this it's going to be one thing versus taking out open dome meeting of all of this is your best case scenario is that you photograph from their face so you are getting what's hitting their faith their ways I always shooting that is what you are you're doing ideally if you can't you're trying to guess what is closest to on their face that's what's gonna like them the most yeah so for a portrait application you would do just that you just get up there ask him like move over a bit aim it at the predominant light source and fire away mita remo doesn't matter so much you just need unexposed great photo so if I'm shooting manually can't be closure I just turned my flash on manual focus so I can focus you know at a nothing photo take the picture aperture priority same thing you might you know, lock and exposure put the cap on, then pull the trigger something just can't be like she said, you know, one of the other so okay, so I'm also there in general just I mentioned some of the other lenses I mean, I would use a fifty one foreign a thirty five one four but keeping it simple, these two are most important seventy two hundred twenty four to seventy and I do recommend a really, really narrow down the field wide aperture ah, portrait lens like in eighty five one four, but those ones first it's like an order of importance wish list kind of thing which list? Well, I mean, sure, we've all had to do that, right was actually every every year I was would consolidate alm gifts so I would get kind of like one big thing. So I got a lens or a tripod or a flash I could kind of pick which one it was each year. Okay, so this is just kind of ah, reiteration of what we've been using throughout the day. The's are the tools that you've seen over the last two days being used. Um we've been using in twenty four to seventy, seventy, two hundred and you see both of us with the option favor that eighty five one point four for portrait because it's a little more zoomed in it's not as big and heavy is the twenty four to seventy two hundred rather you khun focus closer and it goes wider ah the west got seven foot shoot through umbrella is what we use as a giant light source and also to diffuse our subjects the thirty two inch reflectors is the ones that you have seen us youse all day the silver black white two sides of smaller guys again those are for uh just kind of one person or head shots the size of the group you saw lindsay had the bucket analogy where she had me hold the scrim jim we had a larger bucket it covered the group you're going to want something bigger for those group photos so find a national reflector like the wall like a van passing by like a really large guest in a white shirt like whatever we could find and she's so off camera flash and modifier we just went over those the flash bender's great sixty inch umbrellas grape and in the flash primer we covered what you need to hold it all together make sure you don't get the cheap plastic ones and send all of your money tumbling so you get a nice bracket and then white balance we just covered too and then after lunch we're gonna show you how to set your white balance based often expo disc of color checker a great card reference and all that and so and so with this I'm gonna have him finish up and we'll take some questions with all his other super nerdy gear stuff that you want to make sure people know um do you have that little um the little thing that goes on top of no shit I'm talking about uh for your pocket wizard oh yeah okay so yeah, we discussed this just a little bit in the flash primer section but if you guys going to get a zoom in on this okay there we go. This basically is this what you're talking about? Yeah, I'm just looking for one more thing cool she's not the only people that I trust going through my gear back oh yeah trust me it's very picky place I understand. All right, so check this out we've got our flex unit which is our receiver and we've got our mini teach you want which is our transmitter this flex units khun do either okay, but basically I like the smaller transmitter on ly minnie because I used to take pictures with really long harry store ball caps a lot when I was in florida to keep the sun out of my face. And every time I took a big pocket wizard up to my face it would flip off my hat. So for all you people out there who have photographed with hats before, come on, I mean, how sonny is there where you live? I mean and you're wearing a hat right now so this is a big deal there's low profile trigger um but as it sits now it would only be able to send a t t l trigger. I'd be in lindsay land. I'd have to be tt l with flash compensation. What I like about this set up is the a c three zone controller. If you want to get a tight one on that the a c three zone controller by putting it on top of fear, I go back into my comfort zone and I now have that manual control that and that also teaching out control if I want it. So we didn't cover this last couple of days but really wanted to stress that this is my go to change my work flow a lot because it allows me to adjust on my flash is remotely without having to go up and down the light stands ok, yeah so for those of us that have, um, like the newer digital pocket was the three, I think yeah, still use that the switch between can you still use that deal? Good questions so he's saying, if you have any of the other pocket wizards, the newest ones or the plus three there's the plus x two plus two plus ones the multi max so I asked him to say specifically which once he hears a ton of them pocket wizards are great because they've been the industry standard for long as I've been in the industry and they all speak on the same channel. So channel one on any pocket wizard is channel one on every other pocket wizard as faras the tt l control that ability that is on a different channel. That's like their control tl channel. So when this fires, it will trigger all of the other old standard channel pocket wizards. And it also piggybacks that with a much more higher data packet on the same channel, but slightly different with all the ti tl info, it can only be received and interpreted by another flexor men eighty to one unit. So tt l capabilities are only available on these two units. So great question. Yeah. All right, there's. Only two more things that I did not hear. That someone just about that. Okay, so this guy yeah, well, they c c forty six. Is there the clothes, pins or whatever? Remember that thing of rain? All right, so this right here is our try. Flash. Brag it if I could get it on. There we go. That's good enough. So we saw this quickly yesterday. This is what I used to overpower the sun had three flashes on here. Try flash brackets are great because they have an umbrella bracket built in, but they allow you to multiple flashes if you really want to kind of gang up the power on um, this particular one is a little more expensive than most because it ratchets around, so by having it ratchet around that little sensor eye right there on the side of the flash, you can move it around so that it can see the camera. So if you're using a line of sight feature or the radio triggers that lindsay was talking about, like a tv remote control or using pop up flash or using an on camera commander flash any of the line of sight dependent flash triggering methods, this allows you to ratchet these around, no matter how you have your light aimed so that they can still see that fire. So this is made by last delight, but kind of joe mcnally had a lot of help in designing this because he's, a big ti tl shooter, and he would set up a light somewhere, get it perfect, and then the port would be on the wrong side so he couldn't actually get the flashes of the fire, so that fixes out problem. They have more inexpensive flash try flash brackets and quad flash brackets, but they don't have the ratcheting capability and these guys and already different varieties and side clamps are massive. We've walked on set and we shot the first day on florescent andre seamless. Guess what? I had eggs, straight clamps to my bag. We clamp down the seamless. Earlier, we had a model in the green dress. It was a little loose in the middle. We took a small a clamp, clamp the dress around. I have to go ahead and hold some kind of diffusion material over my laptop so we can see it outside. I could grab a flash better and clamp it to my screen. Eight clamps are thirty cents to a dollar to two dollars. They come in a tiny one a one inch. The two inch is probably the most valuable other than the small ones. Any home depot. Any hardware store has them by a ton. Take a twenty dollar bill by as many different sizes in his many of these as you can because they're like gaff tape. Honestly, this is like the clamp equivalent of gaff tape. Yeah, there's. Like two of the biggest things when I shouldn't event or a wedding that I make sure I have in my bag, I have new gaff taping some clamps because they save you pleasant and batteries. And batteries. Extra batteries. Yeah, these are little things that will really help you on set. If something breaks or comes loose or you have to pin someone up really quick, they're going appreciate that you are forward forward thinking enough in professional enough to have something like this to kind of save the shot or make it better. So all right, I'm gonna go for this one because it might be like, stump the instructors. Kind of question. Is that okay? Hundred, how do you suggest lighting for locations such as an aquarium? Where a wedding aquarium? For what? You have to be super careful when you're around glass that's probably one of the most difficult settings to start off with the photographer and as a professional it's really, really difficult. Um, one thing you're gonna want to have is a lot of flags. And by flags, I mean, a black bed sheet. Uh, piece of do bettin, you know, a black muslim background. Just what we have here hanging on the back of the set. If you guys want to pan over so you can hang a shower curtain rod, you can get a really inexpensive background stand kit, so it's, not so much how you're gonna light it, light it how you would like any other. Portrait okay, with a soft box, preferably because it's a little more directional, but get the subject looking good get your environment looking good and then you're gonna start seeing reflections everywhere and that's when you have someone hold a black reflector or put up some black material to kind of block that or flag off that light, I can use foam core or black be flats, so the lighting approaches the same, you just have to flag it all off, and I would kind of add to that as well, though just know, I'm sure kind of learned this in science class, and the angle of incidence equals the angle of refraction, ok, the whole works collection, more for little right or the same thing with pool, so keep in mind that if you've got if you're trying to move a reflection, okay, keep in mind that it's going to come in at the saying the same angle as it will reflect off. So if you are shooting straight onto a piece of glass, okay, so it's a flat surface and your flash is right behind you it's going to bounce straight back so sometimes just try to play with these angles and figure out how you can get it so that you're not shooting in a way so that the angle of the light coming onto the glass we'll bounce it back at you it's going to be equal, so you've got to kind of think of multiple planes, not just how the light is hitting the glass, but also the angle of the glass to you if you think that way, if you're the kind of science geek that gets that no problem, it will help you out in addition to flags and also it's just like looking in a mirror, I mean, it's your you have to be a look into the reflection of that and see it's so picture that not his glass, but as a mere rather and you can peek around the corner so I can see the flash I have to move it now, I can't see it so basically shooting out of entre mears so you can either hide it from the mirror or move it around so you can no longer see it the mayor great answer you guys didn't stuff we didn't stump the instructors that wouldn't I don't envy that person at all that's what? You bring a background here like another cuba kind of hang this background here? Yeah, right hand no more great way some purpose a few questions about expert this ex, uh guest three, nine, nine one three asked which one expert which explode iscar you guys using neutral or portrait neutral yeah, yeah, neutrals. When I say they have both, the portrait warms it up a little bit. I like to be able to make the decision afterwards if I want a warm it up. Second question about exodus ed, photo and photo ass. If you're white balancing using the expert, ask, why do you need to gel your flash to match the light? Okay, that's, a good one. Okay, so an expert. It doesn't change the quality of the light it's just telling you what it is so it can shift it so that it's closest to neutral. But if you still have a flash, an ambient that are different it's not going to make the match, so you would like to have your shift neutralised both in order for that to neutralize both, you've got to make them match. So is that, like it's not bringing the two color temperatures together? It's just equally moving them exactly, so you've got to bring them together, so then you can find that neutral point in the middle.