[a.saliga]

So months after posting to this thread I've finally shot my first wedding. It was my best friend's wedding, but it wasn't one of those "friend's wedding" nightmare stories. I was paid nicely, so it was good...

Here is what I have learned from my experience this past weekend and also a bit about how I went about it all. So here are my scattered thoughts as they come to me.

I went into this as a second photographer. A great relief for my first wedding. I shot the details and candid shots, while the primary photographer shot the formal photos. My gear was my Canon XTi, Canon 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5, Canon 50mm f/1.8, two 4GB compact flash cards, three batteries, and a tripod. I scouted out the location the day before (during the rehearsal) and planned my shots. I took around 700 shots and deleted about 100 of them right after uploading to my computer. This almost filled up both of my memory cards, so more memory is on the list to buy. I didn't even use up one battery, but I hardly used my flash. I found that I used the 50mm a lot because it is so much faster and the light was so scarce in the church. Also, I realize I need a wide angle lens. With the 1.6x crop factor of my camera the 28mm just wasn't cutting it in some of those tight rooms. I used my on camera flash for a handful of shots and they gave me harsh shadows even when I turned down my flash exposure compensation. Some type of addon to bounce of diffuse the flash is needed if you are using on camera. A monopod would have been ery useful. I wish I would have taken more initiative in gather people to get shots. I would have taken more close ups, and more detailed shots. I wish I would have been able to take more creative shots too, but I was concerned with getting what I needed.

So to sum it up...
-I needed more memory.
-I needed a monopod.
-I needed a wide angle lens.
-I needed a flash diffuser, bounce flash, or hot-shoe mounted flash.
-I should have put more thought into some shots to gain creativeity.
-I should have taken charge and asked people to pose for photos.