wedding couple - comp/lighting critique

[slugger]

Hello!
I took this at a wedding this past week-end and I was wondering if the composition of this photo works? As far as pp, I boosted the saturation on the sky and lake a little bit. I had an off camera flash fire, does that make them look "pasted" onto the background? Do they appear properly exposed?

Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 58 mm
ISO Speed 100
(I don't recall the settings on the flash)

Any other critique welcome.thanks for your time.

[walkbyshooter]

I like it. I like the contrast of temperatures, as in, the couple is framed in coolness from the flash but the sunset is very warm.

[oldwolf]

Composition is good. They look a bit flashy though. The light from the flash is a bit harsh but they are exposed properly.

[Stryker]

oldwolf is spot on. The light on the couple is too bright to make it look natural. You wouldn't expect them to be lit like that with the sunset in the background.

I am not sure if you have already visited, but Neil Van Niekerk's Tangents blog is a great source of information on wedding photography, especially on using the flash. I find it quite useful, even though I am neither a pro nor a wedding photographer!

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by oldwolf

Composition is good. They look a bit flashy though. The light from the flash is a bit harsh but they are exposed properly.

+1.

Why f8?

Were you using any modifier on the flash?

I'd suggest warming it up. If you don't have experience with using gels, you can do it in post - it would certainly take the 'edge' off of things. The reason you may feel that 'something isn't right' is because the color temp between the subjects and the ambient is off.

a 1/2 CTO would probably do the trick in the future, but for no youll probably find it more pleasing just to increase the temp in post. The warming will also help out with the sky which also feels a little cool and desaturated.

As far as your composition, where you ave them in the frame is fine, but I"m not a fan of where you're cutting their legs. If you insist on keeping it where it is, you'll have to sacrifice some of the sky and crop down the top and left sde to help it feel a little more balanced. As it is, it neither feels conventional nor does it have much impact as a contemporary composition.

[slugger]

I'll check out that site, thanks for the link.

As for the f stop - can't really tell ya. I had it in full manual and I was tweaking it as I went along - I'm not very good at the whole off camera flash get it the right exposure business. What f stop would you suggest? I guess it would depend on a whole other mess of things too.

No modifiers, and the reason for the crop was if you look at the bottom you can see that the flash was only lighting them from that point up - and I thought it looked too spot - light-ish, although there wasn't a whole lot more to the frame, because I did crop it more than I should have to begin with.

I will try warming them up a bit...I appreciate everyone's input!

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by slugger

As for the f stop - can't really tell ya. I had it in full manual and I was tweaking it as I went along - I'm not very good at the whole off camera flash get it the right exposure business. What f stop would you suggest? I guess it would depend on a whole other mess of things too.

OK, let me pose this question to you then:

Take the couple out of the shot, and treat it as solely a landscape. Would you be happy with the exposure on it?

It's rather a rhetorical question, however for the sake of furthering the discussion, I'll hazard a guess that you may share my opinion that it is too dark and under exposed.

In it's simplest terms, when setting up a shot such as this, my order of business is to:

1) find the settings that deliver a correct exposure based on ambient light; get the landscape or environment exposed correctly, (or appropriately for your vision)

2) place the subject into the frame and through the process of one or five test shots adjusting the power on my lights, find the correct exposure that matches the settings i established in (1). The only hard limit you have is your sync speed. if you're forced to change the aperture, compensate with flash power.

After a while you generally discover you learn to ball park it, and with one or two test shots, you're ready to go.

As far as why I ask about f8, quite simply because it looks to be a dusk picture, and I know what that light is liek here in Wisco! I would have started at iso400, f5 and 180 with my lights (usually about 6-8ft from the model) at 1/8th... that's with my gear and would probably take a bit of chimping to get what I wanted...

Originally Posted by slugger

No modifiers, and the reason for the crop was if you look at the bottom you can see that the flash was only lighting them from that point up - and I thought it looked too spot - light-ish, although there wasn't a whole lot more to the frame, because I did crop it more than I should have to begin with.

The fall off is harsh because the ambient levels are so low... once you find a better initial balance, as well as figure out a method to better disperse and soften the light, this will be less of a problem... back up the light source, compensate with your settings and balance levels...

[slugger]

Thanks for that info, very helpful.

Steve you need to write an e-book, no joke. I'd buy it. Your posts are always so helpful and well written. Thanks again.

[doctorjames]

+1 for the above post regarding the flash/strobe/speedlite

I would highly recommend taking a look at the strobist website (look through his 101 and 102 guides).

I took a very similar photograph of my wife and I on honeymoon at the Grand Canyon at sunset. It is a truely awful photograph and one I never show. I made exactly the same mistakes:

1) colour balance wrong (you need to balance your flashes colour temperature to that of the ambient light)

2) too much exposure differential between foreground (lit with flash) and background.

3) mixing hard and soft light when inappropriate. Sometimes its great to mix it up like this, but not in this situation. The ambient light is super super super soft, and the harsh off camera flash is way too much in this instance. Its difficult to carry around a full lighting set with you when shooting like this, but if you had a small soft box (I have the ezybox by lastolite) this would have really helped. (you would still have had to adjust the flash temperature with gels though).

4) Think really carefully about the direction and angle of the light from the flash. You have lit the subjects from almost 180 degrees from the ambient light source. This only helps to exentuate the superimposed look.

Dont feel too bad about it though. Your shot isnt as bad as mine by a long way. We live 3000+ miles from the grand canyon so wont be going back anytime soon!

Do go and have a look at the strobist blog/tutorials.... I really couldnt recommend them highly enough

James

[mpaulison]

I agree with all the replies, and think the couple might be toned down a bit. Though a bride does like to look like she's in the spotlight! To be perfectly honest, I couldn't get my eyes off the bottom of her dress where it suddenly falls into shadow.

No bride is going to dislike this shot. Unless she's a photo contest judge, and even then only minor points.