"It's just a casual affair......"

[NathanFranke]

Yeah--RAW is not hard. It might be time consuming. You'll have to go through every picture and make adjustments, but that's why they invented batch processing.

The wedding I shot (check my website in the sig > go to "weddings")--the ceremony was outside in the afternoon/evening. Didn't use flash for that. For the reception, I used an on-camera speedlight, pointed straight up with a diy bounce card. Bounce card: a scrap piece of mat board the width of my speedlight and about the same length of the speedlight (flash at 90 degrees, from flash to hot shoe), attached with a rubber band. There are more elegant solutions (diyphotography.net has several), but this got the job done.

You can get a lot done with simple setups, and this being your first wedding I think you should keep it simple. Once you get a few under your belt, gain some confidence--then you can get the big reflectors and start experimenting.

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

OK, OK, I get the message! RAW it is. I was worried because last time I tried it I couldn't find a way to open the RAW files. But now that I have a little more understanding of PSE9 than I had before I can see I have to open the files through that programme. For my everyday uploading and shuffling I use Windows Picture manager. NOW I can see what you guys are on about; I like sliders!

Thank you everyone for helping out here.

Originally Posted by RichardTaylor

If your camera is capable of it, shoot RAW + jpg
You may only need some extra memory cards.....

Yes Richard, my camera does RAW & jpeg. Boy does that cut down the available shots- 803 jpegs in Fine down to 147 using both. Looks like I'll need more cards.

Originally Posted by autofocus

The only trouble with shooting in A, aperture priority, is that the camera is trying to set the correct shutter speed for that aperture setting. That could give you some very slow shutter speeds, and unless you're conscious of that you may wind up with some very blurry shots.

Hmmmm.....I shall have to keep that in mind autofocus. I do swap between A & S quite a bit and feel I have a good overall knowledge of ISO, SS & Aperture etc(thanks to DPS). I'm just not that confident yet to shoot totally in manual although I am practicing quite a bit. I just don't want to stuff up the wedding photos.

. Your speedlight will still be limited to the camera's sync speed. (which may be 1/200 sec, and will be no different than your on camera pop up limitations) So, unless your new flash has hi speed sync capability, you have not really gained faster shutter speeds.

Ahead of you on this one! My camera does have high speed sync AND I've already been practicing with it in the bush. Can't remember the higest shutter speed I got but it was at least 1/500. I wasn't actually checking to see what the fastest was, I was just seeing how great the coverage was in my dark garden!

What's important is that whoever assists you MUST know how to use it...the reflected light off of it could be as harsh as the direct sunlight. If you get one, make sure they get to practice with it.

Will do, thanks for that.

A mistake...you may be surprised that it's not that hard to learn, so don't be intimidated by it.

Originally Posted by NathanFranke

Yeah--RAW is not hard. It might be time consuming. You'll have to go through every picture and make adjustments, but that's why they invented batch processing.

Thanks Nathan, I may just have to post "How to" threads when the time comes to process them!

The wedding I shot (check my website in the sig > go to "weddings")--the ceremony was outside in the afternoon/evening. Didn't use flash for that. For the reception, I used an on-camera speedlight, pointed straight up with a diy bounce card. Bounce card: a scrap piece of mat board the width of my speedlight and about the same length of the speedlight (flash at 90 degrees, from flash to hot shoe), attached with a rubber band. There are more elegant solutions (diyphotography.net has several), but this got the job done.

OK, I've seen those bounce card setups while surfing. Will look into that further and make sure I practice too if I go that way. Thanks for that.

You can get a lot done with simple setups, and this being your first wedding I think you should keep it simple. Once you get a few under your belt, gain some confidence--then you can get the big reflectors and start experimenting.

Simple sounds good! And I don't know about the "few under your belt", I'm thinking this will be my first and last wedding!

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

Further to the above;

Autofocus, apparently after reading the manual well into the night, the high-sync flash will support my camera's highest shutter speed which is 1/4000. I've yet to try that out.

As I understand it, when in high-sync mode, the flash must be directed at the subject (45degrees) and in fact it won't switch in if the flash is angled in any other direction. Is this because it's not quite so powerful and we're wanting to capture the subject in full. Why doesn't it work if the light was bounced off the ceiling, wall etc.

My memory card is 4gb and I will be getting another card now that I'm shooting in RAW But I am also taking my laptop to the wedding so I can upload when needed. Obviously this will have to be timed right, hence the 2nd card. I don't want to have to halt the ceremony and rush off to the back of the venue to upload shots We will be there for the whole affair as invited guests (hubby gets the better deal here, I'm sure) but can anyone see any problems doing this?

[autofocus]

As I understand it, when in high-sync mode, the flash must be directed at the subject (45degrees) and in fact it won't switch in if the flash is angled in any other direction. Is this because it's not quite so powerful and we're wanting to capture the subject in full. Why doesn't it work if the light was bounced off the ceiling, wall etc.

Someone here will have to answer that one as I've really never done much with high speed sync. From what I've been told though is that it pulses the flash, and it does tend to drain batteries quite quickly.

My memory card is 4gb and I will be getting another card now that I'm shooting in RAW But I am also taking my laptop to the wedding so I can upload when needed. Obviously this will have to be timed right, hence the 2nd card. I don't want to have to halt the ceremony and rush off to the back of the venue to upload shots We will be there for the whole affair as invited guests (hubby gets the better deal here, I'm sure) but can anyone see any problems doing this?

Buy more memory cards...2 is definitely not enough..unless you're only planning on shooting 200 photos or less. I would have at least 6-8 4 or 8 gig cards just to be sure, irrespective of the fact that you'll be loading them on your laptop.(that in itself may be a waste of time unless you can have an assistant doing it for you)

[FlyingKiwiGirl]

Thanks Autofocus, this is becoming an expensive exercise! But then photogrpahy in general is expensive isn't it. I'll be just that much further down the track at the end of all this.

I found this excellent tutorial on DPS, it may help others reading this thread now & in the future-
An Introduction to External Flash Units

And yes I read the last paragraph, manual it is I can shoot in manual but leave it on auto spot focus, right?