We had so much fun!

Took some shots of my wife’s cousin Nicole at her  wedding.

The beginning of the reception was nice as far as lighting was concerned. It was set on the Mystic river in Mystic, CT.

The only real challenge there was the glare from the sunset reflecting off of the water.  Afterwards, as the sun set, the event proceeded into the restaurant hall. As the night slipped away, it was time to bring out the flash. I first looked up to see what kind of ceiling I could bounce off of. Uh oh. A problem. These were vaulted ceilings and they were planked wood. Bouncing flash was going to be difficult in the center of the room.  There was nice white walls, but bouncing there would only work on occasion as the focus was far away from the wall.

I spoke to the wedding photographer that was there. They were shooting Canon gear and had 580EX||’s on their bodies.

I’ve never had a problem with my 430EX not providing enough light, but this was stretching the limits. I realized at this point that my previous desire for a n0n-prime fast lens was not without reason. I put on my 50mm 1.8 and cranked the ISO to 3200. Normally I am not a fan of going this high, but the alternative was missing many shots.  Lesson learned.  I can’t imagine much being more difficult to shoot than a wedding. I still have a lot to learn about wedding photography, but am wondering if in this situation, if I was hampered by equipment. Would have a better body with better noise performance helped? Perhaps direct flash with a softbox diffuser? I’m not looking to offload the blame from me but am really grinding my brain on how to improve in this area.

In the above example, I was forced to use more forward facing flash because of the center of the room.

Conversely, another cousin’s wedding (same time of day) I shot with a nice ceiling to bounce off turned out fairly well in my opinion..

A friend of mine suggested I should start a blog for various reasons. I thought it was a good idea, so here we go. Photos, discussion are all welcome.