Since the couple did not seem too particular about the photography of the wedding, I decided to pretend as if they were. In other words, I wanted to put the highest expectations on myself, in an effort to force me to stretch my photographic ability and help me learn something in the process. That is exactly what happened.
After the day was over and I had a little time to think through the experience, the biggest problem I had was too shallow a depth of field. The effect was great in a way: the background was nice and blurred and the depth of field really drew the attention to one person the in the photo. The problem was that only one person was in focus, rarely even two.
I had my f/stop opened wide much of the time. Most of the wedding was indoors, so the lighting was not so great, as we might expect. I needed a fast enough speed to keep from blurring the shots, which often left me sitting at an aperture of f/2.8 or less.
This problem can be solved several ways, really. I think the most common fix is a flash. I do not have an off-camera flash, and that would have saved me on the group shots. Most of my group shots did not have all the people in crisp focus. With a powerful flash, I could have closed the f/stop some and still have a multitude of options to keep the group well lit and in focus.
A flash is a must, but does not solve all the problems faced in weddings. Some photographers may feel free to do so, but during the ceremony, I would not fire my flash much anyway. A few flashes here and there would be fine, but too many and that annoying photographer would be stealing the attention from the couple. How else could you fix this?
Pump up the ISO. The negative is that the more we raise the ISO, the more grain we introduce into the photos. Still, if there is no other option, and if you need to close the f/stop some, this may be one of the only choices out there. I find my Nikon D100 introduces too much grain for me, though. So, I have come up with another fix.
Exposure compensation. I tell my camera to take the photos a stop or two too dark. Seem backwards? Well, let me give an example. If my camera meter said the scene looked right at a speed of 1/125 to my chosen f/stop of f/2.8, then telling it to take the photo a couple stops darker would keep the speed at 1/125 even when I close the f/stop two stops to f/5.6.
Then the photo is too dark, right? Yes, but I find that adding a couple stops of light in my raw photo editor gives me a much better photo than if I had just boosted the ISO. A new camera that allow less noise at higher ISOs would be nice, but till a Nikon D200 falls from heaven, I will just have to keep using the exposure compensation method.
I would completely agree with Antony Hands’s article, How to Shoot a Wedding (point #3), that f/5.6 should be the minimum for these groups shots. If I had shot mine at f/5.6, I would have had all my subjects in focus.
So, regardless of how we make it happen, we need to make sure our depth of field does indeed cover all the subjects. In my case, my main problem was with the group shots, but I had to be very careful even with the couple alone. If shooting at f/1.4 or f/1.8, I could easily have only one of the couple in focus.
It’s a nasty world out there; let’s make sure and focus it!
