Rob Brooks Photography » Events

McGinniss Wedding Reception: Post Formalities

Rob — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:13:28 +0000

Here’s the second installment from Darren and Tori’s wedding reception.
The formalities were over and now was the time to relax and let some hair down. Some let down more hair than others.

And by the end of the night, it was all too much for some….

Oh, and there’s always one……

McGinniss Wedding Reception

Rob — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:22:37 +0000

Here are a few shots from the wedding reception that I shot for some good friends of mine.
The entire day was a great learning experience for me, and hopefully I’ve captured some important memories for them to look back on in the future.

NOTE: If any friends or family would like to purchase prints of any of the images from the day, just contact me @ brooksrl@telstra.com and I’ll be happy to discuss the options.

Prints will be sourced from my un-compressed, high-resolution original files. And are available in a number of different sizes, finishes and products.

© Rob Brooks Photography, 2009. Unauthorised use and/or duplication and/ or distribution of this material without express and written permission from the creator and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

First wedding shoot, pretty pleased

Rob — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:59:37 +0000

On the weekend just passed I had the pleasure/ challenge of shooting my first wedding for some friends of mine, although it was only the reception and some family portraits beforehand.
Given the constraints I had from time for shooting, the large amount of people and combinations that they wanted, and dealing with weather conditions (quite windy and late afternoon sun) I’m relatively happy with the raw results from the camera.
I would have liked extra time to get a lot more creative with the arrangements, but a late start, lengthening shadows and a schedule to stick to stiffled that a little.
However I am with the performance of the gear that I had at the time, and it has been a great learning experience for me in many ways. From the technical aspects of dealing with exposure metering, flash compensation and controlling depth of field to efficient arrangement of subjects and keeping things looking natural and not too posed.
Given the fact I have a close relationship with many of those I needed to shoot, made the job of ordering them around to do what I wanted a lot easier than it would have been with a bunch of strangers. And also being able to keep the whole experience pretty casual for us all made for some very natural shots.

The only real issue I had with my gear on the day is the gap in focal lengths I have between my 10-20mm and my 28-135mm. Due to the space I was working in and the group sizes I had, I found that I really need a lens covering the 17-40mm range if i’m going to continue doing this style of work. Also something with a wider aperture (F2.8 ) would have also given some nicer results in keeping the background out of focus a little more and making the subjects ‘pop’.
I found that I shot the majority at 28-40mm, but needed to change lenses to get a little extra width at 20mm on a couple of occasions.
**(also remember that I’m shooting with a 1.6x cropped sensor DSLR, so all focal lengths mentioned are multiplied by 1.6)**
The only other small issue I encountered was using “partial (centre 7% of frame) metering” in conjunction with “aperture priority” mode initially, which are my usual/ everyday-type settings. This gave me some over-exposed backgrounds as I had quite a lot of shadows on the subjects to deal with, which were within the metering zone of the camera.
A quick switch to fully manual control and evaluative metering soon brought things back into shape. This was also due to me having limited previous experience in using the speedlite in real world situations, and understanding fully the differences needed to gain correct exposures when using a speedlite.

Anyway, enough of a novel from me, as I have over 500 photo’s from the event to sort and edit, but all in all it was an enjoyable learning experience for me and I believe the happy couple will be pleased with the final results.

A few preview shots will be posted in due course…

Quick Edit and update:
Slowly getting there with the editing and should have some results by the end of today..
I NEEEEED a faster machine

UPDATE 2:

Editing is now completely complete, and i’m impressed with how the majority have come up, upon further inspection it appears that one person in the wedding party (the damn groom) is quite sensitive to the speedlite’s pre-flash.
but that was only on the occasions that i did not use the FEL function (Flash Exposure Lock)
some of the indoor shots lost a little detail in noise as I had to shoot at ISO 800 and a couple of times at 1600, but nothing that will stand out when printing at normal sizes.
Faster glass and better body will solve those issues in the future
A couple of sample images will be uploaded soon, once the couple have viewed them.

Has been a great learning experience for me, and I now know what I need to focus on and improve on next time around.

Wedding Shots

Rob — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 13:01:10 +0000

I had the pleasure of attending one of my best friends’ wedding a few weeks ago.
Although they had their own photographer for the day, I did take it upon myself to try and get around some of the other guests for some candid shots of them enjoying the evening.

I will say that I have a new found respect for professionsal wedding/ function photographers as you have to try and deal with so many location and human difficulties when composing a shot in 1/50th of a second.
Such as distracting backgrounds, un-level surfaces/ walls, optical illusions, light sources (or lack thereof), the suitability of your own gear for the task (28mm on a 1.6 crop body is waay to narrow for indoor group shots, and F3.5 is waay to slow for a dimly lit room!!).

Anyway, after a decent amount of processing and culling of a LOT of terrible shots, here’s a few i’m happy to share.

See, distracting background, damn coffee machine!!

Has been a tradition amongst our friends to have a special bottle for the wedding day

Location, Location, Location

Beautifully restored by the Father Of The Bride

Find your name and take a seat

See what I mean about more distractions, damn Fan!!

the formal part is now over and the groom can relax with his mates.

Another keen photographer (Sam Shelley) commandeered my camera (although a little smaller than his regular kit, 40D) with the 50mm attached and started work on some of the other guests. I really like the contrasts in this shot. although he had trouble positioning the subject directly below the overhead spotlight