Fuji Wedding Tactics

[KillRamsey]

Not "how to get married," but "how to use an X100 (or something similar) at a wedding."

I just got back from one (sister in law), and I tried something that worked out fairly well. I'd really like some feedback on what could've been even better. The setup is that it's a lit dance floor, so there's some light but it's a 3200 / f2 / 1/125 kinda scene. My wife, daughter, and friends were all dancing and doing awesome things I wanted shots of, and the pro photog was not near us. So I grabbed the X100, and:

1. Set ISO to manual 3200
2. Ap to f2.8, because I wanted a teeny bit bigger depth of field, due to #3
3. Set focus to manual (and here everyone with any X100 experience should gasp because it is wretched on this camera)
4. Set shutter to 1/60

I roamed around, used the AEL/AFL button trick to prefocus the camera at about the right distance, and left it set as long as things stayed about that distance from me. In that setup, I was able to rattle off a ton of shots quickly, to frame with the rear screen and get the camera where it needed to be, and got a lot of decent stuff.

This setup produced shots that were somewhere between 1/3 and 2 stops too dim, but with little/no motion blur and "only" 3200 speed grain. So in post I could just crank up mids on the jpg's and get something pretty ok, because the camera had enough dynamic range to get detail in those shadows. I like the results but I know some of you could've done better. I wanna know how.

- Should I have just gone f2 and gained a stop of shutter speed?
- Is there now way to do a lot better without a speed light?

 

[KillRamsey]

Dang. Those are a little too big. Sorry.

 

[ReD]

Huge

I went to a wedding party last saturday - wandered around changing settings for the poor light & used iso 3200 in the dark spots which gave horrible colour and grain - eventually reduced iso to 400 / 800 & used the flash

wedding photog I am not

edit

next day I found the 660 presets again - one is called party but with no increase in speed 1/10 1/15 sec - useless for movement & hand held

 

[BBW]

I'm the last person to give advice...however, I have gotten some good photos at ISO 6400 on the X100 @ f/2 and upping the EV compensation quite a bit... I don't want to usurp your thread but here are two examples 9-11-41-Edit.jpg and http://www.flickr.com/photos/otra/6153705848/ that show people dancing in a very dimly lit bar. That said, I am no wedding photographer either!! I would be much too afraid!

By the way, I loved your intro

Not "how to get married,"

... I bet you'd get a lot of free advice on that one!

 

[Luke]

I wouldn't have done anything differently. I may have tried a couple with flash despite the fact that I never use it. I think the photos you got are great, and if the noise bothers you, you definitely do some b/w conversions that would look great.

ya know, I thought that looked pretty grainy for 3200. Now looking at BB's ISO6400 shots, I'm thinking you could definitely have gone to 6400 and cleaned 'em up a little bit.

 

[ReD]

This was iso 3200 in EXR mode high iso low noise - bw convert 1/10sec

 

[bartjeej]

Embrace the darkness
I find that shooting dark scenes at zero EC, or bringing an underexposed shot of a night scene back to "proper" exposure, can take away from the atmosphere. Right now the photos, in terms of exposure, look like they could've been taken in daylight. BB's shots are a good bit darker than yours, but that's no problem because it adds to the atmosphere of a dimly lit bar. If you accept some "underexposure" as a sign of the fact that the photos were taken at night, there should be less noise too.

 

[Luke]

good point, Bart

 

[Luckypenguin]

There are aesthetic arguments for and against either, but I tend to think that flash is your friend, particularly one of those big tilty, swivelly, bouncy types. If shooting without a flash, B&W is your friend.

 

[ReD]

Embrace the darkness
I find that shooting dark scenes at zero EC, or bringing an underexposed shot of a night scene back to "proper" exposure, can take away from the atmosphere. Right now the photos, in terms of exposure, look like they could've been taken in daylight. BB's shots are a good bit darker than yours, but that's no problem because it adds to the atmosphere of a dimly lit bar. If you accept some "underexposure" as a sign of the fact that the photos were taken at night, there should be less noise too.

I agree when its possible to freeze movement but when the choice is slow shutter speed & high iso then flash is likely to be best option.

 

[KillRamsey]

Underexposure: See I would've said that as they are above, those shots are a little under-baked and dim. And I like it that way - I tend to shoot a LOT at at least -1/3EV when I'm letting it set things automatically. I prefer some good shadows in most shots. So even darker might've been ok, I guess?

Flash: I don't have one, they're expensive (or one I'd actually enjoy using anyway), but most of all they make people flinch and clam up. I want one -- if you handed me a nikon speed light right now I'd happydance in a circle -- but so far I've been hesitant to bother with buying one, because it blows one of the X100's big strengths... stealth.

Cleanup In Post: What you see has only been touched in that awful MS Office program, which is all i really have for any kind of editing. I work on a work laptop most of the time, which is locked down. So they were all shot as jpg's, then had mids brightened up a little in MS, and that's it. I can only imagine if I had shot raw and used Lightroom. As it is, when I tried to drop the color out, it left harsh gradient lines on everyone's faces unless I then also cranked up the red. Even then, skin tomes looked atrocious so I left them color.


Thanks all, I am learning. Unfortunately, I'm learning that I really need to go spend some money on software and a speed light.

 

[ReD]

Why not use the Fuji software?

its not ideal but sounds better than what you are using - also available for purchase is fuji's more comprehensive suite but I haven't used this

 

[KillRamsey]

I think I installed it on the home laptop and hated it. Perhaps I should revisit.

I could shoot 90% jpg, and occaisionally raw+jpg for special shots I guess.

 

[Luke]

Even without software, if you shot RAW for some of the shots, you can process them in camera with different JPEG settings. You should try it out....it's pretty sweet.

 

[bartjeej]

^yup, I love the internal raw converter!
As for editing pics from your work laptop: pixlr is an online image editor, pretty similar to the GIMP, except you don't have to download or install anything

 

[KillRamsey]

Googling it now. Thank you. I'm guessing it doesn't support the fuji Raws?

 

[KillRamsey]

Haaa ha ha it's blocked at work, just like flickr and LinkedIn. Oh well.