I was checking out a new lens on Monday during a ceremony at Saint James Cathedral in Seattle. The EF-S 17-85 IS. I found that the widest aperture at the long end, f/5.6 is definitely not wide enough for natural-light shooting indoors. I had to go to ISO 3200 to get a usable shutter speed for moving people, and on my 20D the noise level is just too high. My 17-55 would work, since it's a constant f/2.8, and I'm settled now on getting the 70-200 2.8 IS for my long lens, even at the premium price over the f/4 version.
The stupid mistake, though, was in not noticing that the focus point selection was not set where I normally have it. As a result, the AF locked on to the lectern at camera left, rather than onto the Archbishop as I intended.
Thank goodness this wasn't a once-in-a-lifetime event I'd been asked to shoot for someone.
Any stupid mistakes anyone else would like to share?
You could always make the case that the symbolism of the empty lectern was the focus of the shot and it's really an expression of your artistic vision.
Well, I admitted it to ai3x who ribs me more mercilessly than anyone so I guess I don't mind admitting it in public.
The last wedding I did involved the ceremony taking place in a room with extremely dark and light absorbing oak panels all over the walls, and a GIGANTIC window at the end leading to an absolutely impossible dynamic range during the ceremony where I wasn't even meant to be photographing, let alone using the flash, I had -2 EC dialled in just to keep 90% of the room from being utterly black.....
...however like the plank (not the word I used with Alex) that I am I forgot to reset the EC when they were signing the register and I had the window BEHIND ME.....2 stop underexposed photos at ISO1250 on an original EOS1Ds do NOT look good when they've been pushed back up again, they needed a lot of attention and noise reduction just to get them back to "grainy as hell"
Put MkIII on table just after docs were signed. Had it attached to CPE-3 in pocket.
Walked away.
MkIII hit the floor from about 3.5' took both glass vases full of water and flowers straight onto the floor, glass and water everywhere, exactly where I was trying to organize people for the group shot and the venue wasnt exactly enthusiastic about cleaning it up. Everyone turned around and stared, I am sure they all thought:
Very critical moment during a shoot - I mount a 70-200 2.8 IS with a strong ND filter on my 5D, set the lens to 2.8 and shutter speed is right around 100... shooting just shy of 200mm
Shoot away in burst mode.
Dunno why I shot in burst mode, but it saved my punk a$$ ... darn 70-200 was set to IS-OFF (maybe switch got bumped in the bag).
Got enough super-crisp shots in a group of slightly motion-blurred madness but let me tell you ... there was major cold-sweat going down my spine when I realized the IS was off, the moment had passed and the LCD on the back of the camera wasn't going to help me determine if I'd gotten anything "sharp enough"
Chris Beaumont wrote:
Well, I admitted it to ai3x who ribs me more mercilessly than anyone so I guess I don't mind admitting it in public.
The last wedding I did involved the ceremony taking place in a room with extremely dark and light absorbing oak panels all over the walls, and a GIGANTIC window at the end leading to an absolutely impossible dynamic range during the ceremony where I wasn't even meant to be photographing, let alone using the flash, I had -2 EC dialled in just to keep 90% of the room from being utterly black.....
...however like the plank (not the word I used with Alex) that I am I forgot to reset the EC when they were signing the register and I had the window BEHIND ME.....2 stop underexposed photos at ISO1250 on an original EOS1Ds do NOT look good when they've been pushed back up again, they needed a lot of attention and noise reduction just to get them back to "grainy as hell"...Show more →
Gotta love some of those British venues, corridor like rooms with heavy dark wood paneling then really bright window behind the couple. Give me a dark church any day. There's a lesson there though Chris, make sure you chimp the important shots. Oh and buy a D3
lisy78 wrote:
Very critical moment during a shoot - I mount a 70-200 2.8 IS with a strong ND filter on my 5D, set the lens to 2.8 and shutter speed is right around 100... shooting just shy of 200mm
Shoot away in burst mode.
Dunno why I shot in burst mode, but it saved my punk a$$ ... darn 70-200 was set to IS-OFF (maybe switch got bumped in the bag).
Got enough super-crisp shots in a group of slightly motion-blurred madness but let me tell you ... there was major cold-sweat going down my spine when I realized the IS was off, the moment had passed and the LCD on the back of the camera wasn't going to help me determine if I'd gotten anything "sharp enough"...Show more →
Haha, done that one myself. All my IS switches are now permanently gaffer tapped...
Chris Beaumont wrote:
The last wedding I did involved the ceremony taking place in a room with extremely dark and light absorbing oak panels all over the walls, and a GIGANTIC window at the end leading to an absolutely impossible dynamic range during the ceremony where I wasn't even meant to be photographing, let alone using the flash, I had -2 EC dialled in just to keep 90% of the room from being utterly black.....
...however like the plank (not the word I used with Alex) that I am I forgot to reset the EC when they were signing the register and I had the window BEHIND ME.....2 stop underexposed photos at ISO1250 on an original EOS1Ds do NOT look good when they've been pushed back up again, they needed a lot of attention and noise reduction just to get them back to "grainy as hell"...Show more →
On the odd occasion, early on, I've done things like that. It's why I now use Manual for important parts of the day (and, in fact, 80+% of the day). That said, it's annoying when it's a cloudy day and it keeps going from ISO800 to ISO3200!! Then AP would be fantastic!
We've all messed up though. You won't do it again, I suspect
ai3x wrote:
Gotta love some of those British venues, corridor like rooms with heavy dark wood paneling then really bright window behind the couple. Give me a dark church any day. There's a lesson there though Chris, make sure you chimp the important shots. Oh and buy a D3
Alex
Yeah I'm terrible for not chimping, just like to get on with it, arrogantly assuming I know my gear well enough to have got it 'near enough'.
Show me a Nikon 35 1.4 like the one I'm planning on adding soon and I'll be all over the D3 :P
A couple of weddings ago, it was first when winters chill really started to hit hard. We had planned for beach shots of bride/groom and bridesmaids/groomsmen. The beach was not far from their house, but it was such a dramatic difference in cold from the day before to this day they just couldn't handle it (wimps, lol) so they wanted to do the shots in front of some trees in their huge yard. What i didn't notice in my haste until after wards was that there was a big orange extension cord that they used for lights in the tree dangling behind them. Had to photoshop it out of like a dozen or so shots. ugh.
^^^^ this^^^^ except that in my situation I didn't notice one of my bright red extension cables that I used to power my mono lights in the background on all the formals. It wouldn't be so bad except that the floor was black and white tiles. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time in PS on those.
