I am a little curious about shooting for a wedding situation. I have not used my elan 2 for it yet (I am not a pro), but if bride is white and groom is in black will metering on bride (using partial metering)and then recomposing for groom as well still give me bright white for bride and black, not grey, for groom? Or should I use EC to overexpose. I am thinking of using sigma 500 super flash if indoors too. Thanks.

-- Latham Portous (latport@hotmail.com), February 03, 2002

Answers

You think too much!!

Concentrate less on exposure and more on emotion and composition. The Elan 7 has a very capable metering system. Choose your smallest metering pattern (not a center-weighted mode), and shoot away. When focusing on a Caucasian subject's face, it is about .5 stops brighter than 18%. If you aren't able to be close enough to have a focus box cover the face, use EC and meter off the dress or tux, then the exposure lock button and you'll be fine. Just don't forget to disable "negative" side EC or you'll be very upset with your thin negs. Flash metering is very similar to this (keeping a focus box over an 18% subject or using appropriate FEC). Once you understand the metering of the EOS system you'll have very little trouble.

You can't perfect exposure on two subjects that are 4 (or more) stops apart (depending on your light source).

In summation, Once your exposure is two stops faster than what will render blacks with detail, you will lose that detail. Same can be said for whites, just insert "two stops slower". Shooting slide film for your personal photos can help you understand this. Harshly, I might add. You'll have many slides thrown away for bad exposure until you can learn how to meter well.

-- Colin Miller (miller.photos@att.net), February 04, 2002.

Forgot to add a link.

All of these images were shot with an EOS-3, no flash and spot metering of the face with 0 EC. The prints look much better than the flatbed scans. That's always the way it is though.

-- Colin Miller (miller.photos@att.net), February 04, 2002.

Damn!! Forgot to close that link!!

-- Colin Miller (miller.photos@att.net), February 04, 2002.

Thanks. I suppose I just have to experiment more and not be afraid of learning and making errors!

-- Latham Portous (latport@hotmail.com), February 05, 2002.

For weddings I usually set the exposure manually to one stop below the ambient lighting level & leave it there, and then use flash on E- TTL for the prime exposure. For the procession things happen too fast to change FEC as the bride get's closer so I don't bother. But I have downrated my film some anyway, so that provides some additional exposure for when the bride's dress starts to dominate the scene. For the darker suits there is some overexposure but the film latitude can cover this.

If I have time I use FEC when shooting just the dark suited guys or just the light color dressed ladies, but during the ceremony itself time often does not allow for it. For the formal shots, when I have more time, I usually use a flash meter and use manual flash. But the times I use E-TTL (sometimes wireless mutliflash E-TTL) I do use FEC depending on how much of the dress/suit dominated the scene.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 06, 2002.