I am doing a wedding for a friend of mine (I know, "If you value your friendship DON'T", but I'm doing it anyway). I realize that when doing portraits of one or two people you should have the lens at eye level, but I have also read that when shooting further back and photographing a group the lens should be at the waist. Where is the cutoff point between eye level and waist level or do you slowly bring the tripod down the further away you get? Is there a set focal lenght or distance rule that one should follow. The people I am shooting probably wouldn't care a bit about the difference but want these to be as proffesional as I can make them. Any information or links you can give me about this or even any other aspect of wedding photography such as positions and poses for family would be greatly appreciated.

-- shadow (mshadow818@msn.com), May 17, 2002

Answers

6.5 feet, or two meters.

Just kidding. There's no rules you have to follow. When you get there, see what angle looks best. Actually I think bride photos often look best from a lower than head level perspective. But if you're concentrating on the head, shoot at that level. If you are concentrating on a group of people shoot from the same level as the center of the group. Anyway this rule like most other photography rules is meant to be broken a lot.

Check out the wedding & portrait stuff at: http://www.zuga.net/

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), May 18, 2002.