AboutJohn Wilson Expertise Over 27 years specializing exclusively in professional wedding photography. I can answer most questions relating directly to wedding photography concerning the business, film, digital, traditional & digital labs, marketing, effects, pricing & packaging, shooting outdoors and in-studio with multiple flash, color management and creating magazine style wedding albums. I can't answer questions regarding other fields of photography. I am a full-time self-employed professional photographer and also offer wedding video services. I can comprehensively answer most questions regarding portrait and wedding photography. I've operated a custom color and black & white photo lab processing films and photographic prints. I now shoot digital exclusively and process in Photoshop CS3.
Experience I have over 27 years experience working as a portrait/wedding photographer.
Organizations Better Business Bureau.
Education/Credentials School of hard knocks. Self-study. Purchasing all books I can find about portrait and wedding photography and attending photography seminars over the years.
Question I was trained in film photography and worked part time shooting weddings until health issues prohibited the stress. I've been shooting digital occasionally for several years, mostly corporate social events for a newsletter. I shoot mostly large JPEGs and have only experimented a little with RAW images.
My only training in digital photography are the books I've read so I'm not as comfortable with it as I was with film. I shoot with Nikon equipment - D70 body, SB-600 Speedlight, AF Nikkor D lenses - and a flash bracket if my subjects are people so my white balance is also set for flash. I really like the dedicated flash because it makes fill flash so much easier. I don't like using a tripod if I can help it.
In the books I've read, I've seen photos of a church wedding, for example, where the light, white balance, and exposure all look the same from foreground to background. I would like to know how this is achieved. The white balance for the ambient light will be different than for the flash. Do you somehow change the white balance of the flash? Do you use a tripod and slow synch? Do you use multiple flashes? Thanks.
Thank you for a very good photography question. I think that is a very good question because I've seen the work of a LOT of wedding photographers who even charge $3,000+ and their work suffers mixed light problems. Even photographers who are members of the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) have wedding work which sometimes suffers from gross mixed light problems. This problem is so prevalent that many photographers choose to convert their worse mixed light photos to black & white (so-called black & white) In fact, this problem is so common that many professional photographers and amateur photographers believe mixed light problems are an inherent shortcoming of digital photography and nothing can be done about it. One of the reasons so many film wedding photographers were resistant to switching to digital is because color print film with it's wider latitude and a good film lab were able to minimize mixed light color problems. Final thought, even many brides today ACCEPT mixed light problems in their professional wedding photographs because they assume that's the way digital photography is and there is nothing a wedding photographer can do to make the wedding photographs look more professional.
There are basically two methods or mixture of methods for reducing or completely solving mixed light problems. First, is to use flash color correction filters. A kit of these will cost around $35. A small price to pay for a professional wedding photographer to do everything possible to deliver the best images to his or her clients. You can find a set of these filters at http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/614826-REG/Honl_Photo_HONL_FILTER2_Color_C...
The second method has to do with shooting RAW and creating two different JPEGs of the same shot. In one JPEG, you create the best white balance for your flash. In the other JPEG you create the best white balance for the ambient light. Then in photoshop you layer these two JPEGs together into a single photograph using the best white balance for each light source. Since you won't always have a PERFECT color match of your flash with the ambient light, you might have to spot a little color on some items in your images to neutralize color that is slightly off. This second method is referred to as selective white balance correction.
For the sake of AllExpert readers, I would also like to point out I've seen the work of many wedding photographers who charge at least $20,000 per wedding who have mixed light problems in their work. They very often wash out flesh midtones and comletely blow out the highlights of the bride's dress and sometimes the wedding cake. Tonal qualities are also very easily corrected by shooting RAW and creating two JPEGs layered into one and using the best tones from each to create a single JPEG with professional quality tonal range (or to create JPEGs with tonal range which rival negative print film).
Thanks again Sherry for your photography questions. I hope I've provided some useful information.
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