We shot this both landscape and in portrait and chose to stick with the portrait version since we liked how it kept just enough sparklers in the picture to make it exciting, but it also removes things taking the attention away from the couple. Having them down the center of the lines of people means we naturally framed them with leading lines. All the lines converge towards our couple and this naturally brings the attention straight to them.
Center Framed
Focusing was a bit of a nightmare for this one. Since the sparklers were held quite high above our couple, we didn’t have too much light to work with, plus the fact that they were moving quite fast at the same time. So, we chose to use our single point to focus on the couple and refocus as fast as we could. For this shot, our couple, fortunately, stood still long enough for our cameras to find its lock.
Single Shot Autofocus
Single Point
The Brides face
The way the EXIF is written out follows the common photographic method (with the inclusion of White Balance at the end). Here it is broken down:
Shutter Speed @ Aperture ISO White Balance.
The only light we had to work with were the sparklers being held above our couple’s head. Fortunately, our couple stopped with still quite a few people in front of the, so the light from their sparklers lit up their face just enough for us to get a focus & an exposure.
Sparklers
Night
This image wasn’t the most straight forward to edit as there was quite a bit of noise that had to be reduced, plus it was quite underexposed to begin with. I added on the protea presets, increased the exposure and usual adjustments, and then took my time by going in and adding in some radial adjustments to create manual vignettes as well as to brighten our couple.
There were quite a few challenges in this shot, but mainly the focus. We certainly came back with a few out of focus shots.
Fortunately for us we are always shooting as a team of 2. While one of us used the traditional viewfinder to focus, the other used the live view as a “backup”.
Shustoke Barn
Shustoke Barn, Coleshill Road, Shustoke, Coleshill B46 2BL, United Kingdom
Wedding / Event Venue
United Kingdom
It’s never a bad idea to play things safe if you’re unsure on being able to capture a moment right. Especially if you’re alone and you don’t have someone around to get the “safe” shot for you. However, if you happen to be in a team and you know you are going to face a tricky situation – take a moment to talk to each other and even do a few test shots.
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