Composing with such a long lens doesn’t really allow you too much freedom, especially when it’s of a moment that goes by pretty quick. We played it safe by having our couple in the direct center and filling the whole frame with them with a bit of breathing room above and around them. We didn’t pay too much attention to the background or any other compositional elements as it was likely going to be covered in bokeh. Which, it was.
Center Framed
It turns out that we focused on the back of our bride’s head, and being somewhat close to them, the focal plain was quite unforgiving resulting in our groom (who should have been in focus) being out of focus. We shot this through the viewfinder with a single point, though in the moment, and the rush to get that shot lead the point over the bride’s head.
Single Shot Autofocus
Single Point
The Brides head
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.
There were two large windows on either side of the couple at the alter, but the one off to the left was where the sun was shining through the most. It wasn’t the easiest light as the room was so small, that the harsh light pouring in pushed our highlights pretty high. We exposed for the skin of our couple to try and retain a workable dynamic range (enough details in the highlights & shadows) to recover later in post.
Natural Light
Indoor
This was a pretty tricky image to edit as the focus made the image feel a lot softer than what we had liked. We spent quite a bit of time with the dodging and burning to “fake” some sharpness to a certain degree. After applying our protea presets, we adjusted the global exposures to get the tones we liked (tweaking the HSL to correct for the skin tones). We also enhanced the light slightly by using a radial filter as this helps “mask” the out of focus parts.
Despite missing focus, the main challenge was editing. We were not super happy with how soft it felt. It was this point where it didn’t look intentionally out of focus so it just didn’t sit right.
We spent extra time trying new techniques to see if we could “pseudo sharpen” it. Giving the illusion, from a distance, that it was more or less in focus.
SCHLOSS FREUDENSTEIN
Castel Freudenstein Str. Masaccio, 39057 Appiano sulla strada del vino BZ, Italy
Chapel
Italy
Only attempt creative shots of moments like this when you know you have your safe shots. Or at least, you have another photographer who you can rely on to capture the moment perfectly. The risk of missing a decent shot is not worth it just to try something new. Even if that’s a new lens or composition.
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