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This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Oct 29 2007, 12:17 PM

That's all for today, not sure if I wanna post anymore of them up without the couple's consent

A little about today's shoot.

first of all, what a lovely couple, they are seriously in love, and had all the blessings they could get for their wedding. I'm really happy for them. As for the day, rain was coming on and off from 12-1pm, we got most of the important shots done by 2pm though, so we didn't really miss much. It was raining for the rest of the day. I was pretty excited about the shoot but as soon as I got indoor, some stuff started to piss me off.

I sold my sb600 a few days ago, and now left with my vivitar 285hv. The flash doesn't rotate and I didn't put my flash bracket on, so I could only bounce the flash at fixed direction...which was horrible as not all the time there's stuff to bounce on. Next, the flash took ages to recycle to full, which SERIOUSLY pissed me off. Another thing is when I'm indoor, the 80-200 didn't cut it, wasn't reliable enough at extreme low light, not even at 2.8. Both the flash and lens caused me to miss many shots.

I can't wait to receive my sb80dx, the vivitar doesnt cut it as main flash for wedding photography. I'm contemplating selling my 17-50mm and get the 85mm 1.4 now, a small diversion from my upgrade path but what the heck..that'd leave me with 85mm 1.4 + 50mm 1.8 + 80-200mm 2.8 <- which I think will be used exclusively at outdoor and medium indoor lighting. If the flash doesnt cut it, I really gonna smack my head on the wall

btw, everything shot at f2.8-f4 with manual exposure, you obviously can see that from the exif.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Sep 16 2007, 10:49 AM

wowow....nice le bro..but i was wondering...since you say very low lighting why you use 1/250? just asking

Shutter speed doesn't make a difference in flash lighting, it only affects the ambient to flash fill ratio/% and shooting at 1/250 ensures that there's no camera shake/motion blur coz I'm using an 80-200mm lens.

I always set it a little higher than my lens' maximum focal length so I don't have to worry about the shutter speed Technically, I can even get away with it at lower shutter speed since the flash will freeze the motion, but it's just one of those practice I try to adhere to.

ah..okok..thanks for explaining...hehe...

nice shots bro....!!!!! i m on my way learning to shoot for indoor event...hopefully this yr end can give some good shots for my fren's wedding!!

so u use the 80-200 more or the 50mm ???

80-200 indoor, u must be kidding

for nikon aps-c indoor, DX 17-55 is the one to die for, forget bout 85/1.4. its not so versatile for indoor, event covering kind of shooting (wedding is one of them)

8hours wedding photo shots. u must be very2 tired after that. i like the 1st one.

one of the other photog dude I took from the mirror, there's a bit of a reflection of me in it

One thing I tend to always look out for is keeping horizontal/vertical planes straight. The other guy told me he usually just shoot loosely, then go back photoshop and rotate it I'm very used to keeping the lines straight, always do it unconsciously.

That's all I'm gonna post up from this gig, have another one next week. Gonna try to bring 2 flash next time. Finally, man this laptop monitor sux to the max....wtf? 4bit color kar...pictures look great on my 8bit benq fp241, quality drops 70% when I view the pix over here

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Sep 16 2007, 06:35 PM

Beautiful. You caught quite a number of "the right moments".

Nice, you managed to capture the moments of the wedding

Its a pity the 2nd last shot had a little bit of the guy's head chopped off.

Hmm i expected to see more lovely shots of the wedding couple. More to fun perhaps?

yup, these dudes are more of the happy go lucky ones, and the other photog was making them laugh all the time, which is good...you need to talk to them a lot to get them to relax and poses naturally. I was totally out-spoken..can you imagine how much that guy talk?

thanks for all of the comments, for some reasons I thought I posted all the pictures I uploaded to flickr but some didn't show...odd. anyway here are the remaining few:

Some comments from me. Sorry if they are not that good as I'm still not thinking well after a flight back from Vienna.

I think a telephoto lens doesn't suit a wedding very well. A wide to medium telephoto zoom lens like what maniac said should be a better choice for capture the moment pictures. A telephoto lens would be great for posed pictures.

While the moments captured are good but composition and WB can be better. There are some warm pictures posted.

I'm sure you will be shooting great pictures with the right gear, especially with a proper external flash.

Thanks for sharing.

very nice. the colour look very natural.. using a telephoto such as 80-200 F2.8 at a speed of 1/250 is good for candid.. but i think if the subject dont move so much. you could slower the speed. the catch the ambient light in extreme low light condition... hmm. had you try to push the iso .. 1000-1600 maybe.is it too high for nikon? than convert the picture to bnw with noise , hehehe.. just my opinion..

It's difficult coz the speed has to do with camera shake I would be able to get a better blend of ambient + flash if I was using 70-200mm vr with vr enabled, but unfortunately, need to shoot at relatively high shutter speed on this lens. I'll try to find out what's the min shutter speed I can handle with this lens + flash.

Yeah, iso1600 is too high for this camera but it was alright on my older D50. You are right, I did shoot some high iso pictures intended to be converted to B&W and keep the noise as film grain, but somehow i just cannot take it I think I'll shoot at iso800 top for this camera.

I don't know why I was so fixated in taking full body shot of the last few pictures, should have zoomed in closer and get waist up shots, I've gotta try to keep that in mind for this coming sat's gig.

very nice alamaklor, u had capture the very nice moment of the wedding

as a newbie here i doesnt technical thing on how to take photos, but wat i can feel is the couple is really lovely

u had sent the msg to the reader

nice work man! yeah shooting weddings you got to deal with low light environment every time. i don't actually agree that tele lense is not suitable for wedding. for me telelense is one of the must have lense for weddings, for indoor and outdoor shoot. the lense will be very useful and will make capture beautiful candids and potraits. a super wide angle is one of the must have too for weddings. i would say you will need:

+ wide angle
+ tele
+ 50mm
+powderful flash

I see a lot of photographers not use the 50mm but stick to the 85mm f1.4. But I guess it is a matter of preference right?

Yeah, a wide/superwide is quite important for a HUGE group shot I sold my 50mm when I sold my d50, but I just repurchased that lens and is on the way to me. Hopefully I can get it by end of the month. I'm also getting my ac adapter for my flash some time this week, which helps to recycle the flash to full in < 2s. I'll try to see if it is viable to setup a stationary flash at a strategic location during next wedding ceremony to help reduce my on-camera flash power usage until my sb80dx arrives.

I'll also try to use my 150mm prime for next session, it doesn't hunt as much as my 80-200 after setting the limit switch. Gonna just toss all the stuff in my waist pouch.

I think the 50mm vs 85mm is just a preference. Some people like to be closer to the subjects, some like to be farther away. But as far as bokeh is concerned, the 85mm 1.4 is one of the best.

Oh btw, I will have wedding gigs every saturday, maybe on sundays too so prepare for lovely couple pictures. I plan to shoot strictly b&w for next wedding preparation.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Sep 18 2007, 06:15 AM

50mm very useful for detail shots also for low light u can go as low as 2.2 or 2.0 anything lower the bokeh is over already. i like to use 50mm for shooting hantarans or flowers,wedding gouns and potraits. 80mm you will be father but having the 1.4mm it wont really help is you wont be using the 1.4 too much.

great to see another wedding photographer in the forum man!another good thing is ur on the other side of the world

There are lots of scenes in msia that I'd really like to shoot - sunset sampan, bridge, jetti, with silhouette, you know.

Anyway, I've been browsing some flickr wedding groups, and *cough* shutterspeak *cough* seems like it is natural to PP the pictures to spice things up...so here we go, a quick PP I did earlier:



done on my crappy laptop monitor, so might have too much Ajinomoto, but no sk2

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Sep 18 2007, 09:09 AM

I like the effect but the white area is a little too thick at the top. Makes the image look a little uneven.

Pre-Halloween shot....too lazy to create another thread just for this 1 shot

-one flash with umbrella
-sigma 150 @ 2.8
-2 stop over flash meter reading
-indoor darkroom

September 29


CPL used


2 flash used, one wireless slave behind altar, sb80dx as on camera fill flash






I love to play with perception and alignment






this chick is hot, but she's pretty tall


I would have used a color gel and a slave for to isolate the background, but was too tired to bother about it


picture-in-picture

the flash kinda harsh....did u diffuse it?
but it do create the scary effect

btw..love ur wedding photos....

i think these shots are just awesome...where is your location?i've always wanted to take weddings of other races or maybe at other countries...

It was shot through an umbrella, so yes, it was diffused.

I'm located in Canada, so most of what I'd be shooting are mat salleh, indians, lebaneses, and some chinese

This job is very freaking prospective here, I'd imagine it brings in even more $$ @ larger cities. Clients are prebooked for 1-2 years ahead.

This time I only used my 17-50 and 150mm. I tried keeping the shutter speed @ 1/60 with the 150mm with flash but some shots were ruined because the flash wasn't fast enough to still the image. I think I will try to shoot @ iso320-400 next time with faster than 1/100 + fill flash. Luckily those are they blurred, are just slightly blurred and still very usable.

This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Oct 15 2007, 12:04 PM

so busy with gigs...don't even have time to process them

Taken with studio strobe





(son in law....oh yeah...it's the parents getting married )


This guy looks 85% like Michael Scofield in Prison Break





This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Oct 15 2007, 12:34 PM

Hmm i wondering are u a PR in canada or what? Anyway pls share more wedding pics from other races in ur area too. Its an highlight for us to see different weddings in a foreign country.

Gosh! I am not surprise if you are pre-booked 1 - 2 years in advance. All your wedding shots are fabulous. It captured the right moment, the joy, etc. Well, I can't comment much about the photo since I am a newbie to photography. One thing for sure, I won't mind getting my wedding shot by you but too bad you are half a globe away . I love those natural right moment.

ugh, one of my flashes exploded today when I was setting up the lights...gotta send it in for warranty. Haven't posted any pictures for awhile but here we go:

Soft light:


Slightly harder light:


This post has been edited by AlamakLor: Oct 29 2007, 12:16 PM

nice nice....can go so far to snap...
cool eh!

All your picture is very nice man. That shows that f2.8 is a must to buy aye ?
Mind tell me your WB for those photos ? AWB ?
I just bought my flash few days ago , still alot of things need to learn from Sifu's Damian.

This post has been edited by Andy0625: Nov 1 2007, 03:51 PM

ur photo are owesome man...
good job...

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the comments. I'm working on a beauty shoot portfolio this month, might begin shooting later this month or some time next month. Currently still working on ideas and searching for different people

Everything shot with AWB. If you are using sb800, there's nothing much to set...just i-ttl + compensation. If you have more than 1 flash or tired of i-ttl, the you can start using AA/A mode, and maybe compensate the exposure a little depending on how accurate the light sensor is.

Me only buy 2.8 or faster glasses must buy or not depends on what you are looking for an how you shoot mar. To me, the bokeh quality is very important...to some others, convenience comes first in the list. I have a 1.4 glass coming on the 6th can't wait to get me grubby hands on it