Film vs. Digital in full sun wedding

[Denton]

Either way, why not use reflectors to balance out the shadows and highlights?

I've used fill flash off-camera wirelessly (a breeze with the 5D & speedlights) to do the same but it's nice working much more quickly with reflectors and a trusty assistant.

Seems this approach plus Portra films would help your situation.

Reflectors and scrims are my first choice and normal working tools. I'm concerned, however, primarily with an "altar" shot where I can't run up with a reflector. I've since learned from this thread that my linear understanding of flash needs a "higher order" of mathematics, i.e., non linear additive effects.

At one time I might not mind using a blast of flash after moving within speedlight range during the most critical point of the ceremony. These days, however, I'm less eager to disrupt the ceremony in this fashion and my approach is becoming less intrusive, therefore my consideration of film. Admittedly, a brief burst of flash on a bright day is not very noticeable. But I'd have to use focused zoom flash at close range to compete with the 2-3 three stop loss of the shadow side.

denton

 

[bobbyrab]

You say "alter shot", I take it you mean in a church, in which case it's usually unlikely that the bride will be in a pool of bright sun light. Once outside there are work arounds that avoid using flash [which is after all the work of the devil], stick to shaded areas or shoot into the sun. Flash is always a last resort for me, never happy if I have to use it indoors or out....R

 

[tlitody]

You say "alter shot", I take it you mean in a church, in which case it's usually unlikely that the bride will be in a pool of bright sun light. Once outside there are work arounds that avoid using flash [which is after all the work of the devil], stick to shaded areas or shoot into the sun. Flash is always a last resort for me, never happy if I have to use it indoors or out....R

I think a lot of US weddings happen outdoors unlike the UK where the weather is unpredictable.

 

[damien.murphy]

The dynamic range of sensors is getting quite impressive, and would try do a few test shots in shooting situations similar to what you will be shooting in, on the day, and see how you go.

Sensor improvement in this respect was quite a surprise to me, and the dynamic range of Nikon sensors has improved almost by 3 stops in comparison to 5/ 6 years ago (D80/ D200). DXO does some good comparative grading in this regard.

 

[Denton]

You say "alter shot", I take it you mean in a church, in which case it's usually unlikely that the bride will be in a pool of bright sun light. Once outside there are work arounds that avoid using flash [which is after all the work of the devil], stick to shaded areas or shoot into the sun. Flash is always a last resort for me, never happy if I have to use it indoors or out....R

By "altar" I mean outside in full sun at 2:30 pm with happy couple looking at each other. In a church with a real "altar" this would be no problem, lots of ways to handle this lighting, including flash. For shots not occurring during the ceremony, I can control the lighting.

In my experience, when the couple decides to 1)do the ceremony at high full sun or 2) in dappled shade, then the contrast is too much for even the 5DMII. Yes, you can get a crappy shot, but not what I would prefer. Pushing the shadows up in LR or PS does not make me happy. Converting to BW can help as the degradation in the shadows is not as noticeable.

If I'm lucky, I'll get a thin haze just enough to diffuse the hard shadow edges and also reduce the sun key light so the shadows will be lifted, but I can't depend on luck or posing.

 

[Colin Corneau]

I've had similar situations in portraits and weddings where I've set a speedlight on a small stand (or even on a tabletop, given the 'feet' that come with the Canon speedlights) and used wireless slave settings...either the built in ones or via Pocketwizards.

Worth a shot, it would allow you to stay unobtrusive and at a distance but still tailor your light to what you need.

 

[Ranchu]

Thanks for the replies.

Really, the crux of the problem is can film give me more lattitude, with scanning, than digital. For this to be the case, film must capture a wider contrast range and then I must compress the highlights as I will likely need to overexpose. I'd like to do this with standard C41 processing.

(snip)

More advice? Does film with normal processing provide any advantages?

Denton

Film with normal processing, and scanned, captures more dynamic range than digital. There's no need to 'compress' the highlights, film does that itself. Dappled shade will probably still suck, but won't look like holes punched in the picture like digital can.

 

[Chris101]

If you are not familiar with metering the shoulder of Portra, practice with it. Fill flash is essential in bright sun (well, it is for me - I live in Arizona!) no matter if you shoot film or digital. You want these to be *perfect* right?

 

[gavinlg]

I find that scanned 35mm film is inferior to 35mm digital. The 5d is perfectly capable of getting a big highlight range - just keep it at iso100, shoot raw and develop it in 'camera neutral' setting in ACR/lightroom, and make sure you expose for the highlights - bring the shadows up later if you need to.

If it's harsh overhead sun use reflectors to remove shadows from faces - or a fill flash. 580ex in fast sync mode works well.

IMO - medium format film > digital 35mm > film 35mm

 

[dallard]

Here's some shots I took on 160 NC near mid day. These are the scans that Precision Camera does. Maybe it gives you some idea of shadow/highlight behavior.

 

[Turtle]

Agreed. Expose for highlights, bring up shadows in LR (or similar), use 'fill light' feature, use recovery for the really bright stuff if there is any, and hey presto! I shot a wedding a few weeks ago in awful harsh light without a cloud in the sky. With the 5D II at least, even at high ISO there was still miles of wiggle room in the shadows and no prob getting bright well lit results. I can't imagine having been able to do this with film without lots of fill flash. A friend shot with a Nikon D2 XS and nowhere near as much flexibility in his files...

I find that scanned 35mm film is inferior to 35mm digital. The 5d is perfectly capable of getting a big highlight range - just keep it at iso100, shoot raw and develop it in 'camera neutral' setting in ACR/lightroom, and make sure you expose for the highlights - bring the shadows up later if you need to.

If it's harsh overhead sun use reflectors to remove shadows from faces - or a fill flash. 580ex in fast sync mode works well.

IMO - medium format film > digital 35mm > film 35mm

 

[Tim Gray]

I can't imagine having been able to do this with film without lots of fill flash.

Probably easier than you think. 'Over expose' your film by a stop or two and get it scanned by someone who knows what they are doing.