Minimalist approach to photographing wedding ceremony

Another good high school friend of mine got married recently. On top of being his "brothers" to overcome the obstacles set by the "sisters" when picking up the bride, I double duty as a secondary photographer as well.

Not wanting to shoot with film, my only option now is my Panasonic LX3. So I took this opportunity to see how LX3 fare against the big guns in wedding ceremony photography. With a good Leica-badged f2.0 lens (that has good IQ and deliver sharp enough images), I have confidence that it will perform well, as long as I get the lighting right.

So my gear consist of the camera with 8GB of storage, coupled with my Nikon SB-800 Speedlite for indoor lighting, and a small sling bag to store the Speedlite when not required. There's no TTL support when mounted on LX3, but "A" mode is still workable, but require manual setting of distance and aperture. Since I'm covering wide angle shots, I shouldn't need to make much adjustments to the flash.

All shots were taken in RAW+jpeg, as I plan to post-process them using Lightroom 3 Beta. Most indoor shots were set to shutter priority mode at 1/80s to 1/120s to prevent motion blur. outdoor shots were set to aperture priority.

Parents helping the groom to wear his coat.


The "Heng Dai" group photo. Ready for any torture coming their way...


Waiting nearby the bride's home for the "right time" to arrive.


The driver and the "dai kam je".


Sisters giving instructions behind the safety of the grill door.


Unwilling to put on lip sticks.
In this shot, we're just beneath the white ceiling, another step to the left the flash would have bounce back the red cast of the red tent. Behind shows a very bright and overexposed background, which I manage to recover a little via LR.


After plenty of obstacles, the groom finds the bride waiting anxiously in her room.
This is where a P&S unable fire at the exact timing when the couple kisses, especially when they are camera-shy about it. My guess it is due to the lack of light for the camera to quickly lock focus. But I guess this shot still provides some consolation. Also, would be nice if the background is blurred with shallow DOF.


Traditional Chinese tea ceremony, with the "dai kam je" saying plenty of prosperity phrases.


O O

Couple waiting between relatives during tea ceremony, while this little one goes all over the place :)


The couple's turn to be served tea by their younger relatives.

If you pixel peep this shot, the groom's coat has a lot of colour noise. (but you wouldn't have noticed if I didn't mention it, right?)


Giving ang pow to the little ones.


Couple leaving the bride's house, while the "dai kam je" carrying the gift basket out.


Arrival at the groom's home.


Inside the house.


Everyone is taking photos of the couple. So I took some as well.

Followed by another round of tea ceremony....

Good thing that LX3 has a wide 24mm field of view, which allowed me to fit in so many people into this group photo. (people at the side is a little bit "stretched" though...)

As for the wedding banquet, I just brought along the LX3 without a flash, so only had a few reasonable shots. As you can see at low light situation without good lighting, the colour is less pleasant.

I'm lucky that the shutter fired as of when the champagne was popped.






"Yam Seng"!

Overall, the result seems to be acceptable for a consumer range point and shoot camera. It get's the job done, but it lacks the artistic ability of a fast lens: bokeh. Although it has aperture of f2.0, the sensor is too small to have any nice shallow DOF. That's the main feature that I miss from a large sensor camera.

Other notable issues when using this camera to shoot weddings are such:

1. Difficult to lock focus in low light condition, causing missed moments.
2. Shot to shot time is not fast, so timing your shots is essential.
3. Noise definitely is higher, but it is acceptable as long as it is kept below iso 400 with accurate exposure.
4. Depending how long is the event, you might need a spare battery. I shot until the battery ran out of juice, but not after the end of the ceremony and group photo sessions. I think I got a good 300 over RAW+Jpeg shots with a single battery.
5. The Sb-800 is powerful enough for the job, but lack the TTL support. If it goes into standby mode, half-pressing the shutter release will not bring it back online automatically. So it's a bit frustrating sometimes when you shoot but the flash did not fire. However, a Olympus flash would provide TTL support, but I haven't try it before.

However, not forgetting some of the good points with this minimalist approach:

1. Having no shallow DOF means focus accuracy is less of an issue, even at f2.0. This means I can concentrate on composition more than worrying about what to focusing, and still have more light into the sensor. I just let the camera decide where to focus, it's it's usually spot on.
2. No shoulder and back pain by the end of the day (as compared to my previous gears).
3. Love the aspect ratio switch at the front of the lens!
4. Lens has good zoom range for the job. Can even do close-up detail shots with macro mode. I would have needed several lens to do this if I'm using a DSLR.

So my main complaint here is not having the shallow DOF for nice artistic and portrait shots, and the slow focusing speed. Well, can't have it all I guess, unless I decide to go for a micro43 camera...