Lens advice for shooting weddings with D7000

spraynpray

Try using the in camera flash as a commander and have an assistant holding your SB700 set to remote off camera on a monopod with a 16"-20" softbox on it. you will soon know the best position for it after a few trial shots!

heartyfisher

no one has mentioned the SB500..

If you are considering the 80-200 F2.8 consider the older sigma 50-150 F2.8 or tokina 50-135 F2.8.

haroldp

If you are considering an SB 500, look at the Nissin i40, same ize/weight, more powerful, uses 4 AA batteries instead of 2, and I think is better made.

Nissin are professional products.

Pistnbroke

Most everything said is good but many seem to have forgotten the OP is using an D40 and a D7000 both of which will restrict the quality of his output particularly in terms of cropping and maintaining quality...

haroldp

I would rather use a D7000 with proper lighting equipment (competently used), than a D810 without proper lighting equipment.

Pistnbroke

Well this guy is shooting outside at night which means with one flash he has to get black backgrounds unless he locates a few remote flashes behind the action (YN622n)..All seems very unpredictable to me having photographed a few Indian weddings ..Mission Impossible but then whats the customers expectation and what are others producing at the same price

donaldejose

". . . at the same price." That is probably the key element here.

Msmoto

And, of course, more from another "I am not a wedding photographer"...LOL
The only wedding I have shot in the past few years was with full frame and the 24mm f/1.4 Nikkor....lots of money, so not really an option.

However, for crop sensor, I certainly would lean toward the new Sigma 20mm f/1.4.

FYI, the wedding I did shoot I was in, so .....and no shots during the ceremony. The "pro" did the group stuff with flash, but if you want to take a look, the 20 on crop sensor would be close to the 24 on full frame.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/fantinesfotos/albums/72157631859730867/with/8132272990/

vaibhav_aroraD40

Hi Everyone Thank you so much for the suggestions. I have taken some of the advice regarding 'eking' the maximum out of available gear to heart. I couldn't get a wedding (no I didn't even ask for money, just wanted to photograph, advertised in the local paper, nothing helped). Instead I found a traditional dance event and joined the spectators sitting on the ground to shoot under very similar lighting and crowd conditions that would happen in an Indian wedding. It has definitely helped in terms of getting to know my equipment better. I created a face-book page with a few photos. Hope it's OK to post that here just for critique? These are all with my standard D7K / 18-140 / handheld in M, A and P modes.



Rest here - https://www.facebook.com/Unofficial.Aurora/photos_stream

p.s. Also using LR for the first time in my life! Read up a bit on de-noising and that helped (I will for sure get the $200 software, but that much with absolutely no leads, is a bit much).

heartyfisher

The EXIF info would be interesting to see... are you able to add it to the image descriptions ?

manhattanboy

@vaibhav
Glad you shot some pics with your current gear to know what you may need.
I really liked your firework picture. The ones with the woman in yellow and the hands came out sharp enough that I doubt you would need a faster lens than what you have. The two shots of the women in red are slightly blurry. Either the camera had a tough time focusing because of lack of contrast or the shutter speed was too slow or the fine detail was obliterated by NR software, or any combination of the above.

vaibhav_aroraD40

@manhattanboy - thank you. I de-noised the photos of the dance event in LR, I suspect the softening is due to those. Also I shot a fair number over two evenings - about 600 shots in 4 hours spread over two days, I then selected a few to create that page. There are about 30 images that I liked, but due to choice of subject (some have dancers in tribal costumes, some other have scary mythological characters), it wouldn't look anything like a wedding so I didnt put them on the page.

@heartyfisher - here's the exif - everything is shot handheld on the D7000 with the 18-140 VR, no flash (except number 2 below)

1. fireworks shot - S mode - 1/2 second - 800 ISO - 18mm.
2. hands shot - It's actually with the D40 and is an older photo (2011) - ISO 400 - 55 mm (on the 18-55 lens) - flash bounced off the ceiling.
3. Yellow girl - Manual mode (A number 4.97) - f/5.6 - shot at 140 mm - ISO 1250
4. Purple girl - same as above (same dance sequence)
5. Two girls in red - same as above, at ISO 1000.
6. Two girls one in bluish grey and other in red - same as number 3.

If you need more information on the exif please let me know. Thanks again!

haroldp

@manhattanboy - thank you. I de-noised the photos of the dance event in LR, I suspect the softening is due to those.

Try DXO prime for de-noising, it is amazing.