Switch to Manual Mode

I have used all the cameras i have owned in manual mode for the past 15 years or so, until i started using canon digital cameras. I then switched and started using them in aperture priority AV mode and made adjustments with exposure compensation + or - 1 stop ect. After using Adobe lightroom for all our weddings I have noticed a major advantage to going back to using manual mode for 90% of the images captured at a wedding. I now walk into the church and take a manual hand held reading using a sekonic digital meter. At 1600 ISO the reading is usually 1/30th at f4 for most churches give or take about 1 stop. Everything photographed in the church is based around this reading and i work manually. When these images are imported into lightroom later on it is much easier to consistently alter the images when the exposure was consistent at the time of exposure.

When I photograph the groups I use one manual reading and check the histogram to make sure the brides dress main highlight area is not blown out. As long as the sun has gone behind a 'kind' cloud in the sky the exposure stays the same. The cameras meter is not effected by the groups changing. Later on in lightroom the groups have had the same lighting and exposure and can all be tweaked at the same time with the help of lightrooms syc tool. If you would like to learn more about this technique we run wedding workshops throughout the autumn and winter months.

rb