wedding in side church

onlyme111

am shooting a wedding in side church have a Nikon D5200 what settings would be best. also what lens have a Nikon 18/55 and a sigma 30mm any help would be appreciated.

bruto

You're going to have a challenge here, and some will depend on just how the church is lit, and where the windows are.

If it's possible, I'd try to get there and test things out beforehand. You need to find out what ISO is going to be useful in the light, and how high you can take the ISO before you object to the noise. You also need to find out, if possible, how light from windows will influence your meter readings. If you have bright windows, it will trick the meter into underexposing backlit faces.

Figure out where the windows are in relation to the action that's going to take place, so you are prepared to compensate for them. If, as is often the case, you're going to be facing an altar with big windows behind, you'll have to adjust the metering, probably a couple of stops in the + direction, to avoid silhouetted faces.

Finally, what lens you can choose will depend some on where you can stand. The Sigma 30 is probably faster than the kit zoom, and might be better, but not if you can't frame your shots as needed. The zoom will be handier for getting the framing right, at the expense of lens speed.

If you have no chance to preview the location, make sure that your camera is set up to give you the "overview" screen on review, so you can quickly chimp the histogram as well as the picture, and adjust exposure on the fly. It's impossible from here to know if you'll need exposure compensation.

I'd set the camera for A priority and make sure the auto focus is set to single point, so that you can choose your subject explicitly. Auto area might make mistakes, although it often will get groups of people right. Set the ISO as high as you think will give you clean pictures. If you use Auto ISO, make sure you set an upper limit or it will go too high and noisy. Keep an eye on shutter speed, and up the ISO or open the lens as needed to keep the shutter speed hand holdable. If you are using the kit zoom with VR there's a fair amount of room here, if you have steady hands, but shoot multiple shots in case your subjects move. Try to time shots for moments when everyone is still.

I'm assuming here that you will not be able to use flash. The built in flash of the camera is probably not going to compliment faces well anyway. Professional wedding photographers generally use sophisticated flashes, but I'm presuming you'll be shooting in natural light.

If you seem to be having trouble getting exposure right on faces, try using the spot meter and read directly off a face.

Because the camera in question does not have a locking rear control, make sure that you occasionally push the [OK] button to insure the focus point and the metering point are centered. It's easy to bump the control and not notice.

If depth of field is an issue, try to focus more or less halfway between the front and back, close the aperture a little if you have to, and err a little on the close side.

And finally, if possible, shoot in Raw mode, so that you can make white balance and exposure compensation adjustments easily in post. If you shoot in Raw mode there's a lot you can do to save an image.

This is all off the top of my head, as there's a lot to guess about so the venue.