A Proposal with 3 Sony prime lenses

Photographing Proposal / Engagement

I decided to end 2018 with a special post, sharing my session photographing the proposal of Amy and Anthony. While I’m primarily an enthusiast, my readers know I’ve shot a few weddings, including here and here.  My most frequent professional work is shooting engagement sessions, often in Central Park, New York. But this month, I had the special opportunity to capture a proposal.  Let’s go through the lessons learned… the advantages and disadvantages of the gear used.. strategies for the future..

First, some of my past engagement photographs:

The Plan

Anthony had a special dinner booked at a hotel restaurant. I was unfamiliar with the venue but immediately had concerns. My rare experiences with proposal shoots were always outdoors in broad public. My immediate concern was that there would be no place inconspicuous from which to take decent photographs. People who don’t understand photography fall under the impression that professional photographers can pull off miracles, shoot through obstructions with telephoto lenses and get magazine worthy glamour shots.  And in fact, there was discussion about whether I could sit at a table somewhere else in the restaurant and shoot from there.

After much discussion, it was determined that he would be proposing in a lounge where a couple of seats were reserved. I had him send me photographs of the location beforehand, so I at least had some idea what to expect. While I would have a camera with me, I assured him I would be as inconspicuous as possible, sitting on couches near the proposal location. I wanted to be in place before the moment arrived, so that I could have the location properly metered, have my composition planned. Being close enough to take photos without a long telephoto lens, and without having to swoop in at the last moment, which can introduce too many variables.

My gear list:

• Sony A7riii
• Tamron 28-75 F/2.8 (review here)
• Sony 55mm F/1.8 (review here)
• Rokinon 35mm F/1.8 (review here)
• Sony 85mm F/1.8 (review here)
• Godox AD200 + softbox (as used here)

• Godox V860II-S flash

• Godox X-Pro wireless trigger

Now while I bought the Tamron zoom lens, I only used my three prime lenses, thus the title of the post.

The Candid Proposal Captures

I got into position about 30 minutes before the arrival of the couple. I did my best to clear any obstructions that would be in the way of images. I evaluating the lighting by firing off a couple of test shots. Since I would be taking candids of the couple, and shooting quickly to capture candid expressions of the moment of the proposal, I knew I shouldn’t use flash.

Without flash, I was at the whim of the hotel’s artificial lighting. I had the Tamron 28-75 F/2.8 so I’d be able to adjust my composition and framing of the couple in the moment. But i was concerned that even the 2.8 aperture would not be fast enough considering the low level of light. I did not want to go with a very slow shutter speed: These were once in a lifetime shots, that I could not risk losing to motion blur or camera shake.

I therefore settled on shooting at 1/100 of a second. Practicing the anticipated composition, I decided I could get away with the Sony 55mm F/1.8. It would let me get a “normal view,” while standing a few steps out of the way of the couple. At 1/100 and F 1.8, I would still be pushing the ISO pretty high…

55mm F/1.8 at F/1.8, 1/100 and ISO 10000

Click any of the images in this post for larger. Some notes: Given the candid nature of the event, and limited planning, there was no planning the background. While the background is far from perfect, at least the outdoor lights gave some nice bokeh ball effect. The greater concern is that when the future groom sat down, he placed his bag and wine glass down blocking part of the frame. Note for the future: explain to the groom the importance of keeping the sight line to the photographer unobstructed.

A more full gallery of the candid proposal shots, with the ISO shifting between ISO 5000 and ISO 12,800:

Some thoughts on the performance of the Sony A7riii:

I would not have been able to as reliably get these images with any other camera. While far from perfect, the image quality is surprisingly good at such high ISO. Very few cameras can produce usable large images over ISO 10,000.

Notice the framing of the images: Focus was on the bride’s eye, which is often pretty close to the corner of the frame. No traditional dSLR has focus points that far off center. Only mirrorless cameras  (or some dSLR live view modes) can focus deep into the corners. While the Nikon Z6/Z7 and Canon R can focus at the edges of the frame, the Nikon cameras lack eye-AF and eye-AF is not very reliable on the Canon R. Meaning the photographer would have to manually move the AF point, again slowing the process of capturing these candid images. Sony eye-af essentially takes focus out of the equation: Smash the eye-AF button and mostly forget about it, focus was nailed in most (but not all) of the images. That’s not to say you can’t get similarly good images from other cameras, but the images wouldn’t as easily come with the same composition.

I’d be comfortable printing most of these images as 8 X 10, or even a bit larger.

55mm F/1.8 at F/1.8, 1/100 and ISO 5000

Adding Off Camera Flash

Once the immediate surprise had passed, I turned on the Godox AD200 strobe in a softbox to be held by my assistant. I moved closer to the couple, who were still in the genuine moments immediately after saying “yes.” Thus, I was moving quickly, with limited time to re-adjust settings. Moving closer to the couple but now with off camera flash, I was hoping to capture high quality more intimate moments. If I wasn’t rushed, I would have manually set the ISO on my camera, anticipating slightly underexposed backgrounds. But I was moving quickly and initially left the camera in auto ISO.

Possibly because I left the camera in auto-ISO, many of my images ended up significantly over-exposed, or “exposed to the right.” It is a known strategy to push exposure up to the high side, and then reduce it in post-production, as a noise minimizing technique. It is not a technique I usually utilize, at least not on purpose. But here, it actually worked by accident…

See the “Straight out of the camera” below and the corrected version. Despite being shot at ISO 6400, once the exposure was corrected, you have a lovely image with fantastic skin tones, lots of detail, and very little noise.

Another pairing before and after correction:

In addition to correcting the exposure, a conversion to black and white further helps to bury the noise of high ISO. And at the same time, many consider the B&W look to be quite romantic.

In this final set, click through to also see a close crop of the eye. The eye-AF nailed autofocus despite extremely narrow depth of field.

The above was one of my favorite captures of the evening. Some closing thoughts before I switch lenses and location: While I have generally not used the “expose to the right” strategy, it led to some wonderfully dramatically lit shots. I feared that I had blown highlights but all the skin detail was present when I lowered the exposure.

The Sony 55mm F/1.8 is a fantastic lens in terms of resolution and rendering. The negative of the lens is very busy bokeh balls. If you look closely at the bokeh balls in the various images in this section, there is a whole lot of a mess inside the balls.

It’s still a lens I highly recommend. The Sony 55mm F/1.8 can be purchased from Amazon here.

Posed Engagement / Couple Shots at 35mm

I have done a lot of engagement sessions and almost exclusively rely on an 85mm focal length, but my engagement shoots are almost always outdoors. Inside a hotel setting, there was not enough room for an 85mm focal length. After the couple got through the initial joy of the moment, I offered them some posed formal portraits, with proper additional lighting. They were rushed for their actual dinner reservation but they gave me a bit of time.

While waiting for them to arrive, I scoped out some better locations than the lounge where the proposal occurred. I found a lovely large red couch set against a window. I always recommend when shooting candid proposal, re-do a staged proposal. Consider it insurance if there were any problems with the “real” images. Additionally, we can now use a soft box and take our time to focus. This time, I did manually adjust the ISO. I chose ISO 1600, so as to allow in some ambient light and not over-stress the strobe, while also maintaining excellent image quality for large prints.

Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F3.2 and soft box, ISO 1600

When not working with professional models, it is especially important to take control of the pose. If you are hired to take portraits, you’re not just being hired because your camera is better than an iPhone. Proper choice of background, good posing, are traits you should bring to the table. When working with couples, don’t just have them sit/stand next to each other. Work with them to find a romantic way to shoot them, even if it takes a few moments to get the shot to work:

Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F3.2 and soft box, ISO 1600

Another of my favorite images of the evening.

It was a warm night for a December evening and the hotel had an outdoor bar / patio that was closed. I thought it would be a nice location to shoot the couple in isolation. My plan was to have them in a dancing embrace. Backlit with a speedlight on the floor behind them, and a soft box as they key light. The images:

In shooting these images, I had my first real difficulty of the evening. It was pitch black out there and autofocus was useless. It is one of the few times I have had difficulty with autofocus on the Sony A7riii, even in low light. Fortunately, focus magnification and focus peaking make manual focus pretty easy on the Sony cameras.

The Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 has become one of my favorite lenses, much to my own surprise. I originally purchased it just to compare it to the much more expensive Sony 35mm F/1.4. It can be purchased here from Amazon and the image quality will match the much more expensive 35mm lenses.

Photographing Groups

As part of the surprise, the groom had their families join them after the immediate proposal. Posing groups is a challenge, as you want something better than everyone standing in a line and looking at the camera. Further, some people are just resistant to simple instructions and insist on standing several feet back with a stern look on their face. As I share a few images, I’ll end with what I find to be the most critical aspect of posing groups of people.

First, the “serious” full family shot:

Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F2.8, softbox, importance of hand placement

As much as possible, insure that bodies are presented at an angle. Encourage women to place their weight on the back foot.   And when you can, try to encourage real emotion. While it can be difficult in a posed group photo, if you tell everyone to playfully squeeze together, you can capture a joyous moment between family:

Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F2.8, softbox, importance of hand placement and natural expressions

One more of just the bride with her sister and brother-in-law…

Rokinon 35mm F/1.4 at F2.8, softbox, hand placement creates connections

To me, the most important and most overlooked aspect of posing groups is the hand placement. People don’t know what to do with their hands and arms when taking group photos. They often will put arms around the shoulders of others, creating hunched shoulders and disconnected hands. Strategic posing allows the hands to be used to build connections between the subjects in the portrait. Though not perfect, these three images made pretty good use of building connections with hands.

Every photographer will consider posing the head and the eyes. Most will remember to angle the body and the legs. But I encourage you to give extra thought to where your subjects are placing their hands.

Shooting the Bride to Be

The future bride looked lovely and deserved an individual portrait. Being a warm night, nobody minded stepping out to the front of the hotel where holiday lights can be used for beautiful large bokeh ball shots. Now that I was outdoors, I switched to my Sony 85mm F/1.8, my favorite lens for portraits.

We were working by the hotel driveway and thus had to constantly clear the path for traffic. Additionally, the couple was now anxious to get to dinner. But the holiday lights did add a bit of magic to night time portraits.

I have previously written about the Sony 85mm F/1.8 versus the Sony 85mm F/1.4 GM. While the Sony 85mm F/1.8 has exceptionally image quality, and I do not find the depth of field of a 1.4 aperture to be necessary, the Sony 85mm F/1.8 bokeh is not perfect. The bokeh tends to take on the “cat’s eye” look and tends to create a “swirly” bokeh. Thus, if you are a true bokeh snob, get yourself the Sony 85mm F/1.4 GM or the Sony 100mm F/2.8 STF lens.  For most portrait shooters, whether enthusiast or professional, the Sony 85mm F/1.8 is more than good enough. The Sony 85mm F/1.8 can be purchased here. 

Closing Thoughts

A final candid with the Sony 85/1.8….

If anyone ever asks you to photograph a proposal, say “YES!” Jump at the chance. More than any other time, it is probably the chance to photograph true happiness.

Yes, people are happy at their weddings. But they are also often stressed about the wedding. When doing portraits, they may be rushing to get to the next part of the wedding. There are worries about getting every family member and every family combination for formal portraits. When you shoot family sessions, you often have miserable children forced to dress up by their parents. And you have anxious parents, concerned about their children looking best.

Assuming the bride says yes, a proposal is a moment of sheer joy. You can truly capture moments of happiness. That is really one of the great things about photography.

I wish all my readers a happy new year. I ask you to follow this blog in the New Year by accepting notifications from the blog and/or following me on twitter. If you are planning on buying any of the gear cited in the article, please consider using the links in this post. You will help to support this blog at no additional cost to you.