Any suggestions on how to set up lighting for a chapel wedding?

Hello,

My sister is getting married and she wants me to take the photos. AHH! My photography experience is very limited.

My equipment is also limited:
Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT
EFS- 18-55mm lens

My in-laws want to buy me a new lens, so my first question is, in preparation for the wedding (low lighting conditions), should I go with the EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens (which says its good for low light), or the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM lens (telephoto).

This may help: My husband is a musician and I often want to take good pics of him on stage (again, low lighting), so this equipment would be used alot.

My second question is how do I approach setting up some kind of lighting in a chapel? I was married in the same chapel and had a friend do the photography with my camera. I want to produce better photos for my sister's wedding, but I'm pretty clueless about lighting.

I have read some about softboxes. If these are appropriate for the setting, can someone help me with brands, what I need to buy to attach them to my camera, and what size(s) I need for taking pics at the alter, with the family, and at the reception??? I would greatly appreciate any advice! Thanks so much!

Meghan

If you're looking to do low light an f4-5.6 lens is much too slow! You need to be looking at fast lenses in the f2.8 or lower category. These are pricey but are simply required for dim light. As for lighting, I personally prefer off-camera flash but you seem to be limited by time and experience so a Canon speedlight such as a 430 or 580 would be the way to go. For softening the light you could bounce the flash if the ceiling isn't too high but since most churches have pretty high ceilings then a small softbox for the speedlight would probably do well. I'm not a Canon shooter so some of them may chime in with some more info. Good luck!

Thank you daniel. I did some more research and I see what you mean. The way I understand it is that the aperature needs to be as wide as possible to let more light in, the ISO should be around 100 to avoid noise, and the shutter speed should be slow. I read that for portraits in low light, a 3 second shutter speed is appropriate??? I think I may take your advice on the lighting setup. Thank you.

Here's one I took a couple of weeks ago using 2 Sunpak 383 hotshoe flashes set on manual 1/4 power, bounced off of the ceiling from each side of the alter. I used the Sigma 18-50 f2.8 EX lens and the camera at f4, 1/125 shutter in manual mode with centerweighted metering and single area focus.

meg, I hope youre sister hire a pro. cause, wedding is one of the toughest shooting condiction you don't want to be in. there are no stopping, hold on, waita minuted here, if you know what I mean. especially with your experience right now. the best is to set your camera to P ISO between 200 to 800 depending on lightning condiction. what about memory cards, extra extra battery, external flash cause your pop up flash is no used beyond ten feet.