15 years (off-and-on) shooting weddings and I FINALLY get a dramatic sky!

5D, 16-35 f/2.8 L lens, 1/125th sec @ f/6.3. Camera was set to Tungsten white balance. 580ex II flash with full CTO gel off-camera left on a VAL (Voice Activated Lightstand: otherwise known as David Lee (aka DKHL)). Pocket wizard used to fire the flash.

 

Haha, congrats. I'm sure they'll love the pic.

 

White balance, colour temp looks a little cold to me. Is that deliberate to bring out the sky, or have you tried a warmer balance... ?

As it is the dramatic sky distracts a little from the happy couple for me, but I figure all that matters is that you & they like it

 

The white balance does look on the cool side, but hey congrats on the dramatic sky. I know exactly how your feeling. You wait for these things to happen forever and when they finally do it just makes you smile!

 

White balance effect is intentional. I think it works wonderfully for this photo. Good job, Steve.

 

You know what I learned from my trip to the Southwest? Skies get REALLY dramatic when you use a ND filter. The issue with that is, you need to make sure the dark area doesn't go across the subjects face. However, that shot is the business.

 

hey, thats me.. the voice activated lightstand.

I don't want to speak for Steve but the white balance was done on purpose i believe.

 

What is with the two perfectly straight lines in the sky? They are really distracting for me.

 

what is that all about?

Steve, I'm just going to compliment you on all your photography and you can apply that compliment to every photo you take.....even the ones you haven't taken yet.

 

Voice Activated Lightstand: a lightstand that can respond to voice commands such as "aim higher", "more to the left" and "go get me the 70-200 on the 40D, please"

The lines in the sky are shadows being cast by the clouds. Those bands went clear across the sky to the other horizon. It's evenings like that when I really want a 180-degree fisheye lens.

Yes, the color temperature thing was intentional. Really cool ambient (created by setting the camera to tungsten white-balance) combined with neutral-to-warm flash (gelled with a full CTO - Color Temperature Orange). The ambient light was accentuated by under-exposing the ambient by a stop, but balancing the flash for the aperture in use.

Thanks for the compliment Alex, but I do shoot crap too. You just never get to see it!