Lighting Suggestions for Daughters Wedding

[conropl]

Personally, I think I'd go with f/2.8 zooms for flexibility and raise the ISO as needed. I have both the 85L and 135L, my concern with using them at events is DoF – even with individual portraits, I generally stop the 85L down into the f/1.6-2 range, with >1 person in the shot you'll often need careful posing to get faces in focus at wider than f/2.8.

I get usable results with the 1D X at ISO 12800 with DxO Prime NR.

My 24mm f/1.4L II gets pretty good DOF and will be good for wide shots. I think I prefer the 70-200 over the macro for everything else. Other that the weight difference, it is more versatile and focus in low light is faster.

I have not been real happy with ISO's above 3200 on my 1D X, but that has been night sky type shots and the noise on the blank background of the sky can be more noticeable. I think you may be correct with the type of shot we are talking about here. We have people coming over tomorrow night and plan to have a fire (and somors) - I will try a few shots with the ISO set at 12,800 and see what Lightroom can do. You have been using DxO NR programs for some time now, and have suggested it in the past... so you have a fair amount of experience with it at night (based on some of your night shots) - Is it that much better than the current lightroom (I actually have ver. 5.x)? I think it was HDNitehawk that had said a little while ago that he thought that the latest Lightroom versions had caught up to DxO in NR. I may be remembering wrong, but I think it was him and I think that was the basic point. I typically limit myself to 1600, but will go to 3200 if needed. I would like to use higher ISO's... 12,800 would be very helpful in the type of shots I like to do.

Pat

Edit: I was wrong - HDNitehawk was comparing Lightroom and DPP. Not DxO. Sorry about that.
http://community.the-digital-picture.com/showthread.php?t=8266&page=2