Adria & ChanceFriday 11 September 2026 · The technical half

The banks

Set these the night before and shoot one frame on each to confirm they saved. On the day you never turn backwards: C1 for the gazebo and then the canopy, C3 the moment you walk down to the water, C4 only if you are still shooting past 7:39.

Where each one lives

The three Auto ISO slots

AUTO1  base 500 · max 3200 · min shutter 1/250   base 500 because DR400 needs it
AUTO3  base 125 · max 6400 · min shutter 1/60    after the sun, and you hold still for it

SHOOTING SETTING > ISO AUTO SETTING. Three slots is all the body has,
which is fine: two of the four banks want identical ISO behaviour.

C1 OPEN SHADE · Flippen, the bridge and the steps

Mode      A, aperture ring off A     you pick the f-number, camera picks the shutter
ISO       dial on A, AUTO1           camera picks 500 to 3200, never slower than 1/250
Film      ASTIA/Soft                 the gentlest simulation there is for skin
WB        SHADE, not AUTO            auto reads the green off the leaves and greys the skin
DR        400%                       holds two stops of sunlit background out of the clip
Tone      Highlight -2, Shadow -1    buys back the rest of that gap
Colour    +1                         shade is flat; this puts the green back
AF        lever S, single point      one lock per frame. C is for anything walking
Drive     S                          CL only for walking and spinning
Light     none                       no LED, no flash. Highland Park bans both

C3 GOLDEN · across the water

ISO       dial on A, AUTO1           back to base 500 for DR400
Film      CLASSIC CHROME             holds the gold without pushing it orange
WB        DAYLIGHT, not AUTO         auto drains the warmth you came for
DR        400%                       the sun is in or near the frame
Tone      Highlight -1, Shadow -1
Exp       +2/3 backlit, -1/3 side-lit  meter for their faces, let the background go
Filters   protection filter off      with sun in frame it ghosts. Rubber hood on

C4 LAST LIGHT · after 7:39

ISO       dial on A, AUTO3           125 to 6400, and 1/60 is the floor
Film      ETERNA/Cinema              low contrast, which is all blue hour has
WB        DAYLIGHT                   keeps the sky blue
DR        100%                       no highlight left to protect, and DR costs shadow noise
NR        HIGH ISO NR -2             smoothing eats the grain she asked for
AF        single point, near eye     face detect hunts in the dark
Lamp      AF ILLUMINATOR OFF         a red beam in their faces, and useless at this range

Sunset is C3 with two dials moved, not a fifth bank. ISO dial off A to 125, exposure compensation to -2, filters off. Two moves stay in your hands better than a preset you use for fifteen minutes.

Gear and filters

What is in the bag

• X-T5 body. Two card slots. Format both, and set SAVE DATA SET-UP > CARD SLOT SETTING to BACKUP so slot two mirrors slot one. Delete nothing in the field.
• XF 16-80mm f/4 R OIS WR. The lens for almost everything. 72mm thread. Stabilised, which is what makes the one slow-water frame possible without a tripod.
• XF 27mm f/2.8 R WR. One stop faster and tiny. The backup body lens, and the one that saves the day if the 16-80 fails.
• Protection filter. On everywhere except across the water, where the sun is in the frame and it ghosts. That is the one stop it comes off for.
• Mist/PL on a step-up ring. Cuts glare off wet rock and water. Costs about a stop and a half, so it comes off for faces in shade.
• Collapsible rubber hood. For the stops where the sun is in the frame. It only seats with no step-up ring fitted, so hood and Mist/PL are an either-or.
• Spare battery, charged. Two hours of shooting will not need it, which is exactly why it goes in the bag.

Which lens, stop by stop

How far back to stand

Every shot line prints a distance and what it frames. This is the table those numbers came from. Pick the framing you want, read across to the focal length you are on, and walk until the frame matches.

Waist means both of them from the waist up, and small means them at about a third of the frame height. Held sideways for a vertical, everything gets about a third closer.

The 16-80 stops focusing at 35 cm and the 27 at 34 cm, so anything nearer will not lock. A face at 16mm is a caricature, so for anything head and shoulders zoom in and walk back.

Which filter, and when nothing

The LED

No colour temperature is printed here on purpose. The panel has not been identified, so a number would be a guess. Warm it until skin reads like skin against a blue sky, then leave it. That is the setting, whatever your panel calls it.

What not to bring

No flash: a skill rather than a purchase, and it fights the light you came for. No neutral density: the polarizer and the electronic shutter cover it.

You are handheld either way. Past sunset the shutter falls and the brace you actually have is a rail, a knee or the stone, so nothing in the plan turns on the answer.

Pack list, and what they carry

• You. Body, both lenses, both filters, hood, two batteries, both cards formatted, lens cloth, water.
• Them. The flowers, blotting papers, hair ties, more water than they think.
• In the car all day. The flowers and the towel. Highland Park counts a reflector as equipment, so it stays a towel.

Flippen and Lakeside

LakesideFlippen

No light comes out of the bag at this park. The Town bans "artificial lighting" along with props and backdrops, so no LED and no flash. No reflector and no towel bounce. Nothing stood in, nothing sat on that is not a seat. Canopy is your only modifier.

Sun altitude runs 23 degrees down to nothing, due west the whole time. Shadows go from twice a height to off the end of the frame. That direction is the plan: hide from it at the gazebo, lose it under the canopy, then turn and shoot into it at the water.

1

2

3

A

4

5:45 to 6:00

Park, brief, walk in

Light. Nothing you photograph. These are the fifteen minutes you spend not photographing, and skipping them is how the first stop goes wrong.

5:45 · sun 23.0° up · azimuth 260° west · shadow 2.4×

Getting there

Flippen Park, 4421 N. Versailles Avenue. Park on Versailles itself, and read the curb before you lock it. Nothing is enforceable there without a sign or a painted line, and the signs are the ones that count.

While you are here

• Sunscreen and bug spray on everyone. There is standing water and the mosquitoes know it.
• They arrive dressed. Changing in a vehicle is not permitted and no restroom is listed at either park.
• Camera out of the cold car now, not at the gazebo, or the first frames fog.
• Say the LED is staying in the car. Out loud, so you do not reach for it later.

Camera

C1 OPEN SHADE in the Q menu · ISO dial to A · focus lever S · drive dial S
16-80 on the body, protection filter on, lens cap in a pocket
The 27 and the Mist/PL in one pocket, spare battery and cloth in the other
Shoot one frame of the car park and check the histogram. If the bank did not
load you want to know now, not in the gazebo.

4

6:00 to 6:30

Flippen Park

Light. Clipped and open: hedges and a gazebo, not a canopy. The sun is twenty degrees up and due west, so the houses on that side block most of it already. The gazebo roof is the only reliable shade, and under it the light arrives horizontally off white paint.

6:00 · 19.9° up · 262° west  →  6:30 · 13.6° up · 266° west · shadow 2.8× to 4.1×

Getting there

You are already here. White gazebo, a fountain with a reflecting pool, clipped hedges, houses all the way round. Small enough to walk in two minutes, and it runs first because it is the one stop that wants the sun still up.

Where you stand

• Out on the grass for the wide, far enough back that the whole structure is in the picture.
• Then inside the gazebo shooting out, or just outside its shade line with them standing in it.
• For the fountain frame they are on the grass. Nobody sits on the rim; the Town names it specifically.

The gazebo takes wedding bookings, thirty minutes at a time. If someone is in it, shoot the fountain and the hedges first and come back at 6:15. Thirty minutes is the whole stop, so there is less slack here than there was when this ran last. Call 214-559-9308 the week before and you will know.

Camera

C1 OPEN SHADE · AUTO1 · protection filter on all day here
Mist/PL on for the fountain if the water is running, off otherwise
Electronic level on for the wide. A gazebo with converging verticals reads as a
mistake in a way a tree never does.

Shots

• The gazebo, wide

  16-80 · 16 to 23mm · f/8 · 8 m back, the whole gazebo in · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF S · drive S · level on, verticals straight

  Both of you inside it. I'm going right back so the whole thing is in.Photographed close a gazebo is just columns. Photographed whole it is the reason this half looks like a different county.
• Against a column

  16-80 · 50 to 80mm · f/4 · 4 m back, waist up · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF C, face and eye · drive S · under the roof, in that horizontal light

  Weight back on one foot, ankle crossed, one hand in a pocket. Straight face first.Angles instead of a hug, one posed and one reaching in. It reads as expensive because it is magazine body language.
• Head in a lap, by the fountain

  16-80 · 35 to 50mm · f/4 · 4 m back, the pair of them across the frame · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  camera nearly on the grass · AF S on the upturned face

  On the grass, not the rim. Head back in her lap, look up rather than at me.This one is outside the gazebo, so check for a leaf shadow on the face and move three feet if you find one.

6:30 to 6:40 · Drive to Lakeside

• One mile south to 4601 Lakeside Drive, about three minutes. You drive it together.
• Street parking on Lakeside Drive, no lot. Read the curb before you lock it.
• The east side is signed no parking from four to six on weekday afternoons. You arrive after that window, which is one of the reasons the gazebo goes first.
• Wheels rolling by 6:38 or the canopy stop gets tight.
• Camera on the seat, cap on, filter left fitted.

A

6:40 to 7:00

The stone bridge

Light. The heaviest canopy in the park, and by twenty to seven the sun is under twelve degrees, raking in from the west rather than down through the leaves. This is the dimmest twenty minutes of the day. Watch for dapple, and expect the meter to run out.

6:40 · 11.6° up · 268° west  →  7:00 · 7.4° up · 270° west · shadow 4.9× to 7.7×

Getting there

The short path with an estate fence on one bank and the new boardwalk on the other. Low limestone arch, black rail curved to follow it, cobbled brook running under it into the lake.

Where you stand

• Down at the water on the bank, camera at knee height, shooting up through the branches at the two of them on the arch.
• Second position on the deck at one end, shooting along the arch so its rise and fall is in the frame.
• Standing on the bridge is fine for them. The rail is not, and neither is the brook bed, for them or for you.

Camera

C1 OPEN SHADE · AUTO1 · protection filter on, Mist/PL off
This stop moved forty minutes later when the gazebo went first, and it is the
darkest place in the park. Expect ISO on the 3200 ceiling and the shutter falling
through 1/250 anyway. Let it: she asked for blur and this is where it is honest.
Put the 27 on at f/2.8 for anything that holds still. Stand here once before the
day and read the real exposure, because every number here is computed.
The Mist/PL costs about a stop and a half and does nothing in flat shade.
This is the darkest place in the park. Do not spend the light here.
Hunt even shade, not deep shade. Under the densest crown, or under the arch
itself where the stone blocks the sky and the brook opening lights from the side.

Shots

• From the brook

  16-80 · 16 to 23mm · f/5.6 · 7 m back, them small on the arch · shutter A · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF S, single point on the near face · drive S · vertical and horizontal

  Up on the arch, right in the middle. Keep talking, I'm not shooting yet.Them small, the green doing the work. Shoot it first so everything after has something to be a close-up of.
• Walking over

  16-80 · 35 to 50mm · f/4 · 10 m closing to 5, full length · shutter dial 500 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF C, wide and tracking, box on the lead face · drive CL · three passes

  Walk at me like you're late and it's his fault. Don't stop talking.Nobody can pose a foot mid-stride. The arch gives them a rise and a fall to walk through.
• Her hands on his face

  16-80 · 70 to 80mm · f/4 · 3 m back, head and shoulders · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF C, face and eye on, single point · drive S

  Both hands on his jaw. Straight face first, then whatever happens next.She is doing something and he is being done to, which is the reverse of how these usually get shot.

2

7:00 to 7:20

The steps down to the water

Light. Out from under the deepest canopy, and under eight degrees now. The stone is pale and the water bright, so the ground bounces here in a way it does not at the bridge, and at this angle almost level. That bounce is the closest thing to a reflector this park allows.

7:00 · 7.4° up · 270° west  →  7:20 · 3.3° up · 273° west · shadow 7.7× to 17.4×

Getting there

Stone steps down the bank with a wall alongside. Sitting on steps is what steps are for, so this is the easy stop. Seat them low and let the pale stone lift their eyes.

Where you stand

• At the bottom of the flight, shooting up so the stone leads to them.
• Level with them from the side, on the stone.
• You stay on the stone too. No wading anywhere in this park, and that rule is about you as much as them.

Camera

C1 OPEN SHADE · AUTO1
Mist/PL on for anything with the creek surface in frame, off for faces and the ring
A polarizer works hardest ninety degrees off the sun, and here the sun is under
eight degrees and straight up your axis, so expect much less of it than the noon
plan did. Turn it, look, and leave it off if nothing moves. AUTO1 absorbs the
stop and a half it costs when you do use it.

Shots

• From the bottom

  16-80 · 23 to 35mm · f/5.6 · 4 m back, the flight and both of them · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF S, single point · drive S · vertical

  One of you two steps above the other. Don't look at me yet.A staircase is a diagonal you do not have to invent. f/5.6 rather than f/4 because they are at different depths.
• Sit and lean

  16-80 · 70 to 80mm · f/4 · 5 m back, heads to waist · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF C, face and eye · drive S · Mist/PL off

  Sit two steps up, hips touching. Lean until your head lands. Now stay.Keep their faces on the same plane or one eye goes soft at f/4.
• The ring

  16-80 · 80mm · f/4 · 40 cm, the hand fills the frame · no closer, the lens stops at 35 · 1/250
  single point on the stone, not the knuckle · Mist/PL off

  Her hand over his, and keep it loose. A stiff hand is what makes these look like a catalogue.At f/4 and forty centimetres you have millimetres of depth. Focus the stone.

3

7:20 to 7:45

Across the water

Light. This is the frame the running order was changed for. The sun is under four degrees and due west, straight down the water, so it is behind them and in your frame, and it goes under while you are standing here. Switch to C3 before you walk down, not after.

7:20 · 3.3° up · 273° west  →  7:39 · sunset · 276° west

Getting there

The willow and the big house are both on the far bank and both are somebody's garden. Everything here is shot from this side with the water in between, which is the picture they asked for anyway.

Where you stand

• In the shade line on this bank, with them at the edge of it and their faces turned out toward the open water.
• That is the trick. You cannot carry a reflector here, so the bright opening over the water becomes one. Shoot from inside the shade, chins up and out, camera slightly low so their eyes catch more sky.
• Do not cross. Stay off the bank face and out of the landscape beds.

The lake is being dredged. The north end has bare earth and equipment on it. If it still looks like a building site, work the south end and say nothing more about it.

Camera

C3 GOLDEN · AUTO1 · Mist/PL on for the two wides, off for the twirl
Exp comp +1/3 to +2/3 with the bright far bank in frame
Then check the histogram, not the screen. If faces look dark in the finder they
are dark. Dial up until they are not and let the water go. Keep the sky mostly
out of frame above 35mm; a polarizer bands it at the wide end.

Shots

• The willow, from here

  16-80 · 35 to 50mm · f/5.6 · 12 m back, them small on the bank · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  Mist/PL on, rotated until the reflection firms up · AF S

  Stand right at the edge. You'll be small in this one, that's the point.The reflection gives you the tree twice, which is more than standing under it would.
• The house behind you

  16-80 · 35 to 50mm · f/8 · 12 m back, them small under the house · 1/250 · ISO A, AUTO1
  Mist/PL on · AF S, single point on the near face

  Turn a few degrees. Now the house is over your shoulder.f/8 so the house reads. You are far enough away that the depth costs nothing.
• The twirl

  16-80 · 35 to 50mm · f/4 · 7 m back, full length with room for the hem · shutter dial 1000 · ISO A, AUTO1
  AF C, wide and tracking · drive CL · Mist/PL off · frame wide enough for the hem

  One hand up, spin her out and back. Keep hold of the hand.You need the stop and a half back for 1/1000. Something has to move here or it is three postcards in a row.

What to say

Two people who do not do this for a living will look like it unless you keep talking. None of this is a script to read. It is what to reach for when the frame is right and their faces have gone wrong.

Before you lift the camera

• Set the terms.I'll take way more frames than a pro would. That's the plan, not a problem.
• Take the fear out.Nobody sees the bad ones. Not you, not the group chat. I delete before you look.
• Buy yourself time.Fix his collar. Take your time. I'm not shooting yet. You are.

Getting them moving

• Never "act natural". Give a task instead.Walk to me and tell him about the worst wedding you've ever been to.
• Never "now spin her once".Same again, and this time don't wait for me.
• Hands.Give your hands a job. Pocket, waist, his collar. Anything but hanging.

Getting a real face

• Wait for it. She said it herself: manufactured laughter is the thing she hates. If nothing is funny yet, stand around until something is.
• Straight face first.Straight face. Hold it. Now try not to laugh. That is the frame.
• Chins.Chin toward me and a little down. Feels weird, looks right.

When it gets stiff

• Move them, do not correct them.Swap sides. Now do the same thing.
• Squinting.Eyes shut. Open on three. That is the whole cure.
• Crowds.They'll clear. We'll do the close ones first and the wide ones when the rock's ours.

Closing

• When the light goes.That's the light done. Everything from here is a bonus, and it's the good bonus.
• Delivery.Phone versions tonight. The real ones in a week. Don't post the phone ones with a filter, they're already the filter.

If things change

Heat

Ninety-six at five and ninety-two when you finish, so the heat plan is on rather than held in reserve: two extra waters, the towel in a cooler with ice, and you stretch the gazebo roof and the canopy. It drops four across the two hours, so the shade does the cooling, not the clock.

Rain, cloud and wind

• The storms are this afternoon. Risk peaks at two and sits flat at 17% from five on, thunder at 10%. If one breaks, sit it out in the car. She has ruled out anything wet, so move the frame rather than tough it out.
• A quarter cloud, thinning to almost none by eight. No diffusion is coming. The low sun arrives hard and undiffused, which is what the four banks are set for. Do not wait for a soft one.
• Wind south-southwest at 8 to 10, gusting 12. The water will not be glass. Shoot the willow and the house as a backdrop, not as a mirror, and let the dress take the wind: she asked for movement and this is free movement.

Running late

• Behind at Lakeside. Cut the twirl at the steps, never anything across the water. Flippen is finished and gone by then, so everything you drop comes out of the middle.

Gear

• There is no second body. The prevention is the plan: two cards in BACKUP, a charged spare in the bag, and both lenses cleaned before you leave the house.
• If the 16-80 fails, the 27 shoots the rest of the day at f/2.8 and you lose the wides. Neither lens failing ends the day.

What was checked

Every number on this page came from somewhere. Where it did not, the row says so and the page hedges instead of asserting.