Ok..  I've shot plenty of weddings at night and have never had a problem because there was always enough ambient light to work with.  But last night, I shot a wedding outside in the pitch dark with only a few christmas lights in the trees.  It was awful!  And there was NO light to work with at all.  The pictures came out very dark, blurry and/or the skin tones looked very red.  I was shooting at an aperture of 3.5, my ISO was 1000 (of a possible 1600 with my camera) and the shutter was as slow as I could make it without even more blur.  If I would have bumped up the shutter to bring in more light, everything would have been totally out of focus.  I even has my flash on full force and nothing!  At times I would get a few that would turn out ok with the flash, but it was just the subject lit up and everything else was black.  Even when trying to use the little light I had to work with.  So my question..  What am I doing wrong?  Is it the lens?  I have the Canon 24-105 L.  Yes, not the best for dark situations.  So it that it?  If I would have been using a lens with a lower aperture, would that have made all the difference in the world?  Being outside, there was nothing to bounce the flash off of.  If it is simply I need a new lens for cases like this, would lens would you suggest?  I hate primes because idealy I would like to zoom in and out when shooting a wedding.  But if I have to go with that, then I will.
 
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