Wedding photography...

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If thats the case ,I'm the pope ,my blessed son

Roen

rymus wrote:

.....

Had a review of the 1200 or so shots last night.......Arrived at the brides house at about 10:45 am, left the hotel at around 11:45pm.

And another thing I fear....almost as much as disappointing people....working too hard.
I guess when you're starting off you need to break your balls and carpet bomb the place. Once you've got your act down you may be able to afford shoot less.

I don't want to be dragging up memories for certain members here, but if anyone just happened to shoot a lot of weddings in the days of medium format, just how many shots was normal for your average wedding???

rymus

hmm... I think I had a similar conversation with a certain member about that very topic over the weekend Roen

In line with not wanting to disappoint people, I realised my 20 & 30D combo isnt up to the job. The 30D is fine, but the 20D has to go in favor of a 5D. Gotta justify it somehow I suppose. Definately agree with the breaking the balls comment, I was so frightened of ****ing up I shot everyone and everything. I suppose as time goes on, things will become more refined and I'll be more relaxed.

Was very thankful for my willing and very able assistant on the day. Couldn't do an event like that without an assistant!

Owen

Makes note to self to watch adverts for a 20d at rock bottom prices ...

Valentia

In the "old" days I used a Bronica 6x4.5 medium format. A 120 roll it took 15 photos. The most I ever used was 6 rolls, usually 4. Not wanting to sound in any way pompous, I never had a complaint. In fact the opposite.

That said, if I had a preference, I would prefer something along the lines of what Ryan did, a record of the day. With new technology, well new since I was doing it, a DVD slide show with the right music is a far better experience than an Italian leather album that will be stored in a drawer, taken out at the kids 21st and never looked at. Times have changed. Most wedding photographers haven't.

With digital, and the 5D is the boy for weddings, where you can give class 20x16's for the wall and the added advantage of a multimedia record, you can get a very healthy income. You can even enjoy it, from a creative point of view.

Fajitas!

Roen, according to my da's olden days, 36 photos of the procession and another roll for the formals outside...

Borderfox

rymus wrote:

hmm... I think I had a similar conversation with a certain member about that very topic over the weekend Roen

In line with not wanting to disappoint people, I realised my 20 & 30D combo isnt up to the job. The 30D is fine, but the 20D has to go in favor of a 5D. Gotta justify it somehow I suppose. Definately agree with the breaking the balls comment, I was so frightened of ****ing up I shot everyone and everything. I suppose as time goes on, things will become more refined and I'll be more relaxed.

Was very thankful for my willing and very able assistant on the day. Couldn't do an event like that without an assistant!

Just as a matter of interest why isnt the 20d up to the job? just curious. I will be going down the 5d route also.

rymus

purely low light. I found myself using more flash than I was comfortable with. I'd much prefer to throw the camera up to 1600/3200 ISO and fire away. That's something you can't do with a 20D, that high up and the noise is woeful. Also, the 4 extra MP and full frame sweetens the deal somewhat

Roen

rymus wrote:

hmm... I think I had a similar conversation with a certain member about that very topic over the weekend Roen

Great minds think alike so!

Valentia wrote:

In the "old" days I used a Bronica 6x4.5 medium format. A 120 roll it took 15 photos. The most I ever used was 6 rolls, usually 4.

I had this in mind when I used the 'carpet bomb' phrase. I've been to a few weddings and even most digital photogs seem to be very frugal with their shooting. On appearances they seem to shoot no more than 200. Certainly by the cd of images that the B&G choose from it would appear that way. Of course this may well be culled down from five or six hundred, but from being a member of the wedding party I can guesstimate that fewer rather than more is the norm.

Then again I could be witnessing seasoned pros at work. I certainly wouldn't have the confidence to do a wedding like that.

Fajitas! wrote:

Roen, according to my da's olden days, 36 photos of the procession and another roll for the formals outside...

Again, economy of shooting seems to have been the way.
I wonder if it is a blessing rather than a curse that digital allows you to spam the shutter button? Personally I'd say it's a blessing and I'd be of the mind that "It's better to be looking at it than for it"
You don't want to have missed a very important moment.


Cheers all. You've certainly all been of great help. I wish anyone starting off th best of luck in their endeavors.

Hugh_C

I did my first wedding on Saturday, for the daughter of a very good friend. I think I was probably more nervous than the bride, in fact a lot more nervous coz she had the benefit of a few gins beforehand.

I absolutely could not have done it without my beautiful assistant (my wife) who organised everybody for the group photographs and was general mc. Between us we brought two cameras (Nikon D70 and Sony 828) and snapped about 550 images, of which about a quarter are good. All the really important ones are well covered, and there's plenty to chose from. I was exhausted after the formals, and it took a while (and a few pints) before I was ready to go back to do a load of candids later on.

I'm not sure of the strategy next though, I've made all the images available on the net, numbered and un-edited for the B&G to select. I'm happy to so some editing, but I guess a line has to be drawn in the sand somewhere. Any guidelines?

Borderfox

Well done Hugh, I would rekon that you only full post process a couple of shots to give them what they will be expecting and let them choose the rest unedited. Dont give them too many to look through as they get confused, and dont give them a similar looking shot of another one.

Fajitas!

Took a booking for another wedding today...

Here of all places... Flights and accomodation included.


Wtf?

Roen

Fajitas! wrote:

Took a booking for another wedding today...

Here of all places... Flights and accomodation included.


Wtf?

Careful, you're stepping into Elven territory there.

Muineach

Well my nephew had his first communion there a few weeks ago, so as I have a "good" camera I got roped into taking the photo's for free of course, it was a lot of pressure tbh and I wouldn't do it again for anyone but family. I was one of those days that the sun was really bright forcing changes to nearly every setting,every time, it was a head wrecker but I did learn a lot.

I ended up with 4gb of RAW files to sort through, and processed about 90 of them in total, it was a 12 hour day, church, dinner, party etc. so kinda like a mini wedding. Well at least I'm getting better at photoshop , but total sorting and processing time was about 40 hours, some needed a lot of work.

As for the DVD thing, I used Vista DVD maker, which worked out quite well you can see it on (7 min) you tube, I was left with 30 seconds at the end of the music track so i ended up flashing a photo for about 0.5 seconds till it ran out, I think it worked quite well, family enjoy it anyway, so if you want to can go to the last 45 seconds to see how it works and what you think.

Of course after all that, the family say "well you do have a good camera" :mad:

Hugh_C

Borderfox wrote:

I would rekon that you only full post process a couple of shots to give them what they will be expecting---

Thanks for the advice.

Funny how "relaxed" people got towards the end of the night and pints had been taken. I took a few shaky candids at that stage, quite like this one, not your typical wedding snap, sadly it'll never see the light of day apart from flickr though ...