Weddings, simple question

Okay what would you advise shooting a wedding ceremony. Slides, film

or digital. If so in favour of analog, what kind of film/slide and

what are the great advantages and disadvantages?

I prefer cellulose others prefer digital, and these debates usually turn into full

scale boring repetitive arguments.... you know the pro's and con's of both - so

it's probably best that you make up your own mind based on your own

experience / equipment / ability.

 

However - unless the bride / groom ONLY EVER WANTS TO PERFORM

SLIDE SHOWS for relatives / friends etc. and does'nt really want an album,

then I can't see the advantage of slides ? Unless it's for publishing in a mag

only ????

 

For prints, I prefer Fuji NPH 400 (camera set to ISO320) for colour indoors and

Winter outdoors, Fuji Reala 100 for colour outdoors in Summer / late spring,

Fuji Neopan 400CN (C41 B+W) for black and white regardless of time of year,

BUT all printing must be done at a decent lab otherwise it defeats the object of

upgrading to "pro" film.

I don't think the local wedding labs here even handle slide film. So that should tell you something.

Negative film with low contrast, like the Kodak or Fuji portrait films, or a digital system you are used to and that you know to deliver good skin tones and more than adequate resolution.

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Before entering the world of wedding photography, be sure to know your camera, lenses, flash and film/chip very well!!

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<a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl">Wim</a>

With color negative films you can have "slides" made from them. Kodak ended the 35mm vericolor 4111 along with the 10x10 vericolor 4111 material but you can do the same thing with the enduraclear (ra-4) or use Agfas version (c-41) of the vericolor 4111. They are all a little more contrasy then the vericolor 4111 (c-41 process) was but it what you can still get.

 

Kevin

I would use negative film, the one I use the most for shooting people is Fujicolor NPS 160 because it produces very nice skin tones with both, daylight and flash, and even in mixed lights situations with fluorescent lights (since it has an additional cyan color layer), it's a soft contrast film with very realistic colors that can be exposed using lighting ratios of 5:1, very fine grained and sharp. I usually expose this film at EI 125 and sometimes even at EI 100.

You can send your exposed film for processing to a lab like www.candid2000.com, if you want to combine the advantages of film with those of digital.

If you're new to wedding photography, shoot film. I'm not comfortable using slide film at a wedding. Negatives give you much more over/under exposure latitude. For color, I like Kodak's Portra 400 VC (shot at 320) and Portra 800 (shot at 400 at night when I use flash, 640 for daylight).

from someone getting married in 2 months, our wedding photographer is all digital. HE and I sat down and discussed the whole issue. I was reluctant, but now I am convinced all digital is the right way to go. Of course, if the pics are all crappy I will recant this statement so quick!!!

 

Some of the digital advantages (for him, me or both) -- He will shoot as many pics as he sees. He wont feel constraint by film costs eating into his bottom line. He can change any picture into black and white or colorized at no additional cost to me, the consumer. One guy we interviewedwanted $100 per pic to colorize and $40 per pic to make into B&W. With our digital guy, free! Also, from his point of view, he posts all of the pictures on his website within a day of the wedding. That way my guests can see the pictures and order them directly from him on an ongoing basis. Not just the guests I show the proofs to. He has said that fact alone has increased his business. He also said that putting the pics on a DVD for storage has reduced the bulk associated with neg. storage. Also, He is willing to give me a copy of the disk with the pics one year after teh wedding at no cost. He said this fact has also increased his business, as some other photogs are charging as much as $350 for the negs one year later.

Brian, all that your "digital" wedding photographer is giving you, is also possible with film, he's only selling you into digital because he'll be able to make more profit.

The skill of the photographer is far more important

than the media it's recorded on.

 

A thousand shots recorded on a memory card or ten shots

recorded on film are no better than travel snapshots if the

photographer doesn't know how to utilize artificial or existing

light at the shoot location.

 

Negative film has great latitude and is highly correctable (even without photoshop)

while saving highlights (more exposure gives better shadow

detail while highlights do not get blown). Some brides may get a fit

when they see their white dresses are all blown out and detailess.

There's nothing left on slide film to correct in this situation. For digital,

it depends on the contrast range of the sensor. Some are pretty good.

If you are asking which medium to shoot- shoot negative film. Unless you have had a digital camera for some time and have had excellenct results with shooting high contrast areas, (brides dress against grooms tux) you will loose the details in the high light areas. Digital sensors "see" differetly than our eyes or film. Film is the cheapest componment of photography, for someone to be reluclant to shoot a shot in fear of wasting film has no confidnece in their shot and will shoot needlessly to get "the shot". I don't find that using digital to save film cost is a good argument- sorry :(

I agree with the commet to shoot fuji NPH. it's flexible enough to get good exposures during the ceremony (some situations) but is still sharp for later enlargements. Watch where you have it processed though- it's a pro film and when printed on general commercial paper at an one hour you can be disappointed with the color balance- my experience is that Kodak paper prints termendously cyan with NPH and NPS, a good printer, (someone other than a one hour lab part timer) will be able to adjust the color balance.

good luck! and have fun!

Antonio, I know thats all available with film, but the fact is that by hiom going digital, I am saving money. If I want a colorized or a b&w or a sepia print, no problem, no extra charge. THe film wedding guys wanted more money for that -- although some said one effect would be included in the package price. My guy is not cheap, but for what we are getting, and what he is giving us, he is far cheaper than the film guys, and the reason is the lower cost of digital in his bottom line.