Mirrorless camera for Weddings ?

parallels the demise of the internal combustion engine.

Think about all the film cameras still in use and film types being revived - DSLR will outlive many of us. City and country are quite different - as long as there is fuel of any kind available, there will be internal combustion engines in rural areas.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Sandy Vongries

So, modern mirrorless cameras are good for a wedding, but a modern DSLR is no slouch also.

There is no compelling reason to switch from using a DSLR to a mirrorless camera for weddings. Either can be used, as long as you recognize and accommodate the strengths and weaknesses of each. Weddings are not so much about equipment as they are about people skills, including the ability to work with people under stress, and to manage your work with speed and efficiency. You need to be very well organized to achieve basic results, leaving time to take advantage of unplanned opportunities. You need to know your equipment throughly, maintain it for reliability, and have backup equipment. Operation of your gear must be at the subliminal level - alert but not obsessive..

 

The key advantages to a DSLR are the clarity and directness of the viewfinder, long battery life (the power overhead of a DSLR is probably less than 20% that of mirrorless), and almost instant recover from sleep mode. The most important factor is that every serious photographer has one, and has used one for years if not decades. There's a lens for every purpose, with 3 or 4 alternatives. The workhorse lenses are almost exclusively zooms. In general, image quality is good enough.

 

Mirrorless cameras are new, innovative, and exciting (especially to gear heads). I bought in for the smaller footprint of bodies and lenses, but stayed in for the exceptional image quality. Mirrorless cameras didn't get serious until late-2014 with the Sony A7ii. There was Leica of course. The last wedding I shot with a Leica was in 1972, but I used a Rollei for the formal shots. I built up a working set of zooms fairly quickly, but have a preference for prime lenses where image quality is at a premium, as for landscapes and architecture. The A9 offered a major improvement in auto focusing, tracking, face recognition and other things which bring it's performance to DSLR level and above. The viewfinder is 80% sharper, which means you can focus without resorting to peaking or magnification. The A7Riii and A7iii followed suit, except the A7iii has a lower resolution EFV. The A9 has a double-dial dedicated to key controls, which speeds operation in the field. The prospect of an updated A9 must have execs at Canon and Nikon concerned. Sony reduced the price of the A9 by nearly $1000, so something's up.

 

The transition was not cheap, but not forced either, because practically any DSLR lens can be used, at least in manual mode. Now adapters allow nearly full use of Nikon AF-S lenses, including aperture control. Canon lenses made after 2007 are also highly compatible, as are Minolta/Sony A lenses. Leica lenses work, but the image quality is poor for focal lengths less than 50, and a Summicron 50 does not perform particularly well. The Summicron 90/2 and Tele-Elmar 135/4 are very sharp, but the color is a little flat compared to Zeiss FE lenses.

 

High-end mirrorless lenses perform very well wide open, even zoom lenses. Auto focus is much more accurate than for a DSLR, so lenses can actually be used wide open without risk of mis-focus, taking advantage of subject isolation and generally excellent bokeh. With a DSLR, especially for events and weddings, you exceed f/5.6 at. your peril (the same for rangefinders). Where mirrorless cameras excel is with manual focus, which is a great boon for landscapes and closeups alike. Not much use for manual focus at weddings, nor prime lenses either, but there's more to (photographic) life than weddings.

You can't learn from success.

???

 

I’ve learned a lot from success, and failure.

Holy Moses, Ed. Words of profound wisdom.

 

Methinks there should be a gold statue, of the" Edward", in the Sony marketing department....on top of the Sony Towers, just like in the Batman movies, with a spotlight shining on it.... reflecting it to the heavens above where the old bloke upstairs lives.;) Every morning the staff should be required to stroke and kiss it for inspiration, and a little pocket size gold version made to take home. It would have the added benefit of inspiring the wife and kids to greater thing just like their Ed.;) Donald would be jealous....not Donald Duck, the other Donald.

 

"The key advantages to a DSLR are the clarity and directness of the viewfinder" Ed.

 

Actually important to a lot of folk. Clarity, and directness, to capture a image you are actually seeing as opposed to electronic pixels.

Edited December 18, 2018 by Allen Herbert

All in good humour, Ed.

 

But to honest, you do a better job in marketing Sony A7 cameras than Sony marketing. Better than anything I've read from them by a country mile.

 

Every morning my mate and I Sandy think of rushing out and buying a A7 something after reading the thoughts of Ed;) Scary.

Sandy think of rushing out and buying a A7

Not anytime soon. My oldest friend loves the cameras - no reason to doubt him, a very smart fellow, and good photographer. Fact of the matter, I have lots of cameras that perform exactly as I require. If I buy anything in future, it will be some strange old Nikkor lens that I want to try - example the 35 3.5 PC I recently got.

The current sale of the A7 Mark II with 28-70mm zoom for under $1000 could tempt a lot of people wanting to try out the Sony system. Luckily I've matured beyond such rash impulse buying.

I recently bought a Industar 53mm 2.8 for no logical reason other than I liked the look of it. It gives little away to modern lenses other than a tendency to flair.

 

I payed 9.51 gbp and 15.00 gbp delivery. crazy.

 

competent on editing software, where I can do corrections, without a PC lens.

competent on editing software, where I can do corrections,

 

Actually, the key points are both my active interest in experimenting with camera lenses and relative lack of interest in computers. I spent the last several years in business working successfully with computer applications. The pay was good but I didn't much enjoy the work. As to corrections, sometimes they are necessary.

I understand that.

 

I used to do some commercial work. Then one day I had to do a golf tournament in a downpour. And I was told the photos were rather dull.

 

I then decided my photography was about my enjoyment not someone else's for the coins.

 

And there I am.

Once upon a time when I did that sort of thing.

"There is no compelling reason to switch from using a DSLR to a mirrorless camera for weddings."

 

Well for some of us, the weight is a compelling reason given good IQ and usability at a wedding. At least for me and my back. Otherwise agree.

Totally silent electronic shutter?

Leica, Leica. You know what?

They are planning a new full frame system (L) in cooperation with Panasonic and Sigma. Mirrorless system.

I will be very glad to see Olympus in the company.

Totally silent electronic shutter?

 

Yes, it has its place.

There are churches that BAN pro photographers from shooting during the ceremony, because of the disturbance of the flash and shutter.

The electronic shutter and high ISO available light addresses that issue.

 

BTW, that ban is a bug of mine, since the attending public in many/some cases are free to shoot with their cameras and flashes and do so.

what is the probability that a flash card might go bad on you ? Probably less than 2%.

It is a gamble.

Do you shoot a lot of weddings? If you shoot 100 then 2% would mean you have two brides to tell you lost their photos in a card crash. One out of fifty shoots, I wouldn't want to do that. Two scathing reviews from brides that used you could potentially ruin your professional reputation.:eek:

 

The Sony A7RIII or A7III have dual slots and would be fine. Canon should have a pro version of their mirrorless next year and expecting dual slots.

 

Better be shooting with two cameras just in case. :)

It is a gamble.

Do you shoot a lot of weddings? If you shoot 100 then 2% would mean you have two brides to tell you lost their photos in a card crash. One out of fifty shoots, I wouldn't want to do that. Two scathing reviews from brides that used you could potentially ruin your professional reputation.:eek:

 

The Sony A7RIII or A7III have dual slots and would be fine. Canon should have a pro version of their mirrorless next year and expecting dual slots.

 

Better be shooting with two cameras just in case. :)

I did that math too, 2 is too many:)

How am I supposed to judge cameras I haven't shot? - I recently decided to finally give a modern capable DSLR a go, using the trade in discount offered celebrating 30 years of EOS. I never bought anything Canikon before.

While Ed Ingold & son must be right about especially the A9 and Sony in general, I don't have the needed money. - 3 A9s & glass will cost a nice motorcycle or reliable used car extra, compared to EOS 5Ds & Rs

If I was to stick to Canon, I'd expect to get a 2nd 5D and one EOS R on the side. (If weddings were a serious goal of mine.) Maybe thinning out the wildest Sony dream kit, due to financial constraints, is already an option. - I haven't researched it properly since Sonys don't look overly appealing to me in flesh or the reviews I read so far. I am probably more likely to get Fujis, once they'll release an X-H2 (or 3? or something else?) with IBIS and hopefully great AF performance to utilize their appealing primes. - I am hoping to get my hands on something that I won't mind carrying around. - So far I am happy with Leica M for that purpose, but great MILCSs with compact lenses should miss less shots...

 

I assume by omitting a 2nd card slot in 2018 Canikon either clearly hint: "This isn't intended to be a wedding camera" or want to make sure that you'll upgrade, as soon as your business is somewhat established and they released some other mirrorless. / A look into my bag reveals single slotted bodies. I'd shoot as "single eyed Uncle Bob in the blind family" that might get what they don't pay for. - I try to nail an essential keeper on different cameras, but that is a compromise. I am really curious when there will be finally cameras with a docking option for a redundant 2nd one.

 

MILC issues I discovered with my early Fujis: They don't seem to utilize AF assist beams, so flash is no real solution; when things get dark the cameras focus unbearably slow. - Maybe they'll lock someday, when mounted on a tripod but no chance to spontaneously shoot people catching a moment you had in mind. And an EVF lagging behind reality simply sucks and makes things hard. Anything else, be it the crummiest k-mount SLR or an old rangefinder feels nicer or easier to shoot handheld with flash to me. - No clue how far things improved in more recent models. - Also keep in mind that some MILCs seem to cheat to avoid EVF blackout; by displaying the captured image for a while, which some people consider disturbing.

 

Silent shutters: Tech is useless as long as the rules aren't re-written around it, yet.

Is there already any church demanding silent cameras? Or did any ever copy the "nothing louder than Leica M" rule of some American court of law?

Will photography unfriendly priests be content with silence or still consider us a distraction from the important stuff? - Who knows?

 

My bottom line: I suppose you can still establish an DSLRs based wedding business but we are living in times of expected change.

Restrictions placed by churches on photographers varies greatly, and seems to be non-denominational. It depends on the priest or minister in charge, and that depends on their previous experience. If there were an instance which they felt the photographer was disruptive, the next one might face stricter rules. Once cameras which make no noise (beyond the aperture closing) become commonplace, cameras which make any audible noise will tend to face restrictions. That has always been true for concerts and plays, and is the new standard for press conferences inside the White House.

 

Not even the newest Sony MILCs use the IR focus assist found in their own flash units, let alone others. There is a built-in focus assist light, red and very bright, with which even the smallest lens casts a shadow in the center. Apparently Sony has not equipped their cameras with IR focus sensors. The assist light works well enough, but you must use a wide-area focus pattern. DSLRs make good use of this feature in their flash units, but you can't necessarily see where you're pointing the camera. A MILC will focus in available light down to EV -3, and the viewfinder will remain bright. At EV -3, you need a flashlight to see the dials on the camera. Although you can see and focus on the subject, the EVF lag is noticeable, and the view is jerky due to the slow refresh rate.

 

If the ambient light is bright enough to count fingers on your hand, the refresh rate (and lag) improves to 60 fps (120 fps for the Sony A9).

 

As always, the right choice will depend on what your competition has to offer.