Digital Wedding

In shooting weddings in digital should I treat the digital as I

would film or disposable media and take lots of pictures? ALso how

many pictures normally go in a wedding album?

Reason being is my and a friend have shot three weddings and have

some conflict over the worlflow and priduction. he thinks that

giving them hundres of pictures is good while I would rather give

them less but give them the better portraits and have the candids on

the side as an add in.

SO I guess with digital how many pictures should be taken and given

to the clients?

Take the same amount of pics with digital as with camera. Digital may change your workflow slightly, but it should not affect the finished product, which is of course the wedding album.

Typicaly you will provide proofs, either contact sheets or small 4x6 prints, of most or all of your best images. From the proof album, the BG will select their favorite for a keepsake wedding album. Depending on the budget of the wedding, and for photgraphy, the B&G may be able to afford as few as 25 images for the keepsake albume, or as many as 100. It also depends on the layout and style of your album.

I will make a couple of points here. Logically, you would shoot the same number as when using film. Then, depending on your own business practices, you would give a proof book to the couple and pick the best images for an album. This is the standard way wedding photogs work.

Now, some photographers, like myself, use online galleries for selling prints to guests and family. I have found, just like many event businesses, that the more images I post online, the greater my individual print sales are. Pictage, although I don't use them, recommends this for greater sales, as well. For example, instead of posting 200 proofs, I will post up 500+ images online. Sales increase exponentially per every 150 images.

A lot of photographers would object and say this is quantity over quality and you should edit what the couple sees. Well, I do - I pick only the best images for the album. I am also careful not to focus on print sales while I'm shooting. I still take the photography seriously. But what is the harm in posting every shot (minus out of focus, etc.) to sell more prints?

I'm not a pro nor even an amateur wedding photographer, but I'm curious about the "conflict over the worlflow and production" you mentioned. How many images did he shot versus what you shot? What is the fundamental conflict - does he insist every image be tweaked to perfection before displaying them as proofs?

Seems to me that for proofing only, it's easy enough to output all the digital images "as-shot", run 'em all through a batch tool to adjust levels/saturation/sharpening, delete the OOF or horribly composed ones, and present them as rough proofs with the understanding that any image selected for print enlargement will be tweaked with more individual attention.

Last wedding I did there were about 70 formals and 500 candids!

I think there is a good case for quality shots on the formals but I also think it is good to get "looser" with digital. Shoot as often as you see something and select later. I present the B&G with about 250 - 400 to select from.

Hope this helps.