First digital wedding

[agaimages]

Ok, so I have been reading posts for some long time now, they were

all along very helpful, the change form film into digital made me

seek your advice ?in person?. I?m actually freaking out after

reading all the posts that converting into digital is not as easy as

it sounds. I have D70, sb-800, 17-55 2.8, 50 1.8 and 70-200 2.8.

Back up gear is film. Of course I?m not listing the cables, the

brackets etc. For this wedding I won?t use any strobes (it?s a low

budget, someone I know).

I will be shooting JPEG ? yes- I know I should shoot RAW but I

figure out of 3x 1Gig cards I?ll get ? 300 pictures in raw as in

jpeg- 900 which are tripling my chances. Am I totally wrong about

taking more pictures to choose from vs. less and easier to fix?

White balance question seems odd to me as well, should I measure wb

just as I shoot in one room or should I measure every time I move

within the room, I?ve read somewhere that people only measure once

while in a specific room (location) but that does not make much

sense to me.

Second question is the battery life, should I get r rechargeable

(high performance 2300mAh Ni-MH) batteries as back-up?

How about the camera battery? Should I have at lest two sets of

rechargeable?

My time is from 11 am to 7pm.

I?ve used D70 for portrait session which is so much different and

less demanding as a whole day wedding. I?ll be shooting some film

as back up since I?m so much more comfortable with it!

Please advise as much as you can!

[todd frederick]

I am pleased that you like digital.

 

Unfortunately, I suffer from a few "senior moments," and after reading you comments, I really don't know exactly what questions you want answered.

 

Could you list them in a more direct simple format?

 

Most appreciated.

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

You will need back up batteries for your camera and flash-two sets, fully charged of course. Shoot RAW. Shoot RAW. Shoot RAW. Did I mention shoot RAW? Beg, borrow, or steal some extra cards and shoot raw. You'll only have one chance at this wedding so give yourself the most options for making it right. The good news is you've got a great camera and great glass.

[agaimages]

1) White balance question: Should I measure white balance once while in a specific room (ex. Reception) or at times I move within the specific room? What I mean is do I need to measure the WB only once, as I read in previous posts when entering a room or just go with Auto WB?

2) Battery life; what is the best way to back up? Couple of rechargeable batteries or CR2?s will be enough as a back up? Both the camera and flash?11am to 7pm time frame

3) That?s about it, for now :) Seems much simpler doesn?t it ?

[agaimages]

Paul, well thank you for your answer, however, I forgot to mention that this client

prefers JPEG?s (that was kind of future question as I have 3 other digital weddings), he will be doing his own post processing?

[agaimages]

why are there question marks all over my messages!?

[picturesque]

Re your question about RAW vs. jpeg. This is up to you. You've probably read all the arguments for and against. I shoot jpegs only in situations where the lighting and my lighting technique are constant, such as receptions held in one room. Otherwise, I'd shoot RAW--as you pointed out, weddings are fluid, with changing lighting conditions. There will be times you can't reshoot, and if you don't have your exposure technique nailed to the floor (it is possible, but after much experience using your gear), you're going to lose some shots shooting jpegs only. Card capacity should not be the deciding factor. If you are going to shoot jpegs, get an expodisc or some other reliable and fast method of doing custom white balance. You do a custom white balance whenever the light on your subject(s) changes in temperature.

 

Besides a battery pack, I always bring back-up rechargeable batteries (I have three sets) as well as a set of lithium AAs as a last back-up. I have three camera batteries.

 

I guess if you feel comfortable shooting film as back-up, go ahead, but if it were me, I'd get some more cards and shoot RAW, checking the histogram often. Having to deal with another mode of exposure thinking and another set of gear are distractions in themselves, especially if digital shooting is new to you.

 

If you already shoot weddings with film, I'd move more slowly. Maybe shoot just the reception with digital first before the whole thing. Just a thought.

[agaimages]

I guess the most important question is the WB and the batteries! I am sorry to post so much under my own message! I it the excitement I guess!

[agaimages]

Nadine,

I will be shooting film in the most important phases just as I?ve mentioned as back up. I?m sorry about not being specific enough, question about the batteries was; would the lithium ones be enough as a back up for the day? How many shots/hours of continuous work do they last?

I?m pretty confident with my D70 but in studio work, a wedding is a whole different story!

[picturesque]

What kind of post processing is your client going to do on jpegs? They aren't meant for a lot of fiddling with. I'd still shoot RAW, process the files myself, and give him jpegs. It would be good practice anyway.

 

Taking a custom white balance several times in the same room doesn't make sense unless the lighting changes in the same room and you aren't using flash. You only need to do a custom white balance when the light temperature changes. Indoors in a reception, you're probably going to be using flash, so in this case, just set the white balance to flash or take the custom white balance just once, with the flash factored in. Most camera's don't have perfect auto white balance, so unless your client is willing to accept the imperfections, I wouldn't use auto white balance.

[picturesque]

How long the batteries last is dependent on how much you use the flash. You'd use flash a lot is the wedding, for instance was held outside in bright, sunny conditions because you'd be using a lot of fill flash. So no way of telling. Bring two extra sets if you're worried. Same with the camera battery.

[agaimages]

This will all be inside, both church which will allow me to use flash and reception ? it will be on ttl mode since I?m to nervous about the whole thing. From others I?ve heard that some set their WB to ex. cloudy with the flash because it produces warmer effects. I guess it?s a matter of preference and knowledge hence the question to you guys.

[Ed_Ingold]

What WB to use? Did anyone mention "shoot RAW"? In RAW mode, WB is just a tag - nothing is set in the image itself. Adjust the WB in Photoshop! Chances are, the WB will be fairly consistent within various scenes. You can use Photoshop Browser to set the WB (actually, any of the Adobe RAW plugin parameters) to be applied when the file is opened.

 

Once you have the images prepped, save copies as JPEG after changing the mode to 8-bit and the color space to sRGB.

 

CF Cards: You need at least 3 more CF cards, 6 more if you actually intend to shoot 900 frames (you are a glutton for punishment). You need 50% more CF space than you ever intend to use.

 

Batteries: As above, you need enough battery capacity to handle 50% more images than you expect to need, or at least 2 spare batteries plus one in the camera. Charge everything the night before. If you get down to one spare, put one of the spent batteries on a charger in the corner.

 

What, no strobes! Don't low-budget weddings need light too, like for the formal shots? Wear yourself out - put one monolight on a pole for the formals.

 

Oh, and by the way, shoot in RAW mode.

[Jerry_]

Hope you have dark sunglasses for the bride and groom: 900 shots with flash at a wedding may be harmful to their eyesight!

 

 

 

Question: if the groom manages to mess up your images, who is going to get the blame: the groom or the photographer? (A RAW file can be turned into a .jpeg file easily, but try going from a .jpeg to a RAW file.)

[kapaniris]

Did someone mention shoot raw? CF cards have dropped a lot in price, and think if it as an investement in the future. You will be able to re-use them time & time again as you move away from film to digital.<p>

One of your main concerns is WB. By shooting raw, <B>if</b> you get the WB wrong it's a snap to fix. You can batch your images (say all the reception shots) and correct the WB automatically.<p>

You can even create a very simple script that will save all your RAW's into JPG's to give to your client.<P>Did I mention shoot in RAW?

[agaimages]

The formals will be outside if there will be any (its a small wedding none of the parents will be there) only the B&G and friends...

[jmichaelc]

AGA - most people who begin shooting digital often have your thoughts in that shooting more will leave you more options - thus you decide to shoot JPEG. I HIGHLY discourage this type of thinking. AGA, save yourself many troubles and do the smart thing - shoot RAW. Take it from more experienced digital shooters who now look back and say in full confidence "How and why did i ever shoot JPEG". Yes, it is that big of a difference and only time and experience will give you that understanding. I can only say trust me on this one. What ever you have to do - do it. Get more memory or what ever but shoot RAW for this type of work. If you have made the decision to begin shooting weddings with digital then you MUST also make the decision to do your own post processing work. If you have not made that decision, then you will become frustrated with the appearence of your photos when you compare it to your film work. Nothing will look the same - your digital files will look flat, low of contrast, and just dull. How do you level out the playing field between the two - only one way - do the post work yourself and learn the in/outs of RAW. I see and hear so many digital beginners (although experienced photographers)complaining and becomming frustraited about the quality of their digital performance and that, compaired to film, it sucks. I would like to tell all here that it does suck. What sucks? The inital capture of digital and it's sucky limited dynamic range. In this regard, it is in last place of all capture mediums! But wait.....their are tools that allow you to expand the dynamic range from the origional capture to unbelieveable limits. The key to overcoming the limitations of digital is to learn these tools that allow you to expand these limitations - if you do not accept this, then, please save your self the time and frustration of it all.

 

Regarding Batteries - i go into every wedding with 8 sets of fully charged 2300maH betteries. And 8 fully charged BP511's for my cameras. This is a must, and the very last thing you would want to short yourself on.

[agaimages]

Jammey, Thank you for your thoughts, you guys are persuading me pretty good I must admit! :)

 

 

***regarding memory cards; I've read on other boards that there's not really a difference between the slower and faster cards (lexar 40x vs 80 or scandisk vs. ultra scandisk) how about in wedding photography and now that you've mentioned RAW ;)****

[jmichaelc]

I buy the slowest/cheapest ones possible. Plenty of speed for my 10D's buffer. I just recently bought two 2G scan Disks for $150 Each. They all work great. Now if i had the 1D series, it might be a different story but the amount of memory is more important IMO than the fastest speed. There are only few occasions that you need the burst speed.........bouquet toss, BG exiting etc. I've never had a problem firing off a burst of 3 FPS for, at least 9 frames, with the slow cards. :)

[paul_sokal___dallas__tx]

AGA, if you're still not convinced to shoot RAW, here's a neat experiment you can do: Intentionally underexpose a shot in RAW (16-bit) and JPEG (which is 8-bit). To make this as fair as possible, don't shoot raw+jpeg because my recollection is with the D-70 the jpeg is normal, not fine when shot together. Then take the two images to PS and look at the histogram. There will be a gap between the right end of the curve and 255, i.e, pure white. Now bring up a levels adjustment layer and hit auto. With the RAW image, you'll have a nice continuous histogram that is now convering the entire spectrum from 0-255. Then do the same with the JPEG. Your resulting histocgram is going to look like a broken comb. All of those white lines are holes in your image's tonal range, missing data. Just say no to JPEG.

[picturesque]

High speed cards are only worth it if your camera can actually make use of the feature.

 

Re you concept of shooting more jpegs vs. shooting fewer RAW. There are times during a wedding where you only have one chance to make the shot, and there is no possibility of reshooting. Unless you have your exposure technique down exactly, your concept will not work. No amount of furious shooting will replace a lost shot because the exposure/white balance was flubbed. At least if the shot was RAW, you'd be able to better recover it with some quality.

 

Re using Cloudy as a general purpose setting because it's warmer. This is true when in an outdoor, daylight situation. However, look at the actual temperature for the Cloudy setting. On my 20D, it is 6000K, same as the flash setting. Test everything out first. Have you tried it in situations similar to what you will encounter at the wedding (assuming you still intend to shoot jpegs)?

 

Also, if you shoot a ton of jpegs, as you suggest, you definitely need more back up sets of batteries.

[kapaniris]

Aga,

to answer your question on the speed of CF cards, visit <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007">Rob Galbraith's</a> website. From the drop down menu on the right, select your digital camera model, and see for yourself unbiased tests comparing the speed of a large range of CF cards, you might be surprised with the results.<p>

And did I mention, shoot in RAW?

[agaimages]

Paul, I will definitely try out your idea as I will be trying out thing in the next days.

 

Nadine, yes, I?ve tried to shoot in cloudy and flash mode inside in a wedding reception when the room was prepared for a wedding (which I had nothing to do with? I was just testing the camera since I was there checking out the location) and yes, the pictures are very warm in the cloudy and very cold in the flash mode ? too blue!

 

John, thanks for the link.

 

Somebody replied that 900 shots is a lot for a wedding, but with film, the people I know shoot 500-1000 and with digital the brides request more and more pictures taken, I myself went up to as much as 800 (film wise).