jeremy_smith

Hey, just a heads up on something in Mpls (actually Minnetonka) next weekend. This is a craigslist ad I found from a guy who's getting married next Friday (or Sat), has for some reason waited to the last minute to find a photographer, and is offering the taker the staggeringly pathetic sum of $200 to come to the hotel where the event is taking place (it's the Sheraton West, Minnetonka) and shoot the ceremony (the reception, he seemed less concerned with--says he'll shoot most of it himself). Having basically the same amount of experience with weddings as you, I was mildly curious about it til I found out it was indoors (by emailing the guy). I took a look at the website for the hotel and can only assume that the event is to take place in the ballroom, which, in true ballroom fashion, appears to have no windows (It does have a low, white ceiling and fairly adequate tungsten light, though). I've decided that I'm definitely not doing this--I don't own a good flash or a bracket for that matter and can't find anyplace to rent equipment in Minneapolis (might be wrong about this--I just moved here from Seattle, so I'm not familiar with the city). Moreover, for $200, there's no way in hell I'm going to go out and rent equipment on top of buying film and covering all the expenses of processing. That leaves my only option to do the whole thing with the two prime lenses I have and some fast film and no flash, but I'm thinking I will pass on this. Still, not to set you up for failure (being as you've got basically 1 week to prepare), but if you've got the equipment, I bet you could shoot just the ceremony, make a few bucks profit, and build your portfolio a bit. In any case, the guy would come away with way better pictures than he's going to get otherwise--I asked him to tell me specifically what equipment he had (just to give him some advice) and he told me "Nikon 5meg and Minolta 8meg". Not exactly sure what cameras those are, but it sounds like he's going to be shooting his own reception with P&S digicams with some wonderful on-camera flash in a drab, artificially lit ballroom. Here's the ad: http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/evs/102646207.html

And also a picture of the suspected venue from the hotel website.

here's an example

Thanks everyone! The big problem is that I almost never use flash for my photography--I'm merely renting the 550EX for a day here and there to prepare for a special event in about a month; hence I have no manual for the flash and I'm basically learning by feel and from what I can learn here and on photonotes. Your answers are a great help. --JS

Could someone please tell me why I'm unable to bracket exposures

when I have a flash attached (and on)? Specifically, I'm using a

550EX on a bracket and an Elan 7N body. Turn the flash off, and

bracketing works as usual. Turn it on, and bracketing is disabled

and the camera uses the same exposure for each shot. I tried this

in a variety of modes--mostly Av and P. Hope this isn't an

exceptionally dumb question. Thanks for your help!

I bought the same camera late last year and have been very impressed with the sharpness & contrast of the results. The 38mm lens can feel a little limiting at times, but it's worlds away in quality from that of any other point & shoot I've used. And best, it goes with me a lot more places than my SLRs do...

Thanks Steve-any particular reasons you find NPZ better?

Hi, have my first wedding to shoot in a month and just trying to

nail down my film choices. It's almost all indoors (relatively

dimly lit, canted ceilings painted a pale greenish color :P), and

I'd like to do the majority of it without flash, so I'm pretty much

set on Kodak P3200 (at 1600) for the b&w and Portra 800 for the

color. I was originally planning on NPZ, but the couple seems to

prefer warmer colors. I've shot a couple rolls of it so far for

practice (doing more tomorrow), but I have a couple of questions:

1) is Portra 800 comparably low-contrast like 400NC, i.e. is it a

good choice? and 2) I can't seem to find info on how accurate

Kodak's rating of Portra is--should it be rated down to 640 like

NPZ? 500? Again, this will be largely inside, save a few group

shots outside. I'll be using basically 3 EOS lenses, in this order

of frequency, I expect: an 85/1.2, a 50/1.4, and a 70-200/2.8.

Thanks for your input! -JS

Sorry, I don't have an answer, but a closely related question: how many rolls could I expect to shoot using a 550EX (every shot) powered only by AA's? Thanks for your help... Just started using a rented 550 today in preparation for a wedding in a couple months.

Just adding mine to the list of camera's that have had a finger jammed through the shutter. I've had the same EOS Rebel for about 13 years now (it's the original model, I think) and put my finger right through the shutter at least 6 or 8 years ago. No problems at all that I can tell. And I don't need to tell you that this is a decidedly "consumer-level" camera.

Hi again,

 

Just so there's no confusion, the 10D is an SLR and uses the same lenses as other EOS cameras, including my old Rebel. You probably already knew this, but judging by your response, I just couldn't tell. If you put a nice fast pro lens (which I can't afford) on the 10D, I feel pretty confident that you will get results that will look as good ON THE SCREEN as you could by scanning the negative of professional film exposed by the same lens (I'm talking about color vs. color here; B&W on the digital is rarely very impressive). The 10D is really that good, and, yes, digital has gotten that good that fast. The quality of glass on nice SLR lenses is undoubtedly better than that on a P&S, be it film or digital. That said, though, you can shoot pro film on your Elan, but unless you have a top of the line scanner and the skills to use it to its fullest, the superiority of your EOS lens to that of a G3 will not show through on your computer. It may even look inferior. And of course I don't have to tell you that the opposite is true if you want to look at your photos on paper. The 10D, which could easily pass as professional equipment for, say, photojournalism, really becomes quite average when you try to print out the results on your home printer. You could get better results, resolution wise, with any decent film rated at, I'd say, 800 speed or less.

 

I think it really just comes down to the medium on which you most enjoy looking at photos, and whether storage space is an issue for you, and those should be easy enough decisions. I imagine that digital will one day be just as good on paper as film is, but unless film and photographic paper just stops evolving from today forward, digital will never really be better than film--there are some real, physical limits there. There's just a finite number of molecules that can be packed onto a negative or onto a sheet of glossy printer paper. And well before that limit is reached, the ability of the naked human eye to resolve the differences between the two will be long surpassed. You'll have to get out the microscope. I really think this issue has been beaten to death--at least by me;) Take it easy: you're not a dinosaur, and neither is your Elan.

Well, this will probably go in the giant archives of needless digital vs. film jabbering, but here goes:

 

Except for a couple of P&S film cameras, I've basically used two cameras my whole photo-taking life: a Canon Rebel (the original...yikes) and an EOS 10D purchased about 7 months ago. Now, guess which one's looking at a trip to E-bay? The 10D. Am I dissatisfied with the image quality? Do I have some kind of super-human eye that can detect the shortcomings in resolution of 6.1 megapixels? Are creditors beating down my door to collect the $1500 I spent on it? No, no, & no. The reason I'm going to sell it is that I'm lazy (or enlightened??). I spend a mind-numbing amount of time in front of a computer screen (please excuse the bitter irony) now that I have the digital that I never did before. With film, once I finished a roll, my work was mostly done. Nothing much left to do but wait for the film to be processed and prints made, evaluate the results & enjoy. Maybe make some reprints or enlargements. With the digital it's quite possible to chew up hours wading through the minutia of options provided by photoshop. Should I crop this fraction of an inch or that? Should I clone out this power pole or import a background from a separate photo? Exactly what relationship between hue, saturation and lightness for the green channel did I have in mind for this photo anyway? Of course these same options are available to you if you choose to scan prints from a film camera into photoshop, but the temptation (for me, at least) is immeasureably greater with digital since everything gets filtered through the software anyhow. Why not spend "a little extra time" on this one? And that one too? Why settle for 4 x 6 when I can have 4 x 5&7/64ths instead?

 

I take pictures for two reasons: memories & artistic expression. My favorites of course combine both. What I've come to realize over the course of my experience with digital is that I'm willing to commit neither to mere jpeg files. I'm willing to commit pictures of the cat to digital. Pictures from a co-worker's barbeque, likewise. But my wife and I went on our honeymoon a couple of months ago and that old, slow, noisy Rebel, with all its warped plastic and grit under the dials was my primary camera. The magnesium cinder block called the 10D, with all the buttons and menu options most sane people would ever need, was the back-up. Bottom line: I don't want to be sitting around with my wife 30 years from now trying to re-live memories by staring at a computer screen. Print 'em out? Use all that expensive ink and photo paper to produce delicate prints with (relative to what's on the screen) poor resolution & contrast? To me, that's defeating the whole purpose of digital.

 

Now I'm going to stop myself before I get into some discussion of technology & its grip on the human race. There. Done. Keep the Elan. Good night & thanks for reading. --JS.

Richard, by now you've either figured out how to use the 10D to your satisfaction or smashed it with a bat, but I'll chip in here a bit anyway... I've had a 10D for about 6 months now, but I'm not a PS expert and I've only spent about 10 minutes with the manual, to be honest. I've found that unless I'm trying to achieve some special effect, all I do with the images after uploading is use the auto-contrast (and OCCASIONALLY the auto-levels) on the PS version that came with the camera (Elements). The white balance, saturation, etc. on the camera are at the default settings. The auto-contrast often makes a big difference, especially if the lighting was not ideal to begin with.