marcsaint

<p>I shoot with both a D200 and D300 (not a D300s) and love them both with no exposure problems. I, too, use the 18-70 and find it an excellent all-around lens though after a couple of years, the zoom mechanism gave out and I had to have it repaired with parts from Japan.</p>

<p>Guess I do better with the satan/devil worshiping crowd....;-)</p>

<p>Another good reason to NOT buy a D100 is the Green Screen of Death. While shooting one day, the screen on my D100 suddenly lit up with what looked like green static then went stone cold dead. I was never able to revive it and ended up selling it on Ebay for parts. As I recall this happened on occasion with early models and was totally unpredictable. <br>

I currently use a D200 and D300 both of which are far, far better than the D100.</p>

<p>I have to disagree with the comment that "most churches do not allow flash photography during the wedding ceremony". Granted, I've only shot 100-120 weddings, all in the Northeast, but I've had maybe one or two at most disallow using flash. After all, just about every other person attending the ceremony (other than the wedding party) is using the flash on their little silver point-and-shoot :-)</p>

<p>1. Make detailed notes about what happened that day, bolstered by time stamps from picture files. This will help keep the sequence of events clear in your head if/when the B&G complain.<br>

2. Perfect is the enemy of the good. You need to deliver as good images as you were able to get -- trying to give them perfect images will only result in both you and the couple being disappointed.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Some dyes used in coloring clothing can make the clothing look a different color under varying lighting conditions. This is called metamerism. We usually think of metamerism in terms of inkjet prints looking different under different light but it can happen with clothing as well.</p>

<p>Many, many years ago I was shooting weddings for a local studio which offered a $75 2 hour wedding package (told you it was a long time ago!) for which I think I got $20. I shot the 3rd or 4th wedding of a bride and, when I asked where the reception was, was told to "follow those people over there."<br>

They drove home.<br>

I was somewhere in northern Connecticut looking for a VFW hall that no one had ever heard of. I ended up calling the studio and telling them I had lost the bride and groom. I don't think I got my $20 that day.</p>

<p>My first camera upgrade was from a Nikon D100 to a D200 when the person I was working for required higher resolution. I next purchased a D300 when the camera debuted, a company had it for sale at a photo show, and I had enough room on my credit card. For lenses, I upgrade when there is a fortuitous combination of price, features, and cash-on-hand. Strategic? I don't think so. But it's the way I've had to do it.</p>

<p>I use a Stroboframe Pro-T -- it's reasonably sized, well made, and does exactly what it's supposed to do. I agree with the comment about brackets making a good carrying handle to relieve hand stress. I also feel the bracket helps lend me an air of authority when I need it. I've been to some weddings where there have been guests with more equipment than I have and the bracket makes me stand out as the Professional Photographer and, thus, must be obeyed :-).</p>

<p>I've used and been very happy with FotoFusion.</p>

<p>Whichever lens you choose, make sure you have a filter on it.....:-)</p>

<p>William Porter wrote: "So if you want to take the risk—the risk of not being able to deliver—you can go with one body, one flash..."<br>

If you roll those dice and lose, you will only be out some money. The bridal couple will be out images and memories of their lifetime, not to mention an eternal source of bad publicity. Being professional means being reasonably ready for negative eventualities and that includes camera and/or strobe breakdown (or loss or theft). Line up a second camera and strobe before you commit to any wedding. You'll be glad you did :-)</p>

<p>I agree with the writer who suggested getting a photographer with good people skills. You and your bride are going to be spending potentially 8 hours of (hopefully) one of the best days of your life with this person. If they are fantastic photographers who act like bossy jerks, you may get some beautiful pictures of an unhappy day.<br>

Packages are essentially informed guesses about what clients might want as finished product from the photographer. I'd suggest you think about what YOU want to have in your hands after the wedding and ask photographers what it would cost.<br>

I say don't tell the photographer that you are one also, but drop a few choice phrases ("gamut", or "D-TTL", or "circles of confusion") just to keep them on their toes :-)</p>

<p>Take a look at Capri Albums -- they have a product called EZ Mount where you make the prints and mount them in the album yourself. A 40 side 8x10 album is well under $300. I have never used this product but I have used their Modern Image albums and been very pleased with the quality.</p>

<p>I've started using a Passport for fine art photography. It does improve color rendition in small ways and you still have to white balance (with a gray card or the spectrally neutral card in the Passport) but I think the biggest thing it does is give you a more accurate starting point for color. If you use more than one camera you also get their color responses more closely aligned. I think it can be a tool that will make your Lightroom workflow easier but you have to take the time and effort to incorporate it into your shooting routine.</p>

<p>I've owned a D70 and I currently own a D200 and D300. I liked the D70 a lot, love the D200, and actually use it more than the D300 for my wedding work (I use the D300 primarily for large groups and available light indoor shooting). The image quality upgrade from the D70 to the D200 is greater than from the D200 to the D300 but the D300 low-light quality is significantly better than the D200. I don't think that buying a fast prime, however, will give you the same quality as a better sensor. I guess if the D300 is out of the question then buying the D200 is better than the fast prime. IMHO, of course.</p>

<p>I've tried both but ended up with Zenfolio.</p>

<p>I'm putting together a "Photography for Artists" course to be offered to local art students and professionals (painting, sculpting, etc). The idea here is not to teach the art of photography, but rather to show how they can use their cameras and photography in the making of their own art. Some of the artists I know use their cameras to take reference photos for their artwork but don't have a real grasp of what their cameras are really capable of. Besides camera basics (what f/stops do, shutter speed, white balance, etc) I would also cover how to copy their artworks and how to store images for easy retrieval.<br>

My question is: does anyone know of any resources on the web for this? I haven't been able to find any, probably because when I use the search words "photography" and "artist" I get a thousand hits for photographic artists.<br>

Thanks for any help!</p>

<p>I had the same experience with them a couple of years ago, also with another site called www.decidio.com -- Never got a real lead off of either of them.</p>

<p>I think you need to remind them that this is supposed to be a wedding that you are taking pictures of, not a photo shoot that just happens to be of a wedding. Rather than telling them what they can or can't do, give them choices:<br>

"Would you rather party and have fun with family and friends or spend three hours standing next to increasingly unhappy people wearing a fake smile?"<br>

"Would you rather pay me for my standard wedding coverage or pay me more for my deluxe planning package?"</p>

<p>Nikon D200, ISO 640, 1/5 sec, f/5.6</p><div></div>

<p>Think simplicity. Use the camera and lens you know best (with a backup, of course) and don't try to do multi-strobe setups. If you know how, shoot RAW in case of errors. Check and recheck the camera settings all day. Use several small memory cards rather than just one big one and keep them in a case on your person. Make sure you and the wedding couple are on the same page regarding the style and number of pictures to be taken. <br>

Think about the worst case scenario (all your wedding pictures lost) and how that will affect your relationship with your friends. Can you deal with that?<br>

Oh yeah, don't drink.</p>

<p>This sounds like you are shooting in a studio rather than at the wedding. Have you tried scanning it instead?</p>

<p>In my initial response to this question, I advocated making up a nice disk with label, packaging, etc and charging some minimal shipping/materials/postage fee of $10-15 (or even less). I felt this gave the client a nice product and created a little potential advertising (the label). I felt that burning a quick disk with Sharpie marker label was not a good way to promote wedding photography as a professional occupation worthy of decent remuneration. The client knows as well as we do how much it costs to burn a disk (virtually nothing) and that makes the gesture of replacing their disk kind of an empty one. I feel that by having them pay the postage/packaging they are investing in the business relationship as well.<br>

Mark H.: You must have one of the nice lawyers -- mine charges me in .1 hour increments to answer my email :-)</p>

<p>"The hardest thing to teach someone in sales is that you are not making a sale, rather building a customer."</p>

<p>By giving away things, you are building a customer who now knows you give things away at no charge. I think there is a fine line between being a good businessman and being a sucker.<br>

A previous writer wrote something to the effect of this being something that should be handled on a case-by-case basis and I agree with that.</p>