marcsaint

Wedding Photography, Art, Business and Style by Steve Sint. Some of the stuff is a bit dated but a lot of good,solid basic principles. There's a new book out however I don't have the name or title (duh!). The author does a lot of destination wedding work and it has white cover with a bride sweeping her dress around. I've read it and it's very good with much more current references.

I have a little problem with the subject heading for this topic. I think this is a blanket statement that is not particularly accurate. I've used the system at several weddings and, though it has its limitations, it is still very usable under the proper circumstances. It is not the ultimate system by any means but it is very reliable when used within its abilities.

 

IMHO, of course.

An hour ago I just came back from a fantastic wedding -- beautiful day, beutiful location, beautiful bride, handsome groom. Perfect.

 

During the reception, I noticed one of the guests holding up something while people were dancing. I thought it was a cellphone camera but it was a small slaved strobe he was holding for another guest who was shooting with a 35mm camera from quite a distance. I saw the camera's focus assist light every time he took a shot which gave me some clue as to his level of "expertise".

 

A tad PO'd, I had my associate put an SB800 on a monopod and proceeded to shoot 2 light shots of the dancers. Frankly, if I had a slave available for the SB800 I would have put it on and aimed it at his camera when he shot his pictures. Juvenile? Perhaps, but it made me feel better.

 

Anyways, Marc W. is absolutely correct that we must show clients magic moments, but there are far too many people who are learning how the magic is made.

I've shot a couple weddings with an associate where we were out of sight of each

other and wireless communication could have been helpful. Does anyone on the

list have experience using "walkie-talkies" or some other unobtrusive

communication device while shooting weddings with another photographer? Is it

practical or do you just end up looking like deranged Secret Service men talking

into your sleeve microphone? (Shades of the movie "The Wedding Planner" -- "MOB

is on the move!")

 

Marc St.Onge

I shot with the same setup (D100 main with D70 backup) for a couple of years but after my D100 self-destructed I bought a D200 and have shot about a half-dozen weddings with it. For our business, here are what I feel are the pros and cons:

 

PRO:

More megapixels means I can crop deep into the frame and still get excellent quality. If you're using a super-wide lens and you see a great shot developing quickly far away from you, you can still shoot it far away with more confidence of getting a usable cropped image.

 

Focusing in dark spaces is MUCH better. I tried using a friend's D100 for some shots at a reception and was astonished how much better the D200 was at focusing (i.e. how on earth did I get by with the D100??).

 

A higher level of digital quality -- if you expand your business into commercial work you will have a machine that can generate big enough files for stock photos, commercial work, etc.

 

CONS:

Bigger files means more hard drive space, more time spent waiting for files to move, etc.

 

Too many options in the menu -- you can spend days deciding how you want the camera set-up. The first time you set something wrong while at home and then need to correct it out in the field and CAN'T FIND THE DAMN SETTING, you'll know what I mean.

 

All in all, I'm glad I made the move.

I have an Epson R1800 and kept track of every square inch printed from a brand-new set of cartridges (not the ones that came with the printer -- a brand new set out of the box). From when I started to when the printer would not let me print anymore because the cyan and photo black carts were empty, I came up with a cost of $.02 per square inch for the ink alone. Hope that helps you calculate your printing costs. Otherwise the printer is great.

At one wedding the grooms mother choked on something and had to have the Heimlich maneuver applied-- got taken to hospital in ambulance.

 

At another wedding, I lost the bride and groom. Back in the 70's I was working for a studio in Hartford that offered very inexpensive wedding packages ($75!!). This was my bride's third wedding and, after shooting the wedding, I was told to follow "the people in that car over there" to the reception at a VFW hall.

 

They drove home.

 

No gas station or fire station knew where there was a VFW hall in the area. Gave up after an hour or two of looking. Now I'm equipped with maps to everything.

Check out Lumapix' Fotofusion. It's a bit of a lightweight but does a surprisingly nice job for the price.

I ask for four lists: 1. pictures that absolutely must be in the album, 2. pictures that absolutely must NOT be in the album, and 3. pictures they would like to have in the album but its okay if they aren't. List 4 is the rest. Then I do a quick design in FotoFusion using List #1 and filling in with pix from List #3 and my own personal favorites. I don't spend a lot of time, just get a general layout done to try and spark a dialogue with the bride about the design. Some brides let you do whatever you want, some want something totally different. The key, I think, is to communicate with the bridal couple and get them involved.

Use D-TTL for outdoor fill flash. Program the FUNCTION button to stop the flash from firing when pressed (when you let the button up, it allows the flash to fire again). Use the D200 for pictures that may be enlarged a lot or have small faces (group formals, etc.) and for available light work. Use the D100 for flash candids (smaller file size for pix that don't need to be enlarged). Good luck!

I use a D200 for the important shots (formals, church) and a D70 for candids (don't need 15 Meg picture files for Uncle Larry and Aunt Esther dancing). Just remember the D100 doesn't play well with the SB800/600 -- only works in A/A mode, no D-TTL. Otherwise sounds like you have a good equipment setup.

 

Marc St.Onge

I looked into it -- I had to charge about $1 per stamp (including postage) to make it look attractive thus making very little profit. One bride expressed slight interest in it but that's about it.

 

Marc St.Onge

General Products makes 1 and 2 disk faux leather albums that are very well made. They can also hold 1 or three small prints. Their website is www.gpalbums.com.

 

Marc St.Onge

The ExpoDisc is used like an incident light meter -- you measure the color temperature of the light shining on the subject, not the light bouncing off the subject. It is essentially a gray card lit from behind by the light that is falling on your subject. If you are photographing a green wall and a red wall, and you use the ExpoDisc like an incident meter, you will get excellent representation of the wall colors in "correct" color balance. You may want a different interpretation, but you will at least have a "neutral" starting point.

 

Marc St.Onge

I have an ExpoDisc and it works as intended -- it's just not very fast to use with most digital cameras. Most digital cameras have a 2-3 step button-pressing process to store a custom white balance. Doing this while holding the disk in front of your lens can be a little tricky in a fast-moving situation. Also, you need to turn your AF off and REMEMBER TO TURN IT BACK ON AGAIN after setting the WB.

 

In general I think the ExpoDisc is best suited for studio work but it does what it's advertised to do.

 

Marc St.Onge

You might also want to try the Expodisc, a filter that goes over your lens while you set a custom white balance for the camera. As long as you are comfortable with your camera's operation you will get very accurate WB. If you tend to fumble with camera controls, this might be tricky.

 

Marc St.Onge

Check out Fotofusion by Lumapix (www.fotofusion.com). Just got the Pro version and it is working out very well.

 

Marc St.Onge

I shoot three kinds of pictures:

1. Pictures I like

2. Pictures the bride and groom will like, and

3. Pictures the families will buy.

 

"Artistes" shoot the highest percentage of #1's. Profitable studios shoot high percentages of #'s 2 and 3. Probably to keep your sanity, it's best to shoot a mix of all three.

 

Marc

I've actually had this happen with my D100 and SB-80 -- flash starts firing over and over for no obvious reason. One time I had to pull the batteries to get it to stop (on/off switch wouldn't work). Never encountered this with any other camera/flash combination.

 

Marc

I'm not sure that brides care whether you shoot in digital or on film -- brides want good pictures whatever the media. If you are comfortable with the film workflow (shooting without preview, relying on experience, sending film to lab, sorting negs) and are not concerned with computer literacy then film may be best for you.

 

Digital photography opens you up to a world of new technology and creativity which also may or may not be to your liking. It demands a lot of time and resources which you may find better spent shooting and selling.

 

I would recommend buying a good quality point-and-shoot and seeing if you enjoy working with images in the computer world. It's not necessarily better -- just different.

 

Marc St.Onge

I recently saw some prints from a Konica Minolta color laser printer

and they looked pretty darn good. The paper stock for the prints I

saw was kind of thin though very bright (HP paper I think). Is anyone

using a color laser printer for proofing?

 

Marc St.Onge

Kari, I don't know if my clients like this type of shot or not -- I very rarely get any feedback from clients and almost never about any individual shots. However, their checks cash so I guess that's a kind of feedback :-). But I like the shot and it's the kind of thing I do so I include it and if they don't want it they won't buy it. People hire me for the way I see things and record them (I think we're getting into another topic here -- sorry).

 

Marc St.Onge

In answer to Kari, hey, you like what you like -- no explanation needed. That's why they make chocolate and vanilla.

 

The attached picture is one of my favorites (for some ungodly reason). I, too, like to include a few shots like this to provide variety and give the illusion of motion to the dancing. This is where digital helps because I have to shoot a lot of them to get 1 or 2 worth keeping. I think with film you'd get discouraged too fast with film cost and lack of immediate feedback limiting your ability to experiment.

 

Marc St.Onge

Todd, I did just the steps I noted (1-4), not the whole thing. Transfering files, rotating verticals (in ACR), and burning DVDs takes very little time. The bulk is spent clicking through image after image and hitting the delete key on the duds.

 

It'll take me another couple of hours to narrow it down to <500 images. Then 3-4 hours to fine tune exposure, cropping, etc.

 

Sorry for the confusion.

 

Marc St.Onge

Todd, funny you should mention it...

My wedding yesterday was 860 shots, all RAW format. It took me from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM to:

 

1. Transfer files from portable hard drive to computer.

2. Do my first pass through all the pix, deleting blanks, blurs, etc. (I also rotate the verticals, something I won't need to do should the camera fairy leave me a D200 someday:-))

3. Write metadata to files (copyright info, etc).

4. Burn 2 sets of safety DVDs of the original files.

 

My workflow has 2 more passes that include culling down to <500 images, putting images in storytelling order, and a few other steps.

 

The "one hour of post-processing for every hour of shooting" is a good goal to shoot for but it takes a lot of work to get there.

 

Marc St.Onge