mark liddell

24-70 f 2.8 L

85 f 1.8

135 f2.0L

 

Add the 50 if you anticipate really low light or the 70-200 2.8 if you need the reach of a 200mm.

Your work is sparse and quite stylised with a slightly dark dreamlike quality. This certainly sets you apart from the crowd and it's true that not everyone will want their wedding covered in this way.

 

I would not change the way you photograph if this is the way you feel driven to photograph and most like you work to be. Going against your own creative desires in a creative profession will never work well and leave you unfulfilled. Clients who like your style will seek you out.

I can't keep it to one!

 

Have a rain plan, an overcast plan and a bright-mid-day-godawful-light plan

 

Your plan will probably get shot to pieces so expect it and don't panic when it does

 

If conditions are less than ideal when you are shooting formals and it isn't working don't be afraid to say so and move the couple asap rather than battling on worrying they will think you incompetent if you do

 

Set up lighting and get the settings dialed in *before* you get groups/couple involved and it will run much quicker and smoother. People don't understand it takes a few test shots or metering - they are used to point and shoot photography.

 

Gauge the level of intrusion the couple/guests are comfotable with and don't overstep the mark, it's their wedding day and maybe sometimes you can have 2hrs at sunset but often you have to deal with the time allocated and the light that comes with it.

It happens. I screwed up at the weekend wondering why my shots with fill flash were coming out seriously overexposed - it took me a while to realise I had the flash sync set to 1/250 and not 1/250 FP so the shutter speed was limited to 1/250. This happened because I broke my rule of always returning the camera settings to a standard value each time.

 

Re: your issue, if you 'light by inspection' ie. using the LCD it can be a problem in very bright light. Either find somewhere you can view it to check (even if it's your camera bag or jumper) or switch to using a light meter when it is that bright and 'light by the numbers' instead.

I'm not sure I understand your beef with David Hobby. He doesn't review and try everything out there and never claims to just stuff that interests him, maybe Yongnuo wouldn't give him a review sample. You like your Yongnuo, great, why do you care whether it is featured on strobist or not? Do you work for them?

Is the flash you are using to fill shadows or be your main light? For flash as main light I tend to like underexposing the ambient by one stop and setting the flash power to correctly exposure the subject, this still gives a naturalish look but with some zing. Underexposing the ambient 2 stops and more gives a very 'lit' fashion type look. It all comes down to taste and the look you want there is no right answer.

 

For hair light it varies lots, take a guess and then adjust until it looks right - again there is no right answer for this either.

 

One thing to note with working in open shade is that if the background is in full sun it can blow out or be very bright and distracting - find some shade that allows you to use a darker background.

Try here: http://www.theflashcentre.com/looking-to-learn-c282.html not sure how many are in London

Find out exactly *why* they want full copyright and address that instead.

 

If that doesn't work charge for copyright since the images have value to you in marketing and promotional use to get more work so you should be compensated for giving up copyright.

Dave mentioned one of the best points about the 2.5. I did some tests and the sharpness in the centre and corners was almost identical from wide open right up until diffraction set in - an impressive lens.

Open a raw file and adjust the white balance until it's what you want, then set this value on the camera for future shots.

Forgot to mention I use FX (D700)

PJ/reportage is the in vogue thing these days so every photog and his dog sticks it on their site whether they shoot in this style or not. The way weddings are shot these days everyone uses some amount of posed shots and some amount of on the fly but in different proportions and levels of intrusion. Many couples may think they want a total pj style wedding but really don't.

I owned the 105mm f/2.5 and now have the 85mm f/1.4 and the 105mm f/2.8 macro, the 2.5 is a great lens but I needed af and macro ability. The 85mm is too short for headshots and does best for 3/4 shots, I bought that first and then the 105.

Parv, yes it's the nikon f/1.4.

I like the 85 1.4 but wish it was sharper wide open, the corners don't get sharp until f/4 which as it's a portrait length isn't s show stopper but the 70-200 is well ahead in the sharpness stakes.

Kata bags are pretty good and come in 36", 46" and 56" versions. They are well put together and reasonably priced especially at amazon right now.

What tripod do you use? This is probably more important than zeiss lenses. Anyway, I'd put my money on nikons best at 22MP over zeiss at 12MP.

 

I'd look at stitching rather than worrying about small differences between lenses and MP.

I tried poser (version 4 I think) for this and if that has a shallow learning curve I'd hate to see other applications! I found it very unintuitive.

I've not got any zeiss ZF lenses mostly due to lack of compelling side by side comparisons with nikon equivalents but I can comment on the manual focus side of things:

 

The D700 viewfinder is good for manual focusing but many of the old manual focus camera were better. My D700 has a split image screen and nikon 1.2x magnifier and there is no way I would rely on critical manual focus without the split image. I have better than 20/20 vision and even with the magnifier and split image screen I will sometimes get shots at f/1.4 where the focus is not dead on while the af nails it every time. The green dot is nowhere near accurate enough in my experience, you can move the focusing ring with a 1.4 lens and it will stay on green.

Video light

It has to fire because that it how CLS communicates. It only needs the IR to reach it though so you can filter it.

Cokin filters are poor quality and not neutral. If you are on a tight budget by all means buy their filter holder but use hitech, lee or singh ray filters in it. I went this route but ended up going for Lee in the end - in photography buy cheap buy twice so often holds true.

 

As for which filters to use, if you shoot film or don't bend multiple exposures buy some ND grads. Otherwise I don't use filters at all (other than shooting b&w). 81a and 81b filters are useful for slide film but buy screw in filters for those.

Many thanks for the explination Lex

Recently I read that wedding photographer Susan Stripling uses her SB800/900 in AA mode when using it on camera

rather than TTL because it gives more consistent exposures.

 

I've only used TTL and TTL-BL modes. TTL-BL works well (but then there is a lot of leeway for fill flash) but TTL

is inconsistent, sometimes I've switched to TTL-BL and increased the flash compensation when TTL is screwing up

because it can give better results since it takes distance into account while TTL easily gets fooled by anything

near the camera.

 

Does anyone use AA mode? How does it work and is it worth trying?

Really there isn't much in it, both are pretty comprehensive pro DSLR systems these days. People make way to big a deal about it and it comes down to smaller things: there are probably more gaps in nikon's lens line, nikon can use manual focus lenses, nikon's flash system works differently, better af systems in prosumer bodies etc.