gary van schaick

<p>I like to tell brides the photo count will be about 40 - 50 per hour of contracted service.So for an 8 hour wedding, I tell her 400 photos but end up giving her probably 500photos or more. The larger the guest count, the more activity and the more fun that is going on to take photos of so the more photos she ends up getting.</p>

 

<p>Looks to me that with the high ceiling, you could really use a diffuser. There are several on the market but in this case a wide diffuser would work the best, IMO that is. Gary fung's whale tail may be what you need in this particular photo.</p>

<p>You might list the equipment you currently use. When I look for an assistant, I have the assistant use my equipment so he/she has to know the equipment. Also what area of NJ are you in.</p>

<p>The Panasonic TS3 seems to be getting the best reviews. there's the Pentax WG-1 with GPS, the Fuji XP30, and the Olympus TG-810</p>

<p>I have to second some of the ideas here. Look at actually prints, 8x10 size the better. Web photos are horribly low resolution and therefore can look out of focus. Ask to review a complete 600 photos gallery of one wedding to see the entire range of photos taken. Note that a CL photog may charge you $500.00 for a complete wedding but a professional will charge you atleast $100.00 per hour just to be with you and then you add the cost of proofs, prints, and albums. But as you well now know, you get what you pay for. I suggest the photographer is a company (LLC) and/or is charging sales tax so you know the photog is a legitimate business. </p>

<p>Mike, there are about 10 major websites that I know of that do just this for all vendors of a wedding. So you would hopefully have to offer something new. I subscribe to 4 of them that I can think of. the problem with these big websites is that the bridal couple receives a tremendous number of emails, what could the bridal couple do when they receive emails form a couple of hundred of vendors all looking for their business. there may be as many as 25 wedding photographers all sending the couple an email. Are you planning on qualifying the prospects or the photographers for that matter? Insure each photographer with you is a professional and not a CL photog? Just what will your criteria be? And what will make you stand out from the rest of the websites? </p>

<p>Agreed, the biggest thing your paying for is the self-recoil cable. I first picked mine up at the Javits center, really inexpensive as they had a show price.</p>

<p>Hi Steve,</p>

<p>There is a new device in the market called a " Steadpod"...It's a cable with a clip on one end and a block that attaches to the camera on the other end. I have one and it works quite well. The clip allows you to clip the end to your belt or you can run it to the floor and step in it. Google steadpod and you'll find it.<br>

Good luck</p>

<p>Irene, It sounds like the D90 is overheating. I would run as experiment such as this.<br>

1. Set the ISO at 200, auto ISO off<br>

2. Run continuous photos as you have been, note the number of photos that you take before the camera starts to slow down.<br>

3. When the camera starts to slow down, immediately change the battery.<br>

4. No improvement, take another 30 minutes of photos, noting the file numbers.<br>

5. Turn the camera off for 1/2 hour, turn on and record the response of the camera.<br>

6. Look at the photos comparing the ones you started with with the ones after 1 1/2 hours.</p>

<p>If the circuitry in the camera is overheating, you would notice the camera slow down, actually it stops working until the circuitry cools down. You will also notice the last of the photos would have fair amount of noise in them when compared t the first photos. As the circuitry heats up, the electronics puts more noise in the photos.<br>

Because this is the D90, there could be a problem with the camera. By doing the above, you would help the technician. Also the D90 is of course a lower rated camera, the continuous shooting ability is not as large as say a D300s. So this camera overheating after an hour of continuous shooting may be normal. <br>

I have a D90 but have never shot on continuous for an hour.<br>

Good luck</p>

 

<p>You can buy from B&H warehouse and others the SEagate Freeagent 1TB hard drive for a little over $100.00. YOu can afford several of these.<br>

Buy 4, keep two at your computer - uplug them when not actually performing a backup.<br>

Keep two in a safety deposit box.</p>

<p>Switch the drives as offen as you think you should.</p>

<p>There is no need to spend more money.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Katrina, I hope by (-17) you refer to (-17C)!!! For the usual snow scene, I would overexpose by as much as one stop to insure the snow is white and not photo gray. This could render the faces dark but maybe not. If the family is positioned in a certain way, the reflections of the sun off the snow and up into the faces may be enough light. You may have to add fill flash to lighten the faces. I think you had better get to the location 1/2 early with an assistant and take a bunch of test shots over the assistant to determine the right exposure and position of the family.</p>

 

<p>Go with the D90 and use the extra money for additional/better glass. You can get a kit lens for the D90 but you will probably want a 70-300, perhaps a 50mmF1.4 or 35mmF1.8, maybe the 17-55F2.8 at some time. If you are going for bird/wild life photography, you'll want the 80-400VR.</p>

<p>You might give this a try.</p>

<p>First use as little flash as possible, put the camera on a tripod. Attached a remote cord. Shoot as wide as you can so you do not have to look thru the view finder (but once to set up the series of photos).<br>

Do not look thru the view finder when shooting, use the remote cord and talk to the both of them taking photos as all times.</p>

<p>Hi Sara,</p>

<p>Go with the SB900 and look at the light modifiers. Gary Fong makes a few. There is a relatively new system that looks interesting, Honl system.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

<p>Hi Sara,<br>

You can get a 12 - 24 or the new Nikon 10 - 24. However you may want to think about this a little more. An extremely wide angle lens will give you distortion, especially on the face - make that the nose. For weddings I have the 17 - 55 f2.8. If I need wider I move back. But I try to shoot not less then 24. In rare circumstances I have used the 12 - 24 but I do avoid it.</p>

<p>I agree with the email/put it in writing. If you talk on the phone, confirm with an email.</p>

<p>If you want to meet half way between, be proactive and suggest the place to meet up front. Choose a Starbucks to meet at, they're everywhere. And you can look up all the locations quickly on the internet. If that's no good for the B&G, at least you will have made the point that you want to meet some place between.</p>

<p>First, please check the equipment you will be putting the batteries into. These new batteries can run as high as 1.9V. this can damage some equipment. Look at the spec for the SB600, it says 4 batteries of 1.5V or lower. This suggests that the SB600 can be damaged with the 1.6V battery. The SB800 says 4 0r 5 of the 1.5v or lower battery, so this could most like handle 4 of the 1.6v batteries. If you do a search on these new batteries, you'll find some articles where the SB600 has been damaged due to over voltage.<br>

-<br>

There's a pretty good discussion here:<br>

http://www.flickr.com/groups/nikond90club/discuss/72157622299647183/?search=Batteries</p>

<p>Hi Sergey,<br>

Capri Albums does just what your looking for. My customers love the combination.</p>

 

<p>I looked at the video a couple of times as it seems to have made a big splash on the international news orgs. The videographer deserves everything he got, probably not enough. The mistakes were just horrible. That said, it really is up to the photo community to make the B&G aware of the non-experienced. And perhaps this is a better name than non-professional. Getting paid to do something makes one a professional, does not make you good or experienced. I have tried writing an article about why choose a professional for you wedding. Of course I've never been accused of being a good writer only a good photographer. I've been accused of being too harsh in writing this article. And perhaps I need to tone it down. But here's the link if your interested.<br>

http://vanschaickphoto.com/page7/files/08747fe59a7e332f7856c4eefab11b3f-0.html</p>

<p> </p>

<p>First, you need to discuss this with the B&G, they usually do NOT know that there are rules in some churches. The B&G needs to know if there are shots that you will not be able to take because of church rules.</p>

<p>Some churches say, do anything. some churches say no flash during the ceremony. Some churches say no Photos! during the ceremony. I had a minister say she did not want to hear the sound of the shutter. Every church is different. <br>

There are also places that you can not go, you may have to stay behind the last guest.<br>

If the B&G does not know or even if they do, ask the Priest/minister just prior to the service, ( get there a little early if you have to) That way the priest/minister will know you are working with him/her and the rules.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Deposit verses Retainer - I did research years ago, some of it on this site. There were court cases where the judge ruled that the word "deposit" indicates the money is refundable. Retainer is definitely not refundable. I don't think this has changed.</p>

<p>And I never miss a wedding. I've been sick, had extreme back pain ( from carrying too much camera equipment) but I was always at the wedding. I've missed my best friends funeral, missed a couple of my grandson's birthdays and family reunions, all for weddings. The show must go on.</p>

 

<p>I've become flexible with my payments lately. 1/3 as retainer, 1/3 30 days prior and 1/3 the day of. Usually there is no problem. </p>

<p>If requested, a payment after the wedding is OK, as long as I still owe them something. Example, they need to chose the photos for their album, the final balance must be paid for before I start the work on the album. So even if they pay by check, the check will have cleared before I start work. If all they want is a disk of the images, then the final payment must be in cash at the time that I drop off the disk, and I will drop off the disk, not send it in the mail.</p>

<p>2000 shots in two hours IMO is the shot gun approach. Again IMO this makes a photographer appear as a non-professional. Plan your shots. Plan your time. You do not need 150 shots of the bride walking down the isle. You only need one good one. You do not need 25 shots of the bride's father kissing the bride, only one good shot. And there are more critical issues shooting a wedding then the number of images you shoot. Do a search on this website for first weddings, there's a lot of information. Do you have back up equipment of every thing? How are you going to handle the ring ceremony? What parts of the ceremony are you going to have to recreate after the ceremony is over? Are you doing portrait shots before the ceremony of the individuals? Which family members are being included in photos after the ceremony? Even photo-journalistic shooting requires some kind of "setting the stage" or "recommending the B&G do this and that". What do you have planned for this? And above all - relax - If your stressed the bride will probably notice it and get stressed out herself. A calm and reassured photographer does a lot to calm down a stress bride.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>

<p>Katherine,<br>

I can still remember the first wedding I shot with a D100, the battery ran out of power and I forgot to charge the second battery, but I had a P&S in my pocket...so my first insight is to insure you have multiple batteries for the D70S and make sure they are charged right up to the time that you leave for the wedding.<br>

Second - I 2nd using the best possible memory cards...I use Lexar which has an unconditional warranty...I have had two CF cards crash on me, Lexar gave me a new card and recovered the files on the cad for free...Use Professional memory cards. For many years I carried 15 1GB cards in case I had one totally crash. I did have to keep in mind how many shots remained so I had to change cards if I thought there might be a problem with filling a card at the wrong time. I had a card fill-up during the cake-cutting but Ihad an assistant at that time so there was no problem. ( I now use 8G cards in my D3 where I store to 2 separate CF cards at the same time.)<br>

Third - Extra camera - I now go to a wedding with no less then 4 cameras and one of them is still a P&S (Canon G10)...I have had to put the main camera down to get into a very crowded limo where I only had room to use the G10 over my head using the LCD display... Perhaps you can borrow an extra camera from a friend. If you like this business you should look into getting something like a D90 next, and then move up to a D300/D700 with the SB900 flash. The latest generation of electronics in the D90/D300/D700 are significantly better then the older generation electronics in the D70/D200/D2X. At this point you have enough lens so spending $950.00 on a D90 would be the better buy for you then a new lens. Stay away from the D80/D5000/D60/D40 - I don't believe your lens will work with those cameras. <br>

And I agree that you should use RAW and not jpeg...</p>

 

<p>Josh,<br>

You may try the following since you shot in RAW and assuming you have something like Photoshop:<br>

In RAW, Expose for the couple, convert to jpeg, change name and save<br>

In RAW, Expose for the window, convert to jpeg, change name and save.<br>

Now you have two jpegs that you can combine and try to take the best of both.</p>

<p>Good luck</p>