eric_gundersen

I was asked to shoot a wedding in 1992, when I was a naive 18 years old, and doing some photojournalism work for a local newspaper. My boss put some pressure on me to do it for his stepson, who was looking for a cheap photographer (people always seem to want to cheap out on hiring the photographer.. bad idea).

Although I had some solid photographic knowledge, I had no idea what was customary behavior for a wedding photographer, or what shots to take. I loaded up my Nikon N8008, an SB-24 flash, and a mediocre zoom lens, and I headed off to the church.

It was a disaster. I had no idea what I was doing. I used the flash the whole service, climbing all around the altar to get the right angles. They were visibly annoyed, but I was busy shooting and didn't really realize it until later on.

I didn't get the shots that are usually customary, I didn't shoot the right people, I didn't have the right equipment. I took no portraits of the wedding guests at the reception.

And to top it off, after I casually mentioned where I had my film processed, the groom went and picked up the photos himself without my knowledge, and I never got paid. In retrospect, I can't say I blame him.

My point in telling you all this is: If you don't know what you are doing, you probably don't want to be the photographer for your friend's wedding, unless you are O.K. with the possibility of turning your friend into an "ex"-friend. I still literally cringe to this day when I think about that experience.

I told myself I'd never again agree to shoot another wedding unless I really, really felt that I knew what I was doing.

I would heed the advice of the people on here who have suggested that you do not attempt to shoot your friend's wedding. I second (or was it third) the advice of others on here who have suggested buying some books on the subject. John Hedgecoe's photography book was the first one I'd read on the subject, and the principles are still sound (as Jo Dinning mentioned).

Here is what I would do: Politely rescind your offer to shoot your friend's wedding; There's plenty of time to find a photographer by the wedding in September. Buy some books. Study, practice, ask questions. Take a photo class. Pay attention to what the photographer at your friend's wedding does, and watch the process closely. If he's not busy, chat him up a little and ask a question or two (but don't bother him too much, he's got work to do).

Don't make the same mistake I did, and possibly ruin someone's special day.

In Ansel Adams' book The Camera, he goes into some great detail about diffraction in lenses.. I don't have it in front of me right now but IIRC, he talks about how diffraction is greatly increased with small format camera lenses vs. large format at the same f stop. So, f/32 on an 8x10 camera lens will have considerably less diffraction than f/32 on a 35mm or DSLR lens. When Ansel talks about f/64 being the maximum aperture for maximum sharpness and DOF (that's why he chose "f/64" as the name of the group he started with Edward Weston in 1932, btw), he's talking about a large format lens.

Sorry I can't remember the technical details of why this is so, but it made sense to me at the time I was reading it.

Oh, almost forgot... we also could not read PSD files. IIRC, we could only read TIFF, JPEG and GIF.

We had quite a few people complain about the fact that we could not read PSD files, but the software the Frontier used did not have that capability.

Perhaps they didn't want to pay Adobe royalties? who knows..

If I might add my two cents here..

I don't know what kind of equipment they use at the photo lab you are using, but I used to work in a photo lab with a Fuji Frontier, and we used to run into this all the time with Mac files.

Generally the problem was with people writing the discs in Mac format, which PCs cannot read (without special software, but most labs will not have this). I don't know if things are different now (this was a few years ago when I worked there) but also we could not read multisession discs, and could not read discs with sessions that were left open, and as Jeff has mentioned, with TIFFs being saved with Mac byte order instead of PC byte order.

The Frontiers run on Windows (ours ran on Windows NT), as do most all photo kiosks. Be sure you save everything with that in mind if you are going to be printing those files anywhere but your own computer and printer.. If you save everything to be compatible with Windows it should work.

Fantastic photos!

Out of curiosity, which Hasselblad/lenses do you use? I'm interested in how you got that photo of the eagle with a manual focus camera.

Many thanks for all the responses. I just wanted a little more clarification on this. As we all know, sometimes the naysayers can be overly picky.. I've met some self-professed "audiophiles" who think anything less than a $5000 audio amplifier sounds like crap, when my $300 Sony sounds perfectly acceptable to me. But on the other hand, if the Epson is really that bad, of course I'd rather apply that $500 to something better.

I think I'll probably just pick up the 4990 regardless, since it's such a good flatbed scanner, and just send out for a drum scan if needed. Worst case I'll wait until next spring and look for something better.

From what everyone has said I gather it should at least be sufficient for proofing or smaller final prints from 6x7, and then maybe I'll have a little extra money to pick up another lens.

Thanks again for all your help!

I know this has been discussed almost to death on this forum, and I

apologize in advance for anyone who's sick of this topic yet.. but I'm

one of those people who agonizes over any purchasing decision I make

(you should see me at the grocery store).. and this is driving me

absolutely batty.

I'm trying to make a decision on a film scanner, mostly for scanning

MF and my collection of 35mm negatives from the last 10 years. I've

been reading the posts in this forum and it's pretty much been settled

that film scanners (Minolta Dimage Multi, Nikon 8000, etc) are going

to give the best quality film scans under $5k...

I have read many good things about the Epson 4990 however, but many of

you have said it is not very good for 35mm and MF scans. The question

I have is, how bad is it really, compared to a film scanner? I mean

anyone know any sites with photo comparisons? In my limited Googling I

can't find any direct comparisons of this scanner against a film

scanner for 35mm and MF. There are comparisons on 4x5 here:

http://clarkvision.com/imagedetail/drum.vs.flatbed-scanners/ and it

looks pretty close at 4x5.

I want the Minolta Dimage Pro, but my budget is more towards the

Epson. The fact that it scans 4x5 is a plus as I've been thinking

about dabbling a little in large format.

My goal is to be able to scan these at good enough of a quality to

print and display these prints at some of the art galleries around

town, mainly the MF scans. Am I dreaming to think I can do this with a

$500 scanner? If I put two 16x20's next to one another, framed and on

the wall, will I be able to tell the difference between a dedicated

film scanner and a 4990? Or, are they almost the same and everyone is

just splitting hairs at this point?

Any links or info anyone could give me that would help me make up my

mind would be greatly appreciated. I don't know anyone who owns both

of these and will let me test them myself..

Thanks, Eric