german

Michael, thanks for the link.

Rob, I am sorry. I meant it's too much technical information ... for me. While I appreciate it, I prefer the more subjective information (like the one given in forums like this with people's experiences in non-laboratory settings).

In any case, I do read that the LX1 seems to be a better camera (and it's priced at about the same in B&H -- LX2 @ $420 v LX1 at $400).

I read complaints on both on the noise levels. What are your experiences?

Hi,

I became interested in the LX2 to do street photography (and family photos).

Now, I read there is a problem with the shutter lag as compared to the older

LX1.

What's your take on it?

I'll really appreciate it.

(I am used to the older, bigger, faster D1X and film F100, but they're

not "all that practical" for street photography.)

Thanks,

G. Silva

Ellis. You are awesome!

Now, I did not appreciate the angry words you used above. (And I thought I was the one with the anger problem!) I do not know exactly to whom they are directed though since I don't personally claim to work for free -- that is, without including my time into the equation.

It seems you validate my point though by stating how unwise it is to work without incorporating our time into our costs which, again, a lot of newer wedding photographers do.

In any case, your awesome system (of getting images ready for next morning -- or sooner-- delivery) has been done with film for quite a while.

And the fishing part, with our free time, or spending time with the family, or checking out the market. That's the part I like once I am done with the photography part of the business, which I love, by the way.

Hey Nadine, sorry if I got off the subject. And though they may belong in different posts, they are related -- time and the necessary expenses to capture those images.

In any case, I remember watching and listening to the "founder" of wedding photojournalism ... (I am drawing a blank on his name, the one with the Keneddy cover) talking about how we would capture 2 to 3 thousand images (years back) with his digital Canons and how he would edit them down (on the flight back home) to about 1 thousand something images.

Then Hanson Fong spoke (I believe it was him -- an awesome San Francisco wedding photographer) and he commented he would usually shoot about 500 images per wedding. "I don't need to shoot 2000" he said, "I know what I am doing."

And Marc, I don't see it anywhere in this post that my intentions are to give my clients a lesser product. If you read the post correctly you will see I love film and consider the quality of film-obtained images to be of superior quality than those captured digitally, for the most part.

You should have seen my client's face a couple of days ago when I gave her the 4x6 proofs of her engagement photo session, all done with medium format film. They were awesome, she said. And I agreed. They were awesome.

With respect to my trading, it's not going all that well. I am just learning. But like I said earlier, those new to wedding photography, who have used nothing but digital cameras, do not have any way to compare (or to know) what is or would be like using film.

The same with me. I am new to trading and I am using what's available now. I don't know any different, or any better. I am sure they might be some older folks out there who might have done their graphing and studying of the market in ways that are different than today. Perhaps they too cringe at the thought of us, newer traders spending hours on end looking at our laptops. Who knows.

By the way, and going back to what I give my clients, I should mention that part of my decision too is based on the fact that most brides in this state do not use/order wedding albums -- well, the "traditional" wedding albums. They seem to prefer to get their paper prints and use them for their scrapbooks, which are very popular here.

For those that prefer the nice magazine style weddings, I'll have the album companies set them up for them, and charge accordingly.

And that is why most wedding photographers do not want to use film. Because they would have to put a real, tangible price to their thousands of images. And people would not pay for them. Why buy thousands of pictures when you will only use 200, or 250, or 400? It would not make sense to them (the clients) either.

With digital capture, wedding photographers can continue with the false belief that it is not costing them anything more to shoot 1000 images versus 500 of them, when they are enslaving over said images on their computers, hours upon hours.

But hey, it's not something tangible. It is not costing them an actual dollar amount, since they are not putting a price to their precious time, which, by the way, once it's gone, it's gone for good.

Wedding photographers should start figuring their editing time into the equation and they would see how little they (we) are currently charging.

They should figure the price of digital cameras, and computers, and software.

But it seems not a lot of us are doing that.

Some people are taken aback by a $500 an hour charge for wedding photography. May be somebody here charges much more. That would be awesome. But that is at least what we need to charge for our services to make a bit of a decent living. However, most of us are not.

Where I live it seems photographers pay to photograph weddings. It's absurd. But they don't make the necessary calculations, it seems, and continue to give away their work. And it's good work too.

But oh well!

Hi Nadine. Millers still prints optically, and they have experienced a revival of film lately. Of course their film processing and printing is way down, but they still keep film shooters in mind and continue to develop and print for them ... us.

The scans they advertise are both 10 MB and 20 MB, but I don't know if they provide larger files upon request.

With respect to chemistry or paper needed it is true it might/will become scarce. Like you guys say, it's a fact of life digital is taking over. But film, chemistry and paper are still available right now so it is not a problem.

Kodak and I am sure other companies are or will be coming up with better emulsions on their professional films. Prints from film are beautiful. So, why not use them if they reduce the amount of work -- and provide a beautiful product -- for some of us?

For black & white processing and printing there are several very good labs, like San Miguel (http://www.bestlab.com )and more. I believe they also produce fiber based prints from digital files.

One point that nobody has touched (in these posts) is that of archival considerations on the images we capture.

I photographed a conference given by Mighty Joe Young's creatives and executives (in my "Hollywood" days) and they mentioned the beauty of digitally creating Joe Young (and the painstaking work!). But hey, it's Hollywood and they have plenty of $$.

In any event, they got to the point where they discussed the archiving of the images and how archiving methods for digital imagery become obsolete within relatively short periods of time. How one method of archiving today may not be available in 10 or 20 years. How would we read these files then, they asked.

Simple, they responded, we can create some type of tape where we can record such files, since we've been able to read tape (or "film") since the beginning of the past century, and if we find such film from, say, 1910, we can still read it today.

Great, they concluded! We'll use film!

How ironic, they realized.

Hey Marc,

You are doing a great job of getting the point across. By the way, the F100 is about 5 or 6 years old and works like a charm. No upgrade needed. Nothing. I paid about $800 (or so) new back then.

For the Mamiya I paid about $500, recently, with lens and all. Not a bad price, and the images it produces are gorgeous.

For the scanning, Nadine, try Millers (http://www.millerslab.com ). They do an awesome job and are very quick. I sent them a roll on Saturday's mail and received it on Tuesday -- with high resolution files and all. The prints, which they do from the scans, look awesome.

Hey, thanks Al. (The shortcomings of the equipment cannot be construed as lack of technique. I am sure, however, that the D2Xs provide much better metering than my good old -- now sold -- D1X.)

Bogdan, no problem. These long posts sure get complicated!

Wow! How much animosity in here!

The debate is not about the merits of digital versus film, or the knowledge or ignorance about any of these mediums. It is simply about how a lot of us, photographers, have added extra work onto our backs and continue to charge the same, or reason we can even charge less, since we don't have the expense of film and/or developing.

If you don't see it now, that's OK. But you will see it eventually. It's just a matter of logic.

If there is a way to produce the work with less effort I will take it any day. Film, for me, where I am, is the way.

If you have just begun and know nothing but digital, it makes no difference to you. You have no way to compare it to anything.

If you are outsourcing the digital editing and printing part, making sure to include said charges into your fees, that is awesome. Most wedding photographers, however, do not do that.

Jeff,

what other photographers do greatly affects what one can do too, just as what any other business does greatly affects what your business does, in any type of business.

It would be very narrow minded to just do your thing oblivious to what others do.

Do you think Nikon does nothing when Canon comes up with a higher quality camera at a lower price? Do you think it sits on its laurels thinking how good it's D2x is and says "I don't care what everybody else does"?

Or do you think it tells its engineers to come up with something better and cheaper ASAP?

No matter how good the D2x may be, Nikon cannot just forget about its competitors, just like we cannot ignore what our competitors are doing, no matter how good we may think we are.

If our products are completely out of whack with the rest of the market, do you think we are going to stay in business long?

We live in a much more interconnected world. Everybody knows what everbody else is doing.

Hey guys, thanks for the comments once again.

I should mention a few things about my personal experience with both digital and film.

I feel I used to get better candid ("pj") images with film. Setting 400 film at 250, exposing for the shadows and shooting away worked wonders for me. Even shooting on program modes gave me awesome exposures of fast moving events.

With digital (a D1x) exposures suffered. Too dark, too light, unable to use program modes I had to stop and meter many a scene to get the proper exposures. It slowed me down and the images showed.

Overexpose a nice image of a bride in black & white and you have a gorgeous photograph. Do the same with digital and you are in trouble.

Racoon eyes started to appear in my photographs, for overexposing (to make sure I would have enough light under those eyes) would grossly overexpose the wedding dress.

Yes. One can try to fix that with flash, but then the image itself suffers. I love the softness of natural light, and I had no problem using it with film.

But besides that, the market where I am does not pay well. (There are other advantages of living here though, otherwise I would not have moved.) Budgets are very tight here. So, for me, here, it makes sense to offer, say, a couple of rolls of film per hour, shoot them, get the 4x6s and deliver them to the clients. End of story.

They know how many photographs they will get. If they want more, not a problem. I can shoot much more, at an increased price.

So, I enjoy an economic benefit -- I charge for my time photographing plus some product -- without the additional expense of using my time for editing, besides hand picking any bad images out of a pile of photographs, which takes almost no time; I enjoy the beauty of film with its latitude and the "hand craftsmanship" feel to it; I get it scanned by the lab for whoever wants digital images; and I give brides photographs they can hold.

There is no carding of negatives anymore ... well, there is, but it is not necessary. The labs (or you) have the digital files from the film and can print it to the clients specifications.

There is no need to print your own work, unless, again, you charge quite well for it.

And this brings me back to the point I wanted to make before but seems to have gotten lost. If photographers charge good money for using their time editing, cropping, color correcting, retouching and altering images for their clients, that is just fine.

The problem, however, is that a whole lot of photographers are providing those additional services at no extra charge. No disrespect to anyone, but feel free to do a search for wedding photographers in Utah and look at what they charge. Prices barely cover for the cost of materials. (And I am sure that's why the videographer that wrote to me had to move back to sunny and affluent Southern Cali.)

In any case, this film model works for me and it should not be considered the return to an outdated media (as going back to a black & white television).

Digital cameras are still trying to emulate film. They are still trying to get film's latitude and the "feel" of certain emulsions (Velvia, etc).

Film still produces images that might be better than those captured digitally (this depending on the photographer, of course) and it can easily be scanned for those that would prefer a digitized photo.

In any event, let's keep the ideas coming! (I like the idea of having a lab editing for us -- our digital work -- and printing, if we are charging appropriately, which I am sure Robbie is doing.)

If my market would not pay additional $$ for me to outsource the editing, I would just have to use film, which for me minimizes said editing.

And another "by the way". I did not mean to say that the proper workflow eliminates editing, just that it reduces the time one dedicates to said process.

Thanks again,

G.

Hey guys, thanks for the comments.

Mike, you should check out Tri Community School of Photography in Covina. Many pros from all over Southern California go there for more learning, printing, using the studios, etc, just for a very small cost. Look it up.

Silver R. Well ran studios that work with several photographers, that I know, work with film. You just pay the photographers for their shooting time and that's it (plus the film and processing, of course).

With digital, they would also need image editors, before getting to the printing part of the deal.

David, the retouching that used to be done by the labs, at a charge, is now being done by us, FREE! Mmm. Not good. The number of shots taken by many a wedding photographer has dramatically increased. We all feel we can take as many pictures as our hearts desire but are not considering the extra expenses (of time, mostly). And yes, we can correct everything in our images, but again, it's our time we're using and most of us are not charging for it.

I remember getting 4x6s or 4x5s and having no problems with them. Now, I cannot let go of a 4x6 file (for proofing) without making sure I am not cropping anything important out of the photo. One may say it improves the quality of our work, but nobody complained before. The 4x5 or 4x6s are/were printed the way they are/were printed and that's the end of it.

(It's extra work we don't need, unless we have increased our prices, but with so many beginners not considering these expenses, and charging next to nothing for their work, expertise and additional editing time, it's not easy to increase one's prices without seeing a great reduction in the amount of work we get.)

C. Jo. Digital work should definitely be charged higher than film work. Some professional, commercial studios do charge extra for editing and digital capture -- something most of us, wedding photographers don't do.

Robbie, with film we don't have to pay anybody to edit anything. You may save on film and processing, but you are paying on equipment, computers, software and time (or on someone to use his/her time to edit your work).

Al, I'd like to get my hands on a nice Leica! But I'll stick with Nikons and Mamiya's for now.

Again, thanks for the comments. Keep them coming!

By the way, wet printing is nice, but, unless you do fine art work and charge a pretty penny for it, it should be left for the pro labs. (A lot of people at Tri Community do their own printing, but I assume they price that into their fees.)

Anyhow, thanks again.

G. Silva

Here's part of a response I sent to a colleague (though he's a 'video' guy)

who's returned to Southern California. It has a lot to do with our time usage

and how we get paid.

"With respect to photography, I went back to basics. I am doing film only.

People know how many pictures I will be taking. If they want more, they pay

more.

With digital, most of us think we can take an "unlimited" number of images

without an additional cost (since we are not using film), but it's a faulty

logic. We use more time to edit those images, more resources (disk space,

hard drive space, etc).

We spend a whole lot of time editing the images (before submitting them for

printing, online viewing, making slide shows, etc), even though most people

claim a good "workflow" eliminates that. B.S.!

It's still a bunch of time wasted.

With film, on the other hand, we take the photos, get paid for our

photographing time, mail the film to the lab and ask them to make proofs.

When the proofs come, we call the clients and have them pick them up. No time

wasted.

The time I used to waste on editing, making slide shows, etc, I now use it to

study the market and invest. [i am now day-trading equity options.]

As far as album making is concerned, I just send the negs or the digital files

to the album companies for them to do the work and charge accordingly.

Again, no time wasted (or used without appropriate pay) on my part.

It is very rare for people in this state (UT) to purchase wedding albums."

I should add I am using a nice Nikon F100 and a Mamiya RZ. They are both

awesome cameras, produce awesome images, and are found at a fraction of what

decent digital cameras cost, as you all know.

I have the film scanned by the lab and offer the digital files. Again, I

don't want to have anything to do with postproduction.

It seems to me we used to charge for our time, expertise and some product

(proofs, albums and prints), but know a lot of us think we can charge either

the same or less than we used to (since we don't have the film expense)

without having in mind that we are not just photographing now. We are also

editing quite a lot, paying enormous amounts of money for our ever-changing

digital cameras, invesing a lot of money in computers, software, etc, and

spending time away from our families. Again, this seems like a very faulty

logic here.

Anyhow, that's what I think. We'll see how my "return-to-film" adventure goes.

By the way, I just love the photos that came back from an engagement photo

session, taken with my Mamiya. I love to use soft, available light (other

than a flash's available luminescence) which show off beautifully with the

wider latitude of film.

With digital capture, we have to either go for the highlights and let the

shadows go dark, or have somebody with a reflector walking with us; or we have

to expose for the shadows, getting the highlights blown out.

With film, on the other hand, we simply expose for the shadows and we obtain

beautiful portraits. The same is true with beautiful black and white film.

In any event, that's my take on the current use of digital photography (for

weddings), the use of our time, and the beauty of film.

Please let me know your comments, ideas, points of view, etc.

Sincerely,

G. Silva

http://www.gsilvaphoto.com

Thanks guys.

It was just a thought. And you are right, I would even feel awkward trying to focus and fire that thing. (I am sure it can produce awesome images, but it would just feel weird.)

I may have to go for a D80 (if I continue to do digital at all). Or I may just go for an F5 and forget the digital revolution altoghether!

Hi,

what do you guys think about a Canon Powershot G7 for weddings -- as a

somewhat secondary camera (to film)?

I am retiring my D1X but will continue with an F100 and a Mamiya RZ.

I was thinking about a D80 but recently read about the G7 and became quite

interested.

Please advise.

Best,

G. Silva

Hey Cindy & Bob,

Thanks for the advice. I'll check prices on Ulead and the other programs and then I might check with the wnsoft forum.

I'll keep you in mind for any questions I may have later though.

Thanks again,

German

Hi,

Today I tried to make a wedding slide show with Pictures to Exe to be played on

a DVD, for the first time, without much success. (I've been doing slide shows

on CD for quite a while though.)

I thought I followed the instructions well but when I tried burning the DVD the

software (Nero) indicated it could not burn said compilation on DVD, that I

needed a CD instead.

Well, I burned the CD but when I tried playing it Windows Media Player came on

and only music played.

I tried playing it with another software in my laptop but nothing happened.

Please let me know what you have done to make slide shows on DVD with Pix to

Exe, or please let me know what I may be doing wrong.

I'll really appreciate it. (I've emailed wnsoft already for help -- a few

minutes ago.)

Thanks.

German S.

Hey, thanks guys,

so, a Rollei filter would be better than the Heliopan? There are some of those around in ebay.

should I go for one of those then?

by the way, where did you get a hood for the 30.5 mm size lens?

please advise.

best,

German

Thanks Michael and Francois,

I did see a Heliopan at B&H for about $25, but if I am not mistaken it said it was uncoated. No. It is coated. My bad. It's just not "multi coated".

Does that make a big difference (coated v. multicoated)?

The ones listed in ebay were "super multi coated", no names though, made in Japan.

There was a 3 filter, Hoya set for about $50. (UV, Pol. & Tungsten, I believe.)

There were some other B+W UVs for about $50 each, but some were like completely black -- sort of like the Infrared ones.

Now, do you know if any of those filters just fit the Rollei 35 s without problems? They list them as special order and cannot be returned.

Please advise.

Best,

German

Hi,

I got the Rollei 35 s bug. I got the camera and it's beautiful! Nice and

clean overall. Very clean lenses! Very nice!

In any case, here's my question. Since I intend to carry that little beauty in

my pockets (shirt or jeans), I'd like to protect the lens from dust, scratches,

etc. (It did not come with a lens cap and I don't like getting it in and out

of its small leather/leatherette case.)

Is there one brand of filters that's recommended over others (for these

Rolleis) so that image quality does not suffer? I mean, the lens is a beauty

and I don't want to ruin the images with any old filter.

(There are some "Super Multi Coated" 30.5 mm UV filters offered in "e...y" for

a bit under $10. Do you think those will do the trick?)

Please advise.

Best,

G. Silva

Hey Melissa,

don't dispair. I am sure there are recovery methods available. Please follow the good advise given to you in this post.

Best of luck,

German S.

Hey Lisa,

have you taken any wedding photography classes? If not, try the New York Institute of Photography. It's not expensive, and it works.

Also, bring a tripod to churches and reception sites. You can mount your camera there, slow down the speed (perhaps get a better camera), and fire away. You'll get some awesome shots.

I may have some samples of said shots at http://www.gsilvaphoto.com

Now, by all means, continue to assist and to fire away! (Look for established pros in your areas and offer to assist for free. They'll get their free help and you'll get a priceless education. It's a win - win situation.)

Best of lucks,

German S.