savagesax

As advised F8 should solve any problems. If you can shoot at F11 everything from perhaps 8 feet to the distance to the moon will be in focus. I didn't read any of the above posts because I'm in a rush to get some work done. Try NOT to shoot with wider lenses because the people on the sides of the picture/image frame can get distorted. For example, if someone is a bit overweight they may look even more overweight. For me I really try to never go below a 50mm lens on a full size, non cropped camera. You've probably heard about cameras adding 10 pounds to people. In short, the longer the lens you use the better people can look, regarding the weight issue. When I'm photographing brides that may be a tad overweight I will use my 70-200 zoom. This of course has to do with the amount of space you have to work with. In tight situations I can't use this lens. Hasselblad has this one lens that goes up to F64! There is/was a camera club called the F64 Club. This has totally no relevance to the post! The F64 setting just popped into my past memories.

This may sound like a strange answer to the PO's question. First the shutters can go anytime. High 5's to the people posting above - advice was dead on. Here's the GREAT news. I haven't heard of any shutters going out on these cameras. Most people upgrade before the shutters die. More GREAT news. The cameras are so inexpensive now I'd buy another camera before replacing the shutter. Even the same model! For example I have 2 1Ds Mk 3 camera's with low shutter clicks. However if one of these cameres dies due to a shutter, I'd sell it on ebay for parts and buy another used one from KEH or some place like that! Well recently I sold one of my 1Ds mark 3 cameras and I bought a 5D mark 3. The camera I sold was great, but the rubber/leather looked horrible. I asked the folks on this site how to make the rubber/leather look new again. Well the advice was perfect. People on this Canon site are smart, great, and fun. This is my favorite site to visit. Yes - Yippie! The camera looked new again. I sold it allowing me to get the 5D iii. Well thats my advice. Use your cameras until the shutter dies or you drop it off of a plane or you drop it into a lake. Have a blast with your camera(s)s and and buy something when you what a new toy! Back in the days, mainly the 1980's through about 2003 I shot with Hasselblads. These cameras and the lenses were expensive. I learned how to do my own repairs. Although expensive, fixing Hasselblads wasn't really that hard. If there was a light leak I could fix the leak for about $2 in 10 minutes. Hasselblad would charge $200. Long story short regarding this post, I won't touch the shutters regarding the Canon cameras. Just replace them. Take care, happy shooting folks. bob

The cool thing with the 503 cw is when you are using longer lenses you won't see as much vignetting when you are looking through this camera's view finder.

I normally don't offer this service. For some strange reason I'm upset and I want to get your photo's. Can you request/demand that they loan you the hard drive? If they will, send it to me. You can of course email me using this site for more information. Lets see how honest these people really are. I'll find your wedding on their hard drive if they are being honest. Thats a promise...

Just for my edification How do you like the quality of using the Hassy lenses with the Mark 111? Have you made comparisons between the Canon lenses and the Blad lenses? Can you post any images?

Will this "Event Wedding Planner," fly you both back to St Thomas to restage your wedding? This is of course very uncommon, but it's worth asking about. I hope your wedding day was still very special.

Joseph - the second image you posted is simply excellent!

You have to aim the flash directly at the people with no shade. Since the sun is directly over their heads you may want to rent a powerful flash. Try to find some shade. A soft box won't help at all so leave it home. I think you will be able to find some shade somewhere. Check out the place before your wedding. Can you go there and let us know what it looks like, take a few pictures? Giving you any advice right now may simply complicate matters or maybe make things worse.

I really didn't see this subject going in so many directions! Pretty cool.

What is your favorite camera to use at weddings? Although obsolete, I still really like the 1Ds Mark 3. The duel cards sure adds a lot of safely comfort in case that one of the cards fails. I just bought the 5D Mark 3, also has the duel cards. The 1Ds Mark 3 just feels better in my hands campared to the 5d mk 3. So lets hear about what others like best!

Not to tell you how to sell your work. I make 24x30 or larger prints, framed, mounted, and textured. A nice frame can run around $60. When people see something large they take a better look at what you can do. People like looking at large things! Notice I didn't say to ditch the computer ideas. Use both.

By the way, I'm not trying to blow/kill out the DJ's lighting dome, but to use it as part on the decor artistically. I still want to see the domes. The same goes for other forms of lighting reception scenes and situations.

Well the help for your problems have been stated. I have to commend you with your awards! This is something special. Keep up the fine work. I'm changing the subject ever so slightly here - for future weddings. More of a few lessons. A flash is a must. Even outside. In fact if you use a flash for every shot, inside and outside you will have a very high success rate. Maybe 80 percent or higher. As high as 100 percent. A flash is by far your best friend in the world of wedding photography. For outside shots a lot of people may have dark circles around their eyes, due to the sun, shade, and even the fancy romantic shots, including the portraits of the bride and the groom. The flash Will help fill in those dull and dark eye sockets, that raccoon eye look. Flash actually makes the eyes of people sparkle, mainly with the portraits. A bride with dark eyes simply isn't cool. It reminds me of someone not having fun at their wedding. Dark and gloomy eyes. At the receptions movement is your enemy as already stated by many. Without a basic flash you are pretty much dead, very dead!. Even with those very high ISO cameras. With the high ISO settings and without flash your chances of getting natural skin tones of the faces of people simply won't happen. For example if a DJ uses those color light domes/balls that circle around, the lights in the room lighting, sometimes candles will kill the skin tones. For example the DJ's domes with assorted lights inside the ball the blue, yellow, green, and more dome will cast shadows on the faces of people. Yuk, green monster movie faces!!! Candles will make the faces turn kind of a glowing brown. Ceiling lights, depending on the type of lights can cast and cause greenish overtones. In short I actually set up around 2 to 4 lights, mono lighting, radio slaves, so when my camera fires so do the other flash units. I do this so I can pick up the entire reception room. I'm able to pick up everything in the room, the background dinner tables to the first dance. Sure high ISO's are fun, but you sometimes don't need them. In fact I'm never over an ISO settings of 800. I'm not saying this is correct, however it works well for me going way back to the film days. Needless to say everyone dancing. My shuutter speeds are almost always around 30th to 60th of a second, favoring 60th, and the F-stop rating is solely dependent of the rooms flash unit light readings. I aim for about F-5.6 to F-8. Even if I take a chance at shooting a few shots at 15th of a second and using a flash, if the people aren't moving too much, or not at all, the the flash could stop any form of movent. In these cases I always take a few safety shots, just to be sure. Try to practice outside and inside with some friends with and without a flash. I am positive you will enjoy seeing the results. I must conclude by saying once you get the feel of "Seeing light" as a photographer you can then play around with natural lighting and this will surely be fun! Remember to always cover yourself, when experimenting with natural light. Still use a flash. This statement here is of extreme value. Your eyes can see about 10 F stops. With digital, the camera can perhaps see 3 or 4 f stops without having to do some major corrections in PS. So even though we don't SEE those raccoon eyes in people, your camera will. Post a few pictures and I'm sure you will get some great help.

I like your style. It's kind of fun! Look beyond the couple. Backgrounds can be fantastic or perhaps not so good. The image that bothered me was the brick building with the sign on the left wall! Well we all screw up. For me this was an eye sore. Keep up the nice work. Will some people like this sign in the photo? We all have different tastes. Lets see!

Thank you Ken.

I will surely tell him Brett. I have a strong feeling he will remember you.

OK! A Dick Werner update. I talked to him today. He has a very good outlook on life. He's doing OK.! I shouldn't really go into details regarding his medical issues. However he remains very smart and I will be heading over to his house next week and help him with some computer problems. In September he and his wife will be going on a cruise up the Mediterranean Sea. He's 78 years old and pretty much going strong! Probably better then me! Keep him in your thoughts. WT Thank you for your updates.

This is a very general answer. The longer the zoom the more that the zoom will not be as sharp. Also remember that the longer the zoom the higher the F stops will be. As others have stated there are some great zoom lenses from 70-200 with a 2.8 F stop, A 70-300 most likely will have a beginning F stop around F4 to F5.6.

Thanks Brett - I think I will call him tomorrow and check out his status. About 8 years ago he beat lung cancer, he smoked, still smokes! Silly man. I'll post something tomorrow. I've known him for a very long time; we've built several computers together. I have a degree in computers. However he probably knows as much as I do. A very smart man and fun to go to dinner or lunch with. I've never figured this out. He drinks diet coke, still smokes and he weighs about 140 pounds. An interesting man for sure! Oh, he buys storage lockers now.

I have the Lightroom program. I never thought of using it! I also had no idea about the DNG. I should also look into the Canon software. I never though about this either. I have PS-6, but I haven't worked with it very much. Just trying to crop an image is kind of weird, because you have to move the image, not the cropping tool. I was able to pick up PS-6 before the Cloud version cane out. I think that was actually kind of nasty that Adobe is now "Renting," their programs. $10 a month is actually a decent deal, but I'd rather own the disc. Thank you everyone for your help. I knew you all would lead me in the right direction. This group is really great. bob

Dick Warner or Werner is a really good guy. He lives near me and he's been in very poor health. Late 70's now. At one time, before digital, he had an incredible amount of Hassy gear. Pretty much anything you wanted to buy he had it. About the only thing he sells now are the seals. All of his stock of Hassy's are long gone, but he sells manuals and the the seals. If you are interested he has full manuals with how to repair every part of a Hassleblad. But it is scary to attempt this. He gave me a few lessons so I was comfortable knowing that he lives 30 minutes from me. If I had to replace or fix anything now I wouldn't do it. Never - Only the seals. That's it. When the film over laps I won't mess with that either. Sometimes just a tiny bit of oil is needed, but if you have to replace the plastic part I won't go near it. Never! You also can't find any parts now. At one point I was able to replace the shutter springs and a lot of other parts way back until about 2003 when I went full digital. DAVID ODESS is the man to go to here on the BBoard and the country. He's simply the best and I think he has all of the parts needed to fix any part of your Blads. The hardest part is getting the parts. Any of my square images on my small site here on the BBoard were with the Blads. If you don't want to take a chance just send it to David. It will be done right and he may have your missing part. Hope this helps.

Not related to your question. MANY THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE IN THE ARMY. Be safe my friend. Post a few photo's if you get a chance!

OK my Canon friends. I took everyone's advice regarding the cleaning of the rubber and the 1 Ds Mark 3 sold. Many many thanks. The advice worked simply great! It couldn't have turned out better and the camera looked perfect! OK, I have Photoshop CS-4. I can't open the 5d Mark 3 in RAW. I can't get anymore updates from Adobe. They no longer support CS-4. I called them. Grrrrr. They are such jerks. Can anyone lead me to a site somewhere or send me an email with the directions on how to update? Email is savagesax@aol.com. Thank you all in advance my fellow friends.

" that bit of extra reach during speeches etc.." How large do you want to print? I have to throw this out. The 70-200 IS F2.8 is one heck of a lens. I've made enlargements to 40X60 at an ISO of 400, It's heavy though. Maybe you want to avoid the weight. Just another idea for you.

I've owned several in the past, the film days. I think the seals should be replaced every few years. It's very easy to do it yourself. It depends where you live as far as the replacement and when you should replace them. Weather conditions. If you replace the light seals yourself the only thing you need to be aware of is the little round bearing as already stated. Replacement parts are about $10 or you can actually make your own for about 20 cents. Check out ebay. Taking pictures of each step is a great idea. There was a guy there that sold the light traps for about $10. His name was "bird" - something, Can't remember his full address. Oh, the first time you do this take your time. The next time you do this it will take about 5 minutes. I haven't done this in over 15 years because I'm strickly and sadly digital now. There should be one longer screw I think. Hope this helps.