savagesax

Here's a bit of a twist to your question. If you really like the 85mm the most buy a set of extensions. They come in a set of 3 I think. This will solve your problems with doing close up work. If you do a lot of close up work and you don't make huge enlargements such as a 24X30 and larger, The 100 should meet your needs, plus you are getting a good deal. I have both lenses if this helps. For weddings the 85mm stays at studio.

I've shot several school photo's, at least 300! So I'm a bit new to this! Well this has been my system for many years. 1 - Use a lined paper 2 - Have the teacher, or someone, a parent maybe, write the name of the student as the student gets ready to be photographed, then take the picture/pictures. 3 - Look at your camera and see what the number is on the your image/images. 4 - Tell the teacher/parent the image number, or numbers and she/he will write the image numbers next to the persons name. 5 - Sometimes you may want to take more than 1 photo per kid just in chase of a kid blinking or something, this is why you would give both of the image numbers to the teacher. 6 - Just an idea... Take a group shot if you can work it out. 7 - Don't use a computer. If you really want to use a computer I guess you could use the Excel program. I'm old school, pen and paper! 7 - Most of all have fun!

Nice photo! Brings back some fond memories of when I was in the Air Force!

AB B800's - Flash units will always over power fluorescent lighting at a sutter speed of a 30th of a second or faster, so forget about the lights. I've never gelled a flash unit for a wedding. Thats probably close to 900 to 1000 weddings. I must add to this, my lighting ideas may not be for everyone. Some photographers might use gells for every shot. Your exposures are all over the place, meaning that sometimes the group shots look really good, but the 1 large family shot was over exposed causing the background to go black. The wedding dress hanging outside on the tree is over exposed because there isn't any details in the dress. Your idea was pretty cool. I haven't seen that done before. The one closeup shot of the groom alone you really can't tell where the hair ends and the background starts. For example the hair matches the background, thus you can't see his hair. This is a common error made pretty much by every photographer at one point or another. Even the most experienced photographers can screw this up. Myself included. In group shots make sure everyone has their sunglasses off. Now for some ideas. With larger people give yourself some space between you and the subjects. If you get too close the people actually look fatter. For example by giving them more space along with a longer lens you use, the slimmer the people often look. Some of my best shots including Miss America and non nude Playboy models have been with a 70-200 len. Don't rush out and get a lens, however always try to use the longest lens you have for portrait type of work. I get to photograph playmates at least twice a year! Try hard to always turn people in an angle in your group shots. Some of the people have their chests facing right at you. Often this is OK to a point, but people look thinner in weight when turned in an angle. When the background goes black such as with the closeup of the grooms hair and the same with the large group shot meter first for the background. Then you can add the flash to light up the group. the background lights up. Stay away from the shutter speeds around 250th of a second. This really causes blacked out backgrounds. With larger sized people try backing away slightly and shoot vertical. This again slims people down. Go to a bookstore and see if you can find any books of posing or on weddings or both. At one point I had around 100 books! Remember here that often I get lucky being at the right place at the right time and this is why I get some of these fun jobs like the playmates and lots of other stuff. I am a decent photographer but way far from the best. I tend to worry about the cameras, the lights, the posing, however I don't have that special great artisic flare that some of the gifted people have. With Playboy there is always someone doing the artsy posing and it is my job to set up the lights, soft boxes, and soft filters. Feel free in emailing me if you wish to see a few photo's regarding posing, lighting, and perhaps camera settings. Remember to hit the book stores. You don't have to buy every book, but look through them carefully and make notes when some of the assorted images pop out at you. You are off to a good start. Keep up the good work Oh, you can also do a search on this site in reference to your questions. There's a lot of information. Probably 500 to 1000, or more posts.

The above posts seem of very good value when starting out. So since this part has been covered I have to say something very positive. I really like how you are very artistic. You have some wonderful creative images. Keep doing this. Don't ever be afraid or shy of trying new things at every wedding. You are off to a good start. Keep posting whenever you wish for more advice.

I was thinking about the high ISO settings, regarding the past posts. I decided not to, because the cameras these days are so different. In the film days I shot the Northern Lights with postitive film (slide film but it has a diffferent name for medium format cameras) I used an ISO setting of Velvia 50 film. Very slow. Exposures were from perhaps 3 minutes and up. Maybe a shade longer, but I can't remember. There's a huge difference between an ISO 50 and and a 6400. I can't really decipher what settings to use, however it's surely a good situation to experiment. There will be plenty of time to try it out. I can say that the longer you keep the shutter open, perhaps around 5 minutes the sky may get too bright and you may not get that true feeling of the sky's natural formation. It's almost like some sort of a natural musical visual composition. I may sound pretty corny here, but just wait to see something like a dream take place. Another thought to make this look cool is have someone in front of the camera. Some sort of cool pose, not just standing there. Use a flash to stop any movement. After the flash goes off then have the person RUN away so that you won't pick up any movement. For this type of shot I'd most likely use a slower ISO to avoid ghosting.

I second Marc's comment! Have fun at the wedding.

Are model releases needed for the people you use in the photo's? Was this a private area or public area party? Be careful. A sticky situation for sure... Be very careful if you use kids. I would never show kids on your website without a parents OK in writing. We know that the internet goes everywhere. Be careful. Great Question. Keep us posted with what you do and what you information you find.

Wonderful work Marc Trae, I can't really answer very many of your questions, however 100 photo's/30 pages is about right. I'm into Art Leather as well. Be careful not to limit yourself regarding the amount of pages to offer. Not long ago the bride and groom ordered 2 albums. 1 for the wedding and the other for the reception. That was fun making these 2 albums. I guess what I'm saying is use the 100 images and 30 pages as a guide. Let the people know you are flexable, because not everyone can afford a 30 page album and sometimes they don't want one due to the prices. Art Leather may be on the higher side as far as the cost for wedding couples. As for some minor advice, push people/photographers to buy parent albums. I usually offer a 5X7 album. I've had some luck with making a page design such as with what Marc did and enlarging it to around a 24X30. They sell, but it's not a hot selling item. Back to the parent albums, I would have to say that these sell alot. I can't really put a percentage mark on it, such as how many of these do we sell. Maybe 60 to 75 percent. So you can design some 5X7 albums. Hope this helps a bit.

Thanks for the great tip with the 5D 3. About the grain. Yes I hate it too. Thus the reason for buying the new camera. When shooting weddings they are always in RAW. Since you know about the film days very well, it's always my goal when editing to get that film look with digital. I'm lowering the contrast and the clarity a bit. There's a fine line there, too much doesn't work at all. It really helps to get that old time film look. Once I zero in on finding that look, I select all of the images and make the adjustments. That way there's no need to mess with each image. When I make these adjustments I think it softens that digital look and the people look better instead of that hard edgy kind of look. OK, I'm signing of. Time to open my new toy!

Michael! I just picked up the 5D Mark 111! 4 hours ago. I am so excited to play with the higher quality ISO's compared to my 1DS Mart111's. Isn't life fun! So many toys to play with. I thought the 1Ds Mark111's were going to be my last cameras I'd buy. Nope! I wonder when the next toy comes out? After I shoot with it for a few weeks I may post something if I like the high ISO's. Take care Michael. Good posts for sure.

Michael, you are a great guy, a friend! I know you didn't mean anything! We are working together giving ideas to people. Frankly your ideas are just fine! The F8 10 foot rule works when using a flash. Take care my friend and be well. Thanks. bob

Wow! lol I don't know Michael. Good question, hard to answer. All of my lenses are pro. The longer lenses have the image stabilizer. This surely helps. Your opinion is surely valuable. I'm not going into details. All I can say is I've been shooting since 1988, probably an average of 35 to 45 weddings a year. Some of the wedding photographers weren't born yet and others were, such as the great William W. He's been in the business much longer then me! I'm not bragging, because Los Angeles is a huge place and it's so easy to find 50 people getting married. There's 8 million people here! I started with medium format Hasselblads with the ASA/ISO Kodak film rated at only 160. William and so many others remember this. Then came the ASA/ISO 400 film. Yes I used trpods sometimes. I even shot some black and white film then and developed it myself. Many others did this as well. This was the basic standards back then. Pretty much everyone shot with medium format cameras at least for the formals, however the photographers weren't shy with trying new ideas. Anyway you need good gear. This is why I have several camera's and all of them have 2 card slots. Just in case one card dies. Of course people move, thats normal, so you take 2 or 3 shots or 100. Why not! At one point they won't move! Some wedding friends in this group shoot around 4000 images per wedding. I'm sure they got the needed shots and I'm sure they had lots of fun! We all have our own styles of shooting. This is the way. That's all I can say. Photographers are all different. Do what works best for you, perhaps have a blast and try new things! It's really fun playing with stuff like assorted filters from star filter to color filters, to all kinds of filters. That's so much fun being creative.Michael, your photo's are very good. Don't get me wrong here. I always get the needed formal shots. Always. You must. I think this is why I've been doing this for so many years. There's no limit with creative photography. Pretty cool for sure. By the way I shoot a lot of the church and temple formals at a 15th of a second to pick up the background which is often very beautiful. I normally usa a flash too. A flash often stops movement. Good or bad that's why I wrote the above post. Lets have fun together. Let' have fun, even with the formals and slow shutter speeds.

David, I must say you and your wife will have an unbelievable experience! It's simply amazing. The people posting above are right on. Have a blast. I would surely put the camera down once in awhile and enjoy these northern lights. Take your time because the "Show," will last for a bit.

I just sold the camera and the buyer couldn't be happier! Thanks again folks!

I just bought the Mark 3 today! So far I have no idea about the ISO's. With my other cameras, the 1Ds mark 3's I usually set the camera at ISO 800 and in most dark churches I was comfortable with an F 4 to F 5.6 at 15th of a second. With your lens you have the image stablilizer so it's not too hard to hand hold it at a 15th of a second. I've heard really great things with the 5D mark 111. You can probably use an ISO setting around 3200 without any issues. Maybe setting your camera at 60th of a second around F 8. Hope this helps. I can't wait to go out and play!

I won't go into great details here. However I pretty much used everyones ideas. This included Q-tips and the toothbrushes. I first started with just a small spot on the material and messed around with all of your ideas. The final results were pretty good; I can't really say which one worked best, because they all pretty much worked. My fear was that the material would be too shiny. After a few hours of playing around then letting the camera rest for several hours it looks new! Because of messing around with everyone's ideas I've come to the conclusion that all of them worked great. Again, many many thanks. I knew this Canon forum would save me! Ed, I thought about ordering from Canon however the processes that everyone offered work so well. Your idea is worth remembering for fellow readers.

Hi folks, this is probably my final update, however continue to post with more ideas for our fellow Canon photographers. Notice I didn't say anything about Nikon! I couldn't resist! Don't use these tips on your Nikons, because the "Shutters," on the Nikons will stop working! Yes I enjoy messing with Nikon and the shutters will be just fine - I think! he he he OK, it's about 2:30 AM California time. I couldn't sleep wondering if the all of your tips worked. IT WORKED! Beyond expectations actually. It's really perfect. Thank you folks - bob

By the way, you can still take the photo's you like and perhaps make a large 8X10 album, a 16X20 framed enlargement or bigger, a proof album, pretty much anything you can think of. This is always great for advertising. I have a few 40x60 framed prints hanging around the house and when couples see the size of the prints, plus the quality, that often is all you need to book their wedding. So it's really not a big deal. Hope this helps. You will do great in this fun and wonderful business. bob

Great answers... Thanks folks. I started with the soap and water, used a Q-tip and it worked well. Then Alcohol. I will let it dry a bit and see it a tiny bit of armorall may be needed tomorrow. Really great answers. I knew people will come and rescue me!

This kind of sucks and there are so many posts directly related to your question. Yes just let it go and move on as some of the others have said. I know very well that you are excited. All of us fellow photographers are too. I've been shooting weddings since the late 1980's and I still can't wait to see the results of the latest wedding. It's probably called passion and you have it.

I have a few 1Ds mark 111 cameras. One of them has a dried out area on the hand grip area from body heat and salt from my right hand caused by those plus 100 degrees weather days. How do I clean the leather and make it look sort of like new. Some sort of leather cleaner thats natural? I don't want the leather to fade after a few weeks. I want to sell the camera with confidence, however it looks weird with a kind of a dried out look and some whitish look from the salt is showing. You guys get the idea, Regenavate the leather rejuvenate, restore, refresh? The camera has so few shutter clicks, but the camera looks like crap. Just 15,000 clicks and the shutter is god for 300,000 clicks. 15,000 clicks is a total of about 25 to 28 weddings at the most. Thanks folks. bob

Put your stuff in one of those little red wagons and have your kids pull the wagon? Stop off at McDonalds for a happy meal. The kids will be soo happy! Free gas! Just a thought!

Hey, what a great job you did! I'm sending you a high 5!

I think you are kind of out of luck. The next Super Moon is on Sept 9th. Check the weather a few days ahead of time. Maybe travel to a dry area with less haze. Go manual and RAW if you can. When shooting the moon use the F16 rule. This too could help a lot. Don't meter, simply set your camera to F-16. Set your ISO around 100 and if you have a tripod that will help as well. The shutter speed should be around 125th to 250th of a second.