savagesax

As a past wedding photog, probably shot at least 1000 weddings, starting in 1987 with Hasselblads. Your flash surely didn't fire. So the question is why? As most of the posts have already stated your flash batteries probably didn't recycle fast enough and I also agree about the use of Eneloop batteries. I used a different system, a Quantum 5T flash with their turbo batteries, but with the eneloop batteries you should change them after every 75 flashes. I do not like to bounce off of ceilings, because of getting weird colors. I prefer bounce cards, domes, something white. Even an index card, bent forward held with a simple high tech rubber band! The problem with your bounced image is you actually have 2 issues. The first is you bounced the flash and the second is your flash was underexposed by about 2 stops. Thus the tan look to the white dress. Sometimes if you are 7 to 10 feet away and you are using a bounce card you still need to set the flash to full power or you will be underexposed as in this situation. Program and Auto modes often don't work. I have a few friends that insist that they set their flash units to Manual. They prefer to set the flash to an 1/8 power all the way to full power, because every flash shot is dead on, depends of course on the distance of the subjects. Don't ever shoot over ISO/ASA of about 1600 to 2000 or you will pick up the lights in the room and the halls. It's surely OK to be creative, but not with bridal shots. Hope this helps.

In EX condition maybe $200. $125 to $150 all day long on ebay for average condition. Sad...It's a good camera and it still makes very nice 8X10 images! I'm not sure about the cost of the cards. They've also gone way done. Try to get $200 for everything, take $175.

I think it is a must.

Decent photo journalistic approach. I'm not "Feeling," the love with the couples. Maybe a lack of romantic images. Lot's of fun shots. Good work in general, but consider a story book fairy tail, by adding emotions. Nice lighting techniques in a lot of the photo's.

Are you charging money? If so it gets very complicated. For sure you need proof of a US business, just to transfer money/checks from their bank to your bank. Banks suck and often charge lots of money. Like $100 to convert the money, plus they don't give you the true value of the euro exchange exchange. I think Greece uses euro's, not positive. My advice is to get the wedding party and yourself signed up with paypal accounts. Yes Paypal charges, but it's pennies on the dollar. Follow William's advice and contact the embassy. The country Greece is broke. They have no money. They filed bankruptcy about a year ago. The government laws are probably changing daily regarding people entering the country and doing business. I would think that taxes will be high. Hope this helps. Do your homework carefully.

Use or rent strobes with modeling lights. You don't have to crank up the modeling lights to full power, just enough to help your camera see and focus. With people wearing black the camera may search for a focusing spot and drive you nuts. The dim modeling light won't be noticed. Use radio slaves to fire the lights, but be careful not to set your camera, if it is a Canon on ETTL because it won't sync to the strobes. You should probably shoot on manual. I like to aim the strobes at the tables where the guests are, because your camera flash will cover the dance floor and the strobes will fill in the rest of the room. For the first dance you can get creative and back light the bride and groom or side light them. Anyway, to pull this off successfully you probably need 2 strobes and your shots will look very professional.

Well I think your camera case should have been close by allowing you to change lenses. Or carry 2 bodies with 2 different lenses. I'm sorry to say this is a photographers mistake. During weddings I liked the 70-200, but the main lens was the 24-105. I also carry the 16-35 and I will take a few shots using a 15 mm fish eye. With the 70-200 I only take maybe 12 shots with this lens for things like a close up of the rings, tears on the brides face. With the 24-105 you can crop like crazy, take a full length shot and crop the ring exchange. Unless you are using stinky camera kits from Costco or something, or your ISO settings are at 6400 and you are shooting with an f-stop at F-32. So figure out a way to carry your gear, at least a 16-35 lens and for sure the 24-105. You really don't need the 70-200, unless you have someone that can carry your gear for you. The 24-70 is actually a much better lens compared to the 24- 105. By the way, there are times when the photographer can't walk around and has to be in the back of the church/temple. I'll use the 24-105 without fear and crop. Holding the 70-200 during a service is too heavy. So it's a lesson learned, don't worry about it, try to fix whatever images you can, and go on from there. You can offer to have her get into her dress, rent the tux, and buy the flowers and re-shoot a mess of photos on the beach. Shoot about 150 shots, romantics, by herself, the groom, bring some champagne and glasses, they may agree. You may lose a few dollars, but you've gained experience and perhaps a friendship and referrals from this couple. They may also reorder several enlargements.

Wish you luck. Seems like an inexperienced photographer. lot's of touch up work is needed and I'm not sure if the photographer can do it.

If the photo's "Blurry," as the OP says, there is surely a problem. I wish he could post an example. I'm confused with the wording Blurry and Pixals. 300 DPI should probably be OK cropped at 8X10. However, there's nothing better than a tiff file. That's a true high res image. As wedding photographers we usually give 300 dpi jpeg images, about 3 to 5 megapixels per image, depending on your camera. Even if you shoot in jpeg format and not in raw. So we are kind of stuck without seeing a few images from the OP's post, but we know that the photographer did not give the couple true high res images as promised because of several Photoshop processing, therefore the client shouldn't have to pay extra to receive what they paid for. If we think of film for a second, the film was developed then a print was made, and then a copy of the print was made by a scanner or re-shot by film. This is kind of what the client got. I know this is a very weird example, but it actually works in this case. In Small Claims Court I think the client has a decent case and shouldn't have to pay for images that have been processed, edited, a few times in different Photoshop programs and aren't really true high res images. At best these are medium res, depending on the camera and her knowledge of Photoshop. However, The PO's statement says "Blurry," and we cannot ignore this concern.The client may win, but the pictures may still be blurry even in a tiff file. Then the client has to sue the photographer for unsatisfactory standards of excellence. This of course gets nasty, because the judge has to figure out how many photos are bad, how important are the photos. such as candid's or formals and come up with some sort of settlement. Usually the client won't win or receive a complete total refund. Even at a medium to low resolution the client shouldn't be experiencing blurry images, but experiencing a lot of pixalation. so was there a camera problem? We need to see an image. Hope the gentleman can post an image or 2 to help solve this dilemma. By the way, a 3 megabyte file can often enlarge nicely to a 24x30 enlargement. Maybe bigger, depending on the camera, the lens, settings, the lab, all of that. You should be able to count some of the hairs on the brides head and the hairs on the beard of the groom. I have to add that a decent $1500 camera in low resolution, small jpeg files, can still print a decent 5x7. With a good $3000 camera set at 400 ISO or less, you can get away with printing a low res jpeg 8X10. It won't look like a high res image, but it will surely be very acceptable. Hope this helps.

Send it to David. Once he fixes it you are good to go for several years. Send the lens or lenses in too, just to make sure the shutters are clean and oil free, as well as firing correctly in sync at all speeds. If you send it to Hasselblad, I guess they still fix older cameras, expect to pay triple compared to David.

Just about every wedding is very fast moving, when you are inside often there is a short time limit of only 15 minutes. Other times you can't shoot inside at all. Then if you are lucky you can take an hour or more. So always be prepared for the worst.

Wow, such great information. I was leaning towards the camera settings. I learned something here, even after all of these years of shooting digital in RAW.

Very cool shot David!

Sweet shot Marc! Way to go, great eye. Nice tilt of her head. Perfect!

Did you make all of these changes at the same time? A new camera, shooting RAW, new computer system, and a printer? Plus new software for the Mac? I don't know the answers yet. I'd suggest taking it step by step. Maybe shoot a few photo's in jpeg. Then go from there. This may help tell you if the camera is bad, or if the settings on the camera are set wrong. Are you shooting in manual mode? Can you post a few shots? Are the inside and outside shots all yellow? Anyway, I'd start with the camera first. I think we all need more information.

Use a green screen inside. Add any outside background you wish! You are flirting with disaster if you go outside.

That's a very nice idea as a gift for the mother!

If I know the people pretty well there is a winery in upstate California that will put their names and the date of their wedding on the bottles. You have to buy about 6 bottles. Kind of a cool idea. Other than that I usually don't offer discounts once the contract is signed. It's a very good question.

Something from this last shoot that you like a lot!!!

Way to go Liz K, to go and practice. Can you post something?

Well the ISO was surely way too high. My general rule is I don't go over an ISO setting of 800. I personally think the background glass is blown out, so you lost some really cool artistic beauty, but thats OK. Most people wouldn't notice. I know that people may disagree with me about ISO settings. I kind of don't care! I know that the new cameras have very high ISO's and that's great for some types of photography, but not for weddings. Some photographers may say that you can go to 6400. I don't agree. Try making a 16X20 enlargement. It won't look very good, compared to the same image shot at an ISO setting of 400. As others have said, use a flash, a pod, and based on what I see I'd set the camera at 30th of a second at F4, no lower, because the background stained glass will be blown out. From the distance you are at, I'd go full power with your flash, you must be about 20 to 25 feet away, depending on the lens of choice. If you had set the F stop at F8 there wouldn't have been enough flash to reach the people and the people's faces would go too dark. Because of a lot of light in the church my ISO setting would have been 400. When shoot weddings never go over F11 even when you are outside. When you are inside don't go over F5.6. Use slower ISO settings like ISO 100 or 200 for outside shots. Remember that the higher ISO settings you go the more grain you will see, such as in the example you posted. So it's a learning exercise for you to learn about how flash units work. I have very powerful flash units so I can get away with a lot, shooting as far as perhaps 35 feet away, but most flash units are limited to about 20 feet at full power. Again, you kind of have to test this out so you will be comfortable at your next wedding. I like the pose, you seem to have that natural talent needed to make a wedding party look good! Keep up the good work. Hope this helps.

When people are worried about their faces and want family photo's I think the best thing to do would be to do a lot of full length shots and just a few close-ups. Crop later, change to black and white. So before giving them ALL of the photo's maybe edit carefully. They may not say anything and be really happy with your work.

Anyone using this camera for weddings? If so lets whats your feedback on it? Hows the battery life? Are you using it for any video work?

Well Bill is surely correct. DNP makes paper now for a lot of the older printers. I still have a Kodak 9810 printer, but sadly they don't support this, meaning that the printer has been discontinued. It's now a 60 pound paper weight. I'm pretty angry with Kodak and I wish that DNP would make paper for this printer. I personally feel it was the best dye sub printer on the market at one time. The colors were amazing for portraits. It was a slower printer compared to the DNP printers and the paper was about 50 cent per sheet more expensive. Hope this helps!

Ask to re-shoot the portraits of your wife and you. Go to a nice park. See if you can get your family together as well, the same people that were at the courthouse. Pick a day that's nice with the upcoming fall season. Beautiful fall colors. Ask the photographer to use a tripod. Ask her to take several shots of the same subject to avoid closed eyes and cut off heads. The tripod should solve the heads being cut off. Have your WIFE set the camera to RAW and you use your own cards. Or better yet tell the photographer to use your WIFE'S camera. Be sure to have your wife check the photo's after each set of photo's are taken. Then you edit your own wedding pics after. If this lady says no you can still often sue in small claims court. Small Claims court systems are often very lax with verbal types of contracts. $700 is pretty high. You may not get all of your money back, but I think the judge will most likely discount this $700. Think positive. This could turn out to be a big advantage. After the photo shoot have a family BBQ! You can invite me to the BBQ for this good idea! Best of luck with the pic's and hope you have a fantastic marriage.