savagesax

It's a good question. I like the Canon 24-105L-IS a lot. However it's not Canons sharpest lens. The Sony cameras are pretty special. I would suggest staying with a quality Sony lens or better the Sony Zeiss lenses. There's also a new Sony camera coming out with around a 44 megapixel sensor. (I think there is) If Sony made a camera that let you use 2 SD cards in the camera I would buy one, just because of the safety factor and the quality of their Zeiss lenses. If the Canon 24-105 lens was one of the finest lenses on the market I'd say to go for it.

Often it can take several days to dry. I'd give it a week. Whatever you you do DON'T put the batteries back into the camera for about a week. I worked in a repair shop for a couple of years. There's a small chance that it may survive. Also check the batteries before putting them back into the camera. Often they short out when hitting water.

Horah -The first reaction of the people on the chairs is when the chair is being lifted. If you wait and you are in the wrong place, meaning that you aren't in front of her or him, or them, you missed the shot.The face of fear! I must be close to this, like within 5 feet. You may, or you will. get bumped from others dancing.The horah circles of people are holding hands during this dance. You must be able to break through these circles to get your shots. You kind of have to be pushy. It's not the right time to be nice. You have to get these shots. You have to be able to move around. You really don't have time to think, so your camera settings should be preset. I like the advice from above. F 5.6 works well. Maybe a shutter speed of 125th of a second. Nothing slower. With a 5D 2 don't go over the ASA setting of 1200. The colors change at higher ISO's. (ASA's, means the same) I always use the 16-35 lens. I often have to hold the camera above my head and not look through the eye viewer. Continuous flash and 6 frames a second. I think that's what the speed of the 5D 2 is. I wouldn't ever attempt to shoot this without a flash. I've said this many times, lighting is the key to great photo's. Anyway, fire away and crop later if needed. So shoot with a lot of room in the photos. I'm sorry, but your 430 isn't very powerful. I think the use of multiple lights is a MUST to light up the whole dance floor so the interesting backgrounds don't go dark. For example having the DJ in the background. If there are 2 photographers the second photographer could be on a ladder, a 6 foot ladder is about right or standing on the stage. A good lens to use would be around 70-200. Look for expressions on everyone, such as the guests. I've shot 100's of Jewish weddings including Orthodox. The hardest is by far the Orthodox. You really need at least 2 shooters, because the men and women are divided. In fact the reception room is divided by a decorative wall. Men on one side women on the other side. No PDA - No Public Display of Affection. It's such hard work. Yet it's a blast. Be ever so careful with getting banged into. Be prepared. You got alot of great advice from the above. Back in the film days for most weddings I'd shoot about 225 photos. For the Orthodox weddings I'd shoot 2000 plus photos. With digital, don't hold back with any form of Jewish events. I personally feel that a great amount of time, maybe 1 1/2 to 2 hours, should be set for the formals. Email me if you'd like a list of must shots. Bring a list with you and have the B&G also make a list. You'd be surprised with the amount of photo requests they have and the parents have. Have a bridesmaid help with getting everyone together. People seem to want to leave the area before their photo has been taken, so if a bridesmaid or someone can get the people while you are shooting will surely save a lot of time. Try to always start with the oldest people, grandparents for example. Where are you doing the formals and what time? Outside or inside? In August it's pretty hot so shooting outside may not be an option. Remind the B&G that you may need to use the temple, because the Rabbi needs to know this. Oh, the Rabbi should also be the first person to be photographed after the wedding. The perfect lens in my opinion for about 95 percent, or more, of the wedding is the 24-70, or the 24-105. Hope this helps. At the end of the wedding when the groom breaks the glass you again have to be ready. You need to shoot the shot when he STARTS to lift his leg. If you wait any longer you will sadly miss this needed shot.

There's a PC connection on the left side of the camera body. Lift up the 2 rubber covers. Are you using this terminal? If it's not firing your second off camera flash, perhaps the cord is bad or the connection on the PC cord needs to be tightened. I don't think it's the camera. Malfunctions are almost always the PC connections on the cord.

I really like Lex's ideas. I had an old bellows extension for duplicating 2 1/4 positives, (color slides). I used black finger nail polish, but Lex's idea of flexible t-shirt paint and black cloth sounds like a winner. At that time I was using Hasselblads. Would this work for what you want to achieve?

I'm not sure if I understand your exact question, however if the bellows was smooth, no rigid's, light would reflect and bounce inside, thus causing all sorts of unwanted light reflections on your photo's. Can you tell us more about the camera? Does the camera have a built in bellows, such as some of the 4X5 cameras and even large 8X10 field cameras? There are places around that make bellows replacements.

An attorney probably won't be of much use, because if the photo's are gone from a bad hard drive nothing can really be done. Since no contract was signed you may be better off going to Small Claims Court, if you live in the US. Judges can be, but not always, favor your claim and call this a verbal agreement/contract. I'm not an attorney of course. The place is expensive, but there is a place called drivesavers.com. (800) 440-1904 They are open 24/7 so call anytime. To recover images on a broken hard drive could cost about $2500. I have an account with them so if you can get the hard drive you will save about 10 percent, just by using my name. Ask the photographer to send off the hard drive to them. If they can't recover the wedding photo's they don't charge. They are located in California. By the way, if you or the photographer send the hard drive overnight to them, they usually call the following day to update you. I was once in the computer business, thus the reason for having an account with them. Ask the photographer to recreate as much of the wedding as possible, such as the formals. A good professional wedding photographer should have insurance for cases like this. This can include flying in people from out of town, paying for the flowers, the cake, all of that. I had a policy like this and thankfully I've never had to use it. I have some health issues so I've stopped shooting weddings for now, but I hope to get back to this. If she doesn't have an insurance policy, she should still recreate the wedding and pay for everything. A good professional photographer should have stored your wedding on 2, 3 and even 4 other hard drives as well as making a few DVD's. Hope this helps and keep us posted. Don't let your photographer get an attitude with you. She made a lot of mistakes by not backing up your wedding and deleting the flash card images of your wedding.

I have to correct myself. I like to use the 70-200mm lens WITH a 1.4 converter. I forgot to add this needed information. This is actually equal to a shade over a 300mm lens.

Nice shots Brett! Biplanes are really fun to photograph. Well done! The dark sky really brings out the colors of all of your shots, mainly the biplane. The colors "Pop!"

Get there early if you can for better location selections. Also bring the short lens for close-ups of the planes on the ground, often the pilots tell you about their plane, not just the military planes. Often in hangers, so bring a flash too. I was in the Air Force so I was able to photograph inside some of the planes. Needless to say you can get some really fine photos, not just the military planes, but everything that's flying! Have fun talking to the pilots, they are proud people. Maybe offer to email an image of them with their plane. They usually never refuse. You can ask to sit in the planes, not the military ones. Sometimes they are happy to let you have some fun and sit in the seat. Shoot at very high shutter speeds. Maybe 1/4000th to 1/8000th of a second. Set the camera to its fastest frame per second, such as 6 frames per second. Polarized filters really help a lot. You are looking for a clean dark blue sky, tack sharp, motionless images. Also keep an eye out for the after-burners. When they light up it can make a fantastic image with this filter. Usually the pilots kick on the after burners as the jet is taking off and often the plane will go right into a vertical climb position. I would also suggest avoiding auto focusing. The 100-400 is a really slow focusing lens and you will miss a lot of shots. Use the IS, (image stabilizer.) You may also want to use the Panning function on the camera. For personal reasons I'd rather shoot with the 70-200, because it's faster and lighter in weight. It's also sharper compared to the old 100-400, so you can crop in Photoshop. I would actually suggest using both and get a feel to what feels best. The weight of the 100-400 can get painful on the arms after a few hours of hand holding the lens. Post a pic or 2!

Favorite lens - fish eye looks a lot better enlarged so you can see the couple.<div></div>

Nice shots Marc, great lighting!

The 1D mark 4 is like new. You should be able to get 300,000 shutter clicks out of the Mark 4. Do you need or want video? The major advantage is having dual cards in some of the listed cameras, just in case a camera card goes bad, therefore I'd buy any cameras with dual cards.

1267 looks the best to me as well. Use a flash for the group shops to balance the background light and the faces of the people.

I have the 5dMk3 and the 1Ds mk 3. I kind of prefer the 1Ds Mk3 for nature, although the weight is probably twice as heavy as the 5DMk 3. If you like video I'd take the 5d mk3. If you don't care about video and you want fast shutter clicks, go with maybe the 1D mark 3 or 4 at 10 to 12 frames a second. Or is it 14 frames a second? I think that the lens choice is often more important than camera choices.

Can the iphones read flash outputs or just ambient light sources? I never heard of this, but it's pretty cool!

Something not talked about are your camera settings. Your camera should be set to follow the action. So when you are shooting action scenes your camera will follow the action that you are aiming at, such as the leading horse in the horse race. If you do NOT set this camera function the camera gets fooled and it doesn't know what to follow, usually your images will be out of focus, not blurry. There's a difference between blurry and out of focus and you can often see this in the actual image. So can you post an image or 2 to help us guide you for the very best proper camera settings? There's also panning, which is following the action. Lets say you are photographing a horse race and you are following the lead horses. This is called panning. The camera is moving at the same speed as the horses. Most likely the horses will be razor sharp, but the foreground and the background will be blurry. Now lets say that you set the camera up to just the finish line of the horse race. You've pre-focused this. You take the shot as the horses cross the finish line. You haven't moved the camera. Chances are the horses will be out of focus unless you are shooting around 4000th of a second. Even 8000th of a second will result in very sharp picture captures. Thats exciting to view. At 100th of a second your images will be soft. Too much movement. As others suggested, getting a used 70-200L-IS, 2.8 lens will be a good buy. Spend a few extra bucks and go with a store that will offer a 3 to 6 month warranty just in case. Avoid places like Craigslist and ebay. I don't like the 100-400 Canon lens, the first version. For sports the focusing is simply way too slow. I haven't tested the new 100-400 mark 2 version yet. For action shots, regardless of how you are shooting, try to use the fastest camera speed setting you can. 2000th to 4000th of a second is often ideal, if the lighting is favorable. Some sports professional photographers prefer prime lenses because they generally focus much faster compared to zoom lenses. Also the glass with longer lenses is really wicked sharp. For example a 100-400 lens when shooting a horse race can be very sharp. But if you compare this lens to a 300mm prime lens you will be able to count the eyelashes on the horse! Hope this helps and post an image if you can.

I don't have any non Canon lenses, so any off brand lens opinions is useless! The 5D mark 4, also better known as the 5Ds should ship in just a few days. I talked to Canon in California just 2 or 3 weeks ago. With the 50 megapixel sensor it's a pretty tempting camera to buy and Canon usually sells the 5 series cameras often as kits, meaning that you will get the 24-105 lens with the body and as a kit you should save a lot of money. I think the total cost as a 5Ds kit may be around $4500 or so. I can say that the 5 series Canon cameras have had great success. Very few major problems have been reported. Whats surprising is the value of the 5D Mark 3 has gone way down. If you try to trade it in at places like KEH or B&H in mint condition you will be lucky to get about $1400. So it may be a good time to pick up the 5D Mk3, in mint, hardly ever used, condition. By the way the 5D Mk 3 has 2 card slots. So if you have card failure you still have the second card. I can't say enough good things about the 24-105 L IS Canon lens. For portrait work it can't be beat. Another great prime lens is the 85mm 1.8. The cost for a great lens is very little. Here's the bad news with the new cameras coming out or that are already out. Adobe doesn't support some of these newer brands with programs such as Photoshop CS4 and earlier versions. So you have to rent their yearly versions called Photoshop CS6 Cloud. I'm annoyed by this, but there's nothing we can do. So the 5D Mk3 versions won't work in RAW using PS CS4. I'm not sure about the latest Photoshop Lightroom programs. So you are kind of in a hard position. With a new camera body you most likely will have to use Photoshop Cloud, which is another yearly expense. It it were me, I'd go with a great used 1Ds Mark 3 pro camera, with a low shutter count. I have a few and they are tanks. You can still use Photoshop CS4 in RAW. I've made huge enlargements up to 40X60 inches, using the 24-105 lens. Not a single 1Ds Mark 3 camera has failed me. Unless you are into video I'd skip the latest Canon models and buy a 1Ds or the 1D Mark 3 often for under $2500. If you don't need video think about buying a really great still, non video camera. Don't get me wrong here. The new 5Ds is sure a tempting camera to buy. Without the lens it's priced around $3700 or so. There isn't a medium format camera that can come close to this super large Canon medium format camera sensor. A 39 megapixel Hasselblad camera back will cost you about $8000, plus you still have to buy the body and a few lenses. The new Pentax 50 megapixel system will cost over $8000. Again you have to get some lenses for it so you are looking at about $12,000. The true question here is how large do you want to make your portrait images? I haven't sold 40X60 enlargements in about 6 months or so, however I do sell several 16X20 and a lot of the 11X14 prints. You surely don't need a super megapixel new Canon or medium format camera to handle portraits. Back in the film days you needed a medium format camera. Times have changed a lot. Those days of huge enlargements are pretty much gone. So I'd go with the lenses and save a lot of money on those cool high tech bodies! Sorry to go into such long details, but I wanted to get into your final finished product for your client. Are you giving them jpegs, smaller proof size 4X6 prints, a CD, or are you selling huge 40X60 inch framed, textured, sprayed, canvas mounted, prints in TIFF format, not jpegs.? If not buy lenses!

The jokes are indeed kind of funny! Hasselblad's factories at one time kept very good records of serial numbers, so you may be in luck. The reason for keeping these records was mainly due to theft. If a stolen hassy showed up for repair and Hasselblad had a record of it, you'd get your gear back. Email them (Hassy) and see if there is a record going back that far.

Oh, I should explain a bit more here. The 160mm lens has a lot more plastic compared to the all metal 150mm lens frame. Same with the 80mm kit lens. It also has more plastic along with the 60mm. I think it's the 60mm. There could be as much as a 1 pound difference per lens. Then there is the 500mm lens. This is close to 2 1/2 feet long. I'm not sure of the weight. Even though the lens is huge and the F-stop starts at F-8 it also goes to F-64! It is a pretty fun lens, the optics are excellent. I didn't use it very often, but I did lug it around pretty much everywhere for wildlife work. So the question is how many miles do you plan on walking around? Will your husband help with some of the weight? I could hike around the woods in places such as Yosemite for 5 to 8 miles with a camera backpack, a tripod, and the 500mm lens. I was sore, the hills take a lot out of you, but it was worth it!

Before I want to suggest something is to learn more about what you want to shoot. You stated portraits. Are your interests in other types of mediums, such as nature, wildlife, street type of photography? A 2 year backpacking trip sounds really fantastic! Way to go! Hope you have the opportunities to perhaps write a book or 2. I shot with Hassy's for many years, film only. The cool part about the Blad's (Hasselblad's) is if your camera or lenses die, it's not hard to find replacements. So many were made and kind of unchanged for 30 or more years. With some of the other camera brands not as many were made. So in a pinch you can still pick up a 500 C or CM body without too much effort and too much money. The longer lenses start getting pretty heavy and often a pain to carry around, such as the 250mm and longer. So another question is in reference to weight. With he longer lenses yo pretty much need a fairly well built tripod. Part of the problems and the need for pods are the F-stops starting at F-5.6 to F-8. If you pick up a 160mm lens instead of the 150mm the 160 has one less element, so it's just a shade less in weight. I wasn't really able to see much difference in the quality, if any. Would you be OK lugging around 3 lenses? I'd probably go with something like a 40mm, the 80mm, and maybe the 150 or the 160mm lens set. You can also yet extension tubes or just one tube for doing close-up work.

Glad to help. It can get complicated.

Something to practice is your flash, bouncing your flash. I love natural lighting as well. However if you are shooting a portrait of a bride in the shade or in the church without a flash you can get something which I call raccoon eyes. The brides eye sockets are so dark that you can't see her eyes! With a slight kick of flash you will see the eyes and that raccoon look is long gone. In fact her eyes will sparkle with life and love of that special day and that special moment. If the flash is set correctly, it's not hard to do with some practice, people won't be able to tell if you used a flash or if you didn't. You are kind of matching the flash with the natural surroundings. Since you have a year, do some practicing using a hint of flash, a huge amount of flash, for portraits and no flash at all. Then compare the differences. With just a little bit of practice you will find that perfect marriage between the flash and your natural surroundings. It's actually fun and exciting to learn. Having this knowledge you have just been promoted from a beginner to and advanced photographer. I'm not really joking here. Understanding lighting, the flash correctly is the start of being a gifted photographer. Post some of your practice images. Don't be shy! I've said this in past posts and I strongly believe that lighting is pretty much what makes images magical. If the natural lighting kind of sucks the use of a fill flash, bounced flash, a diffused flash, can make the bridal portrait look stunning. Added to what William said and what you said about the church being small in size. Lenses are so sharp these days that you can always crop if you can't get close enough. So in this case save your money. Yes the weight of 2 camera bodies, with the large 70-200mm attached will hurt a lot after a wedding. You won't be happy for about 4 or 5 days. You can always test yourself first by carrying a full set of golf clubs and the golf bag for 18 holes, about 5 hours. If you aren't sore well you will surely be able to handle the cameras on your shoulders.

I forgot to say something about longer lenses. Often your flash unit isn't powerful enough to cover the distance of these longer lenses. This is often one of the reasons why I tend to avoid using anything too long. As a wedding photographer I've found that the Canon 580 flash is very good up to about 8 to10 feet on ETTL or Auto. After that you have to be very careful and check every image that you take, making sure that you aren't underexposed. If you are underexposed be sure to know how to set your flash to Manual in just a few seconds, again so that you don't miss any shots. Weddings are fun, but they surely can frustrate and even scare the heck out of you when things aren't working right! I'm NOT trying to scare you. I want you to be very comfortable and for you to enjoy every bit of this wedding. Weddings are usually a blast for me, but I've had a few problems pop up through the years. So being prepared by keeping things simple is the best way to approach this wedding. You can experiment later on and without the stress factors.

If you decide to rent a larger lens get a good heavy duty tripod to control the weight. Not that the lens is too heavy, but with a pod you can control movement, actually control no movement! With longer lenses they can cause a lot of camera shake; blurry images. There's kind of a general rule about lenses and the shutter speeds when you handhold a camera. Lets say you are using a 600mm lens. To be safe you should set your shutter speed at 600th of a second or high. For a 200mm lens well the magic shutter speed is 200th of a second. With shorter lenses like a 28mm lens you can safely use a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. You wrote - "Canon is out of my budget range. Might be able to afford a Sigma or Tamron (are they comparable to the canon?) The "IS" functions on larger and longer lenses really helps a lot. You could probably safely shoot a Canon 200mm lens at 1/60th of a second. However, I have no idea if the Sigma and Tamron lenses have some sort of decent quality image stabilizing device built in. This is something to check out before buying an off brand lens. If I were you, and you really want to rent the Canon lens, I do this before buying an off brand lens. I'm not saying that the Sigma and Tamron lenses aren't good. I'm sure they are, because both companies have been in business for many, many, years. I have no experience with these lenses. So this is why you really kind of need a good tripod with the larger lenses. Using tripods at a wedding are often a pain, even a handicap! At the same time they are nice to have. To help you with using a tripods or even a mono-pod buy some decent quality "Quick Release," devices. This will allow you to take off the lens from the tripod in 5 seconds, instead of having to unscrew the lens from the tripod, which can take several minutes, plus the added risk of dropping a lens. As I said above in my last post, I'd try to keep things as simple as possible for this one wedding. If you decide to enter the wedding profession, or do a lot of nature type of work, even portraits, with long lenses, the Canon 70-200 2.8 L IS lens is a fantastic lens to own. It's optics are sharp and lots of fun to use. I'd rather see you miss a few shots by leaving the long lenses alone, than missing several shots because of not being at the right place at the right time during the wedding. By the way, where do you live? Often there are wedding pros that will help you out at a wedding often for free. I've done this before, because I want the wedding couples to love their photo memories. You could post something in the wedding site and see what happens.