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If you can get every exposure right every time no exceptions then by all means shoot jpg. The metering and white balance on my 5D are dire, I'm not going to trust my moments to it...

 

Added to that especially with the contrast range of weddings, you sometimes have to shoot to hold the whites and that means that you will need to bring it up in post. RAW is the best way to do this.

I keep the 'duds' for a month or so after they get the photos which gives them long enough to call if something urgent was needed. After that they go as per my contract. I never back them up as in any case I'm again covered by the contract.

 

It's getting to the point that I'm going to stop keeping the full rez jpg's I've made for proofs and 'digital negatives', with the RAW files and accompanying .XMP with all the data backed up 3 ways including off site, it wouldn't take long to rebatch them should I need to recover the jpg's for some reason.

Their is a specific commandment in Jewish law to make a bride and groom happy (not the mother in law!). As a Jew working with the Orthodox Jewish community I feel that there is no better way that I can really put a smile on the couples faces than to have made them look and feel incredible through the way I capture their day.

 

In general a job where you make people happy has to have the ultimate job satisfaction. My aunt works in an IVF unit and though not even close to the joy she brings, it's the same kind of thing!

 

Photography was my hobby and it's a job that I enjoy. It brings in a good wage (full time), I spend more time at home with my wife and georgous daughter than most fathers do and most mornings I get to sleep in till close to midday! Although their is a huge amount of peripheral work to wedding photography that people don't realise, doing it at home in your own time with no boss on your back is worth every penny that I lose by not being in a cubicle somewhere chasing useless deadlines.

 

Of course there is the obvious joy factor of being paid to play with very expensive and cool technology - always a great plus for a bloke!

 

Their are downsides, the annoying mothers, the occasional obnoxious bride, the people control and keeping your temper and a smile on your face whatever happens - it isn't enough though to detract from the pride and enjoyment I get for being paid to do something I love and the job satistfaction of providing a beautiful product.

The cheap canon grid screen has lines which are exactly on the 4:5 crop which 8X10" is, Ifurther emphasised them with a pencil and have the screens in both my 5D's. It makes sense not to compose for the full 2:3 format, that kills you for all the usual enlargement crops as well as a 7X5" even. Yes leaving the space does mean that I have to crop in processing for better looking proofs but if I want to sell 8X10" albums (one of my packages) then that is the cost. Like it or not 8X10" is still an extremely popular size as most frames availabe in the regular stores are either 7X5 or 8X10. Not providing the ability to use commonly available frames for your prints is in my opinion a disservice to the client who orders the print. If you leave it up to them to cut then hyou will still need to have shot the picture with the possible crop in mind otherwise your work will be showcased for al time in someones house looking dreadful!

If I wanted people to know what I thought of the experience of shooting their wedding then I would file for bankrupcy now and get it over and done with! ;-)

With my 5D iso 1600 looks incredible, I use it a lot. 3200 is nowhere near as good as iso 1600 pushed a stop in RAW, IMO emergency only so that is the route I would go.

 

Iso 1600 (to capture the lights in the background) with flash (for foreground) should do the trick, off camera flash if you can wing it. Figure on f2.8 being your best compromise between DOF and letting light in for regular shots where an f1.2 just won't cut it for DOF.

As far as I know it isn't even in the stores yet so this is really a question far far too early...

RAW has no sharpening applied, the only place you will see sharpening is on the screen on the back of the camera! Unless you are using DPP which is horrific workflow wise for a wedding shooter, the fact you are shooting faithful also makes no difference at all for the look of the file, the file will appear on screen using your programs defaults not the cameras settings.

 

If the files are sharp and detailed at 100% then most likely the default settings of the program are already applying some sharpening. It's set to 25% as default in ACR and LR for RAW files. RAW files from those cameras look awfully mushy without ANY sharpening. DPP will apply the level of sharpening selected in camera unless you have specified a different 'reciepe' in the settings'.

 

I once attended a lecture by the photo editor of one of the main broadsheets here in the UK. He said that RAW wasn't relevant for breaking news journalistic type work but begged people to switch off sharpening in camera totally whatever mode they shoot in. He said that the printers have a far better idea of what sharpening to use for their printing method than the photographer and trying to do any 'fixes' (exposure, etc) to photos once sharpening had been done was very very bad for the quality.

 

Wedding shooters will be doing their own printing or sending it out to labs where sharpening must be done first but the principle is still very important. If your jpg photo is not 100% perfect out of camera and will be printed at anything but one size only - switch off the sharpening. Sharpening is dependant on subject matter (you don't sharpen a face like you sharpen a landscape shot or even like you sharpen a group shot for that matter) and PS can do it far far better than the camera can. If you're original file is unsharpened then any changed (colour/contrast/exposure and most of all with enlarging and noise control) will be far less destructive and you can sharpen for the print with the correct amount each time you choose a print size.

 

I remember the digital printer at BPD Photec (top pro lab used by Joe Cornish, etc) showing me some pictures from an original 1Ds by a well known portrait photographer when demonstrating this point. He told me that they were all shot with the sharpening turned up to maximum. In his words: "they look great at 6X8" which is the only size he ever prints them, I would hate to have to print them larger, you won't be able to escape the halo's anymore.."

That new 24-70 lens looks like a winner, would certainly be a workhorse on FF just as the equivelent Canon is for wedding shooters.

 

12 Megapixels is a lot. It's rare that it won't be enough for wedding work, the 12.8 megapixels of my 5D is crippled by the glass (the 85L @ f4 made my 24-70L look like a milk bottle in comparison!) and my technique rather than any lack of inherent resolution. I wouldn't want more megapixels for wedding work, I couldn't realise them unless on a tripod with primes and the extra processing/computer time would be a killer for resolution I just don't need.

 

With that in mind and my 5D's are two years old and look unlikely to be upgraded any time time soon, I doubt that there would be much point in waiting for the few extra megapixels of a D3x.

My 85mm 1.8 has a camera body to itself I love it so much! I do have and use a 50mm 1.4 but it doesn't come close to the 85mm even at f2. To be honest if you want longer for low light you probably can't go wrong with a 70-200 2.8L IS though it ain't cheap, you could buy an 85mm and 135L for the price.

Graphistudio. Great range of options.

You can patent the act of folding a page in half? What a world. For all that I use Graphi.

Kill the Sigma, the point is that you want a lens which is as good as your primary and the 17-40L is a really great lens, I doubt the Sigma can match it. If at somepoint you decide to go full frame then the 17-40L will still be a great lens! IMO you should get the Canon 17-55IS which by all accounts is a stellar lens with IS to boot and keep the 17-40L as your backup, possibly buy the 50mm 1.8 if you're worried about the focal length imbalance, it's stupidly cheap and will outdo both zooms at that focal length anyway.

I think I'm pretty torqued still after having a 5D and 580ex malfunction on me mid wedding 2 weeks ago. I also dropped my 24-70L and the zoom ring stuck (it was a bad day, I sprained my ankle mid wedding too, it's only just stopped hurting as I had 2 weddings the week after which did my recovery no good at all!).

 

I've shot 4 weddings with rental since then and only got the lens back half an hour ago, Canon CPS (another good reason to use a big firm, Pentax have no pro repair service and are notoriously slow) is very busy at the moment with the fix for the 1D mkIII so they took longer than the supposed 3 day turnaround and didn't have any to lend me at the time either.

 

The rental wasn't even for primary gear, I needed new backup as my backup became primary, I won't chance a wedding without backup. That is my point really, you need backup for your backup when shooting weddings, you can take a double of all your gear to a wedding but the moment you're using your backup, if that fails you're screwed. It's not that big a deal as it's unlikely to be a problem but unless you can get a fresh set of backup gear while your primary gear is being fixed/replaced, what are you going to do in the meantime?

 

I've been doing my tax returns for the past year, the amount I spent on rental was significant, repair takes time and I'm shooting jobs at least every 2 days. Again it's always to have backup for the backup turned primary. I once had to have a flash couriered over to me mid wedding from my rental shop when I totalled a flash in the first 10 minutes of shooting due to a battery packs cord treacherously winding around a tripod that went over camera included! I didn't want to shoot a wedding on my backup alone.

What a lot of people being very uptight about the those who say that pentax is not being good enough are missing is that the photographer may be all that is important but you still can't get pentax kit for rental and if you need replacement your local store likely won't have any either. Building up a system which has little place in a photographers hands for the above reasons alone is going to be a waste of money.

 

Marc, you may think that the pentax focuses just as fast but I did extensive testing when I was going to buy into the system and the 5D thrashes the K10D for focus speed in anything but great light and the 5D is IMO slow. The noise is Nikon pre CMOS level and the banding problem has still not been addressed ditto the focusing problems of the K100D in tungsten light. The limited lenses although stellar, focus about the same speed at the 85L original which most people find insufficient.

 

There are reasons why the pro's are using Canon and Nikon and it isn't brand snobbery however much the purists wish it was. If someone was to work with me and want to shoot another system then I wouldn't mind with the proviso that they don't come crying to me when they need gear because theirs isn't enough or has malfunctioned/broken, I wouldn't be able to help anyway! I also don't see that given todays style of photography cameras with mediocre to bad high iso should be an option unless you play the 'lowest common denominator' of quality which the digital age has spawned.

 

A master can use any camera and provide excellent results. So tell me folk, why are you not shooting with 20D's and kit lenses? Seriously why be hypocritical? Why the L lenses, why the primes? why shoot in RAW or post process? It's a tired old argument and untrue, pros choose the tools that will enable their vision not struggle with substandard tools and still achieve that vision, not by choice at any rate. It's certainly bad advise for a newbie to tell them that their camera is good enough _only_ because the top in the profession could get good results out of it. The newbie can't and may never if they have to struggle their whole lives to get to that point. Equipment must be chosen for professional reasons not philisophical ones and not being able to source rental or backup for a system makes it a bad choice for a wedding photographer period.

Josh, you have to add to that - the backup camera must be capable of doing exactly the same job as the main camera. You can't give substandard work because you had to use backup. If you need 10 megapixels at a minimum to realise the quality of print that you advertise then 6 megapixels isn't good enough. If you would dread having to use backup because its inferior in any way then the backup is not good enough. That is why I have two 5D's, two 580ex's, 3 AB800's, etc. I need a replacement when something goes wrong not a 'make do'.

 

Something also to keep in mind is that the maximum FEC you can get with the pentax 540 flash unit is a +1! Nowhere near enough for wedding work, I was over that many times at the wedding I just came back from shooting and ETTL II is more accurate than the pentax system so I was starting with an advantage! Just try shooting backlighting, especially with a white bride and only a +1 and you will soon curse the limitation.

The bit about backup should be in bold! Can't be emphasised enough. I also want to bravo the paragraph on gaffers tape. Those who haven't shot weddings before will question why gaffers tape has a paragraph as big as that discussing cameras. Those who do shoot weddings will know why!

I can see where he's coming from, a kit lens with a camera known for glacial focus is not where I would start for wedding photography.

Looks like they should have been camera right!

I would love 4 lights for a room but most of the time 2 are enough. I can bounce 2 AB800's at 1/2 power off the ceiling in a very large reception hall with a very high ceiling and still get f5 @ iso 400! Can't see needing more than that. To be honest although the lights in all 4 corners would mean more even coverage, it's a pain in the neck working close to them as you are adjusting output depending on your distance from the flash or 'bounce hotspot'. Two lights are far easier to deal with in this situation.

 

Although Marc's suggestion seems fun, it's also the rolls royce of lighting. It's far less fiddly to 'control' the output of the lights by adjusting your f-stop or iso (what I do). If you are using that much lighting you are not depending on ambient light anyway.

I never knew that wedding photography was supposed to be a charity. I promise none of the other vendors work that way!

I did a college photo collage about 4 years back. 6 months later one of the most popular students was killed at 16 years old in a car crash. I had the files and was going to send an 8X10" to the parents but was told by the college secretary (who knew them well) that it was too soon and the parents were a bit 'raw' for it. A year on I was told it was OK to send it.

 

It might be worth getting in touch with someone in the family to check if it will be appreciated this soon...

Here is the image I mentioned before where the bride was in full sunlight but the foliage was in shade. Flash compensation was a -1/3, enough fill to brighten up the left side of the face that was in shadow while leaving me the detail in the whites. There was no way that I could lighten up the background but it brings out the bride nicely. To be honest in colour full sunlight on the face is not really flattering whatever you do, always make sure you have control over where the photos will be!<div></div>

If you need to use hi-sync and are not working really close up then take off the lightspere, if you already have reduced power then the lightspere sucks up far more till you're left with little power and huge recycle times.

 

I shoot with ETTL in averaging mode (via the CF) so I input fill myself. I dial in a -2 for shade, a -1.3 for more contrasy light and in full blown sunlight no minus at all. Of course you have to adjust that based on the subject as well, the -2 for a bride becomes a -1 when I'm compensating for the white dress. I do always meter the ambient by hand however using an incident meter and experience. I hate having to second guess both a cameras flash alegorithm and it's ambient metering for each shot I take.

 

If you can get the light behind the subject, meter their faces and let the background blow a bit for effect. I do this whenever possible to get that great backlighting on the hair and veil while presewrving the face. Sidelighting is the next best thing if it's slightly behind, i.e. not in the eyes. Then you have to be careful with your fill and keep in mind that you can fill the face but not the entire landscape on the shadow side of the subject. At a frecent wedding shot full length I either used that shadow to emphasis the brides face (sorry it's on the other computer) or with an unavoidable full length half in the sun, took the image into PS and burned it back in having known when shooting that if I wanted background detail half the dress would blow and I didn't have a better location (on the path, bride didn't want to go on the grass). A 2 stop blowout and I got every bead and detail in the stitching back so you can't tell the difference, oh how I love RAW!

As William says, it doesn't make sense to build a portfolio with that amount of gear. Portfolio wise you need very little as you are not under any type of pressure. Buy a camera, couple of lenses and a flash and leave the rest for when you can sit down with your bank manager to discuss starting a business. Given that it will probably take a year or so and digital equipment depreciates by almost half in that time I would seriously think about it.