gina_marie1

I guess I'll express my opinion contrary to the more experienced...but also as a bride married less than a year ago. I really like this photo, I think often times many photographers get caught up on the 'technical' aspects of an image and forget about the emotions or the story. The background isn't killing me, because the first instance I'm drawn to is the action that is happening. A bride is not going to look at this image for technical defects the way photographers do. She will see the moment. I believe your bride may very well like this and if my photographer had thrown an image like this out, I would have been disappointed. (If I had known it existed). Would it be on the mantelpiece or framed on the wall, no..but it's a neat moment that the bride could never see had you not been there to capture it.

 

I would possibly consider heavy vignetting, to give it a sort of spotlight effect and emphasize the bride and the other's hands. I do not like the cropped version though, takes away from the story.

 

JMHO..take it for what it's worth :)

Yes, I am 99% sure I refomatted the memory card before putting it into the camera.

 

The numbering is strange, but this camera looks pretty spotless and as I mentioned, packaging all new. We are normally customers of B&H but we were looking for a new 20D since we could not afford another 30D. Unfortunately we did not open the box for almost a week so it is just out of the return policy. Since we have a warranty card and the images are fine and camera seems to be working fine, I guess I'll just trust the store...And assume that I forgot to format the memory card.

 

Thanks for all comments.

Thanks for all your input. I wondered if the CF card had something to do with that. I checked the reseller ratings with Beach which were actually quite high and that's why I chose them. Seeing that everything else is brand new, including packaging and there is a warranty card, I guess I won't worry about it. We have a year long warranty on it with Canon Repair center 45 mins away.

 

Thanks again for the info.

Hello,

We just purchased a "new" 20D from Beach Camera. There are several reputable

stores online that still have some of these brand new, so we chose Beach. It

was advertised as NEW, all packaging appeared brand new, the camera body

appeared to be newly packaged, wrapped in bubble wrap. The body appears to be

new, BUT...after taking out for a photo session yesterday, the first image

file # is IMG_8032. This had us concerned since our other new camera's file #

was IMG_0001. We didn't notice the 8032 number until we downloaded a couple

of hundred files to the pc.

 

So far, we have called the Canon tech support and their comment was that the

first number should start with 0001. He said it appears a possibility to be a

refurbished product. He did not have a record of the serial number being

registered. He also said that he could not determine whether an item is

refurbished by serial number. The box did have a USA warranty card, but again,

who want's to pay for a brand new camera that may already have over 8000

clicks?!

 

Does anyone have any similar experience, suggestions or further advice? We

cannot call the store yet as they are closed.

 

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

Thanks for your input. My business model is not to rely on prints to make money. All my RAW files are processed and/or retouched and that is what the clients receive on DVD. I do not plan on printing myself. I just plan on offering prints for a little extra cash and for clients convenience. I guess I will sift through more photographers sites to determine reasonable rates...I think my preferences are in the line with Michelle's structure.

 

Michelle, curious to which company you use?

Though we do include a high res disc with our packages, several couples have

expressed the desire to order prints through an online service like Pictage.

 

We'll most likely try Printroom.com since we are not sure we will have the

sales to keep up with the costly Pictage service.

 

Printroom.com of course takes a percentage, plus (from what I read on the

website) an additional percentage to process credit card orders. I'm at a

loss on what the usual cost for prints is? Most, that I've seen offered by

photographers are very high, I do not want to sell a 5x7 for $20, after all, I

myself would never pay that much..I'd just go to the Costco and get one for $1

as I believe my current client base will if the prints are not reasonably

priced.

 

Just wondering if there is a standard method to use when determining your

prices for prints? I do not plan on this money from prints being a major

source of income, rather a bonus.

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks for the report Steve. I went to an awesome 2-day workshop with David Jay in February. Only about 20 students and agreed, he is a very down to earth, motivating speaker & teacher and I learned a ton about workflow & business.

 

I'll have to look up the info on Jerry Ghionis, sounds interesting since we're doing our own album design rather than outsource (would rather get the extra design income for now).

 

Look forward to hearing more.

These are great, ones that especially caught my eye...the dramatic bw with bride looking out the window, the tv reflection is one I haven't seen yet. Would like to see more too :)

Thanks for all the great advice so far. I definitely will stick to the due date I have established. Though we have recently gotten quite a few bookings in short period of time, I think we are getting interest from 2008 brides a year and half away because they know we are new and so are our prices and they know enough to figure out we will not be at this price very long. One inquiry for a Fall wedding in 2008 pretty much said so this morning. So I guess in a few months after we have done a number of spring/summer weddings we have scheduled, we will re-evaluate our prices.

 

Anne, I will definitely heed your recommendations. Luckily my husband works full time and I am working at home running this business. He shoots and attends some meetings with me but I handle most of the rest so the balance is okay for now, but we are quickly finding that we will be having less family/personal time if we take on too much too soon so we will be pacing ourselves.

 

And, I guess from now on I will state somewhere 'first come, first served' regarding reservation fees and dates.

I don't understand why there's an assumption RAW will increase editing time. It really shouldn't add any more time than you are already doing. RAW with lightroom decreases the amount of time we spend with photoshop. Converting your photos to jpg may take time but no need to sit in front of the computer while it's doing that.

 

Then again, we started with RAW, so maybe we don't know what we're missing by shooting straight jpg ;)

We photographed our first weddings 2nd shooting for free. No pressure, but it was the best investment of time we could have done. I would probably agree with coming up with a package based on cost only. But then again, that depends on your experience level, which you haven't quite mentioned.

Hello,

 

We have started getting our first several bookings and now we're trying to

iron out some kinks in the business side of things.

 

1)We plan to raise our rates slowly, every 3 or 4 months. Not huge increases,

just a couple hundred or so. Heard this advice from a workshop and felt it was

good for a starting business. My question is, of course if someone books for

a wedding in November now, we will give them the current price, but what about

when someone wants to book a wedding for Nov 2008? We know our prices will be

at least $500+ more. Do most of you offer a price list by year or give the

client the current price, no matter how many years away they are getting

married?

 

2)Based on what I've read on the forum, we have decided our final payment is

due 3 weeks before the wedding. No problems for most, but 2 out of 10 or so

have requested to pay the day of (one asked to pay after the images were

processed-no way). Do many of you get similar requests? How do you respond?

I'm curious why they request that in the first place as with my wedding last

year...we had to pay everything a few weeks before except for the officiant

and entertainment.

 

3)We had 4 requests for the same weekend which happened to be a 3 day holiday

weekend. We could do 2 weddings with one day off. One of the brides who

requested this weekend has expressed interest for a long time, we finally met

and I sent her a contract as she said she definitely wanted to use us. Well I

have yet to receive the contract, she did reconfirm again via email but we

already turned away one of these other inquiries that would have been for a

few hundred dollars more. How much time do you allow clients to return

contracts? I don't want to have to *pester* them but at the same time I don't

want to lose out on other bookings waiting for them.

 

Any advice and experience is requested and appreciated!

Thanks!

Ben, can I ask if the 20D you bought from canon refurb turned out okay overall? Was that problem fixed within a Canon warranty (I heard 90 days for refurbs?)

 

To Ben or anyone else, is it worth buying a refurb or better used? We found an awesome deal with our 10D last fall (used with 5,000 actuations $500). But I wonder how many actuations a 20D Canon refurb might have...

 

Sorry for straying a bit off topic but it's a bit relative.

Thanks!

Haha...well I just reported my *dead camera* story earlier this week. We were 2nd shooting for portfolios, had one camera each (10D & 30D) and flew out of state for these 2 weddings. 2nd & final wedding, last hour of the reception and the shutter of my 30D started closing very slowly, 'time lapse' slow, nothing but black showing up in the LCD and error 99 showed up. We removed and reinserted the battery & memory card, but nothing. I thanked God that the event was pretty much over and used the 2nd and only camera we had to snap a few final images.

 

My camera had less than 9,000 clicks, less than 6 months old so I drove it to the West Coast Canon repair shop in Irvine (I'm in LA) and picked it up in a week. Turned out the mirror spring was broken (or something to that effect) so they replaced it.

 

And YES, we are immediately shopping for a 3rd camera (probably used 20D) to serve as backup and *eventually* will have one back up each.

Thanks to the additional comments and compliments. It seems our work is getting out and we have started to get quite a few inquiries and several referals from the weddings we did.

 

I feel honest communication is best and have let all inquiries know about our level of experience and that we are still building our portfolio. Still taking classes, learning, and growing. We're really excited and motivated!!

Thank you all for your comments. We will definitely take all into consideration for future work.

 

Conrad, yeah...it definitely does create a *spooky* effect (which can be even more so if you get an odd look on someones face while they're dancing.) We'll continue to experiment and improve and recognize when it is appropriate to *try* something out or not.

Okay, the *First* is meant as in not for friends or relatives since that was

the only previous experience we had.<p>

 

We had the opportunity to 2nd shoot for a wonderful photographer in Hawaii

last week...2 weddings, a day apart. It was a great experience and the

photographer gave us the 'no holds barred' go ahead and let us have time with

the couple to compose some shots and get creative too. Not having the *same*

pressure as the booked photographer and shooting the group photos, etc.,

allowed us extra looks for those candid moments.<p>

 

What we learned so far:<br>

-The 70-200 2.8 IS is indeed worth the expense. There would have been a lot of

missed shots without it, especially at the dimly lit receptions. It was also

great for getting tight 'Getting Ready' shots with natural light and without

intrusion.<p>

 

-Photographer gave us some reception flash tips. Husband had fun

experimenting with remote flash and got some interesting directional

lighting.<p>

 

-When we had to switch from natural light to flash for a *must* get photo or

fill light, we took advise of switching from manual to 'P' mode. Otherwise we

always shot manual mode.<p>

 

And last but most important....CAMERA'S REALLY DO BREAK! During the last half

hour of our shoot at the reception for the 2nd wedding, my 30D gave an error

99 and then stopped working. We tried the recommended fix but the mirror was

stuck and the shutter would not work properly so it was done for until we

could send it to repair. Luckily we had gotten everything we needed so we used

my husband's 10D to finish up but I guess we will now start looking for a used

3rd camera as backup when we are both shooting.<p>

 

You can view work from the weddings at our <a

href="http://www.pixoflife.com/weddings/index.html">Wedding Gallery</a>. We

also revised our website with a slightly different look and larger photos.

Comments & Critique welcome on all...I am most curious about the load time

with the larger images on the new site.<p>

 

Thanks!

Hi, I just got a pair of black loafers by Hush Puppies (found them at JCPenneys sale for $35) and tried them out while shooting 2 weddings a day apart last weekend. They were awesome and so soft & comfortable. Feet never got sore.

Got this shot with our overall used mid-zoom...a Tamron 28-75 XR DI Macro. This image shot at 2.8 & cropped just a tad.<p>

 

<img src="http://www.pixoflife.com/img-downloads/gg-ring.jpg"></img>

I don't really get the attitude that wedding photography is 'cheesy'? I know comments like that have been said on this forum, but heck how about that chapter in the Steve Stint book when he comes across the "photographer" who wouldn't "lower himself to do weddings" but yet drives a cab. And regarding the money...well how many people in ANY profession would do something if it weren't paid...period? Doesn't everyone work for the 'money' whether it is good money or not.

 

It's interesting that some can call out lack of talent based on the field of specializaton. Even more interesting that anyone could consider themselves capable of making those judgement calls.

 

I think the goal for most people in life is to do something for a living that they also enjoy. I am creative, have had a paintbrush in my hand since I was a little kid..I enjoy painting, designing, photographing..pretty much anything that allows me a creative outlet. Wedding photography (which I am just getting into) seems to fall into that category. Web design falls into that category. Painting portraits falls into that category. There may be a bad day here and there when I may 'hate' my job in all the categories above but overall, the day I can sustain myself full time financially doing ANY of those above is the day I can say I am blessed.

I have become a regular user of Lightroom as well. Keep in mind, regarding 'photo editing'- It does not have all the filter effect or tools that Photoshop has, such as soft focus, cloning, retouching, etc. It is more likened to a darkroom where you can adjust exposure, color, WB, etc. For that purpose it's awesome and often the only post production I use. There are also grayscale & color conversion effects and it has a wonderful cropping tool.

Well I agree with the 'experience' part but as a frequentor of several areas in Craigslist, perhaps the bride and grooms who do use it know they may just find a "diamond in the rough" in regards to quality that they otherwise may not be able to afford. Anyone who used Craigslist knows what they may be getting. The beauty of that site may be that anyone can post but clearly whoever criticized about Free photography did not read the rules of Craigslist as their right to freely criticize was in the wrong category.

 

Honestly, I hope when I become a successful, well paid photographer I do not start having the attitude of the many threads that come about on here. Photographers worrying about their craft becoming devalued, looking down on those who do it for free to break into the business because they have no other way to do it. If you are good and deliver quality work you will not be in danger of resorting to budget weddings because of all the 'Free' services being given out. Have more confidence in yourself and your work.

 

I myself have not done a wedding for free YET. But after assisting some, it may be something I have to resort to so I can build a portfolio. Contrary to what may have been 'old school' practice, it is not easy to get work assisting or mentorship from an experienced photographer for several reasons. We're lucky that a photographer friend is allowing us to shoot at a couple of weddings but after that what shall we do?

Not an expert, but we recently debated over this as well and got the 70-200 2.8 IS. We found in low light, without flash we got acceptable images w/ minimal blur at 2.8 / 30th of a sec and that was with IS. Keep in mind, the IS is going to help stabilize movement on your end but the subjects still need to be still in order to shoot at low shutter speeds so I don't think 70-200 IS F4 is going to be a benefit over the non IS 2.8 lens regarding low light shooting.

 

but again, I'm not expert :)

Melissa, I hope you don't mind but I am planning to offer the same albums and just received their catalogs. I took you up on your offer for advice and emailed you some questions.

 

Thanks!

I never really understand why such strong opinions come out with this topic. So what if someone offers $500 wedding packages. Honestly, there are so many people getting married I'm sure lowball budget photographer as well as you will have a great wedding season. Also, the couple who spends $500 is not EVER going to spend 5+ times that to another photographer. No matter how many times you warn them lessor prices = less quality work, less experience etc. They have a budget and they're going to try to stick to that.

 

As for overhead costs..gear choices vary, we have not spent near $12,000. 2 cameras, 2 tele zooms (one 'L), 10-22, 50 1.8, 28-75, flash (need one more) and a laptop which I also use for another business. So far all of this has cost under $6,000. Mind you all is not top of the line and some is used but you see the point.

 

I even read an article that said David Jay started doing weddings 5 or so years ago charging 1,000 and he now makes 10,000 a wedding. Interestingly enough, he's clearly not worried about sharing his knowledge or helping to improve other photographers either...he speaks at many workshops and seminars,etc.

 

I always wonder to myself if posts like this are truly thinking of the poor couples who cannot afford a photographer and may get lousy wedding photos, concern for the budget photographer who is working too hard and charging too little, or is it 'oh no, another dang budget photographer is in my area and going to take away business from me'.

 

I am new to the industry and taking all the learning routes mentioned above, books, classes, practice..practice..practice. Lots of portrait/location sessions. Our wedding photographer is going to allow us to shoot with him so we can get experience and portfolio material but that is only for a couple of weddings and then I wonder...how else do we get experience but offer some budget wedding packages? I have sent my portfolio to several local photographers who were advertising the need for 2nd shooters or assistants. I was honest with them and told them I was fairly new and working on my own business as well. No responses.