ian_cooke1

I have been doing some research on this lately. This is typical for some studios and

photographers. It depends entirely on how the main photographer/studio wants to run

the show.<p>

Some of the reasons I've found for not letting the second photographer use images

are...<p>

1) Competition (obviously). This is more of an issue with the middle-of-the-road (hasn't

been doing it too long yet) photographer who is maybe a little afraid of new competetion

entering his/her market space. <p>

2) Raising confusion from future clients and others about who actually shot a particular

wedding ... say, if two websites or portfolios have images from the same wedding, it may

look a bit odd.

<p>

3) Permission from the couple. Maybe the primary photographer doesn't actually have it in

the contract that anyone else other than his studio can use the images (for self-

promotion, or for editorial use, or entering into contests, posting on Photo.net, etc...). Or

maybe just wants to avoid any possible issues that might arise with the couple on this

issue.

<p>

4) Issues with the processing of the images. There's the possiblity that the 2nd shooter

might completely alter the image in a way that the main photographer would never have

dreamed of doing (like adding some funky cross-processing effect). Or maybe the 2nd is

a great shooter but lousy at digital post-production and posts really crappy looking

images on the web.

<p>

5) Client delivery. Maybe the main photographer delivered to the client only about 20

shots taken by the 2nd. Then the 2nd goes and posts 20 completely different ones on

some website. What if the client sees those and wonders why they didn't receive those

images. (or referring back #4 above, what if the couple sees images that look completely

different from what they received).

<p>

There are probably other valid reasons. And as much as I hate Work For Hire situations, I

can definately understand the reasoning for partially or fully restricting use of the images

by a second shooter. A common solution I think is that the primary photographer will

allow use of only certain released images and also require that there is some caption like...

Image shot by (2nd shooter's name) for (main studio's name).

<p>

Some studios will even give the 2nd shooter memory cards to use and hand over at the

end of the day.

<p>

Of course, if the second shooter has limited use or no use of their images, they should

certainly be compensated more in dollars. Likewise, if image use is allowed, then probably

the pay will be lower. Depending on your situation, you may place a higher value on

portfolio building or cash compensation.

Dan,<p>

Why in the world are you asking this forum?

<p>

I have not been doing weddings very long at all, but I have had a business long enough to

know that you need to communicate with your clients. They are the ones who hired you and

are the only ones who best know what they want and what is to be expected during the

event. Just discuss it with them openly like a professional. No big deal.

Who owns the copyright? ... it depends. You and the photographer you worked with should

have been much more open and up-front about everything from the beginning. Sounds like

inexperience on both sides.

Did you use the card before the event? Never go into an important shoot without testing any new equipment first.<p>

Every piece of gear is subject to failure. And if it is due to faulty manufacturing (which is usually the case), the failure will typically happen early on in the lifetime of the product. That's why it's a good idea to "break-in" anything new before doing a real shoot with it. You are actually lucky it failed early on, and if you had taken it out on a couple of casual shoots first it wouldn't have been such a problem. Also, now it should be within the return period (hopefully).

This was not at a wedding, but at a college basketball game I had a stupid fan bump into me

pretty hard and made me drop my camera with 70-200mm lens attached. When I picked it

up the autofocus was dead. Had to switch to a 135mm lens. It's not just technical failure

that can bite you, but those unexpected accidents or even theft.

I would set the exposure to more like f/2.8 ~ f/4, 1/30th~1/60sec, ISO 400~800...

depending on whether it's evening/dusk or if the sun is completely set. You're correct about

the shutter speed and flash being the main exposure. You can also it slow down to between

1/15th and 1/4sec to throw in a few shots with some interesting effects by really dragging

the shutter while panning the camera around and incorporating the candles and christmas

lights.

Don't buy any filters/plug-ins until you know what look you want. Buying something to

change the look of you images based on someone else's recommendations is like letting

some stranger order dinner for you at a Chinese restaurant when you've never even eaten

Chinese food before.

Gee... You have to ask?

<p>

It's always good to follow up. It shows professionalism and that you are interested. If you

were her, would you choose you (who didn't follow up) or some other photographer who has

similar skills/style and who is really enthusiastic and called her back to check in. If you don't

contact her, she might think you don't really care or you've booked the day. One follow up

doesn't make you pushy or a pest at all.

That frame looks a little distracting and fake looking. In general though, I think borders

around photos are better than no borders. <p>

But keep it really simple. It's not the border that people are interested in.

<p>

The border is showcasing the photo, not the other way around.

There will be a significant performance increase from the G4 to a new iMac. Over the past

year, I've gone from a G4 tower/powerbook to a MacPro/MacBookPro and the beta CS3 runs

faster on the new laptop than CS2 did on my G4 desktop. And I have the first generation of

the Macbook Pro. A new iMac with the Core2 chip will undoubtedly be rocking.

Do what Dan suggested. Make a selection around whatever you want to vignette, invert

selection, feather appropriately for the size of the image, then just bring down the levels

or curves.<p>

The example you posted is just simple vignetting.

<p>

You could also just burn the edges<p>

Or use the vignette function in ACR.<p>

Like everything in photoshop, there's probably a dozen ways to do it.

<p>

If you aare unfamiliar with any of the above steps, I'd recommend a photoshop tutorial/

class/workshop/book.

I like your answer Anne. You are making me rethink this. Thanks!

I'm formulating some ideas for setting up my wedding packages and what exactly

to offer.

<p>

I have had a photography business for several years, but have just started

getting into weddings recently. Let me say that I know the topic of giving

high-res images is a controversial, and I really don't want to start a debate.

<p>

I plan on giving the bride & groom high-res "digital negatives" (full-

resolution sRGB JPEGs, with color/exposure correction and minor batch-

processed tweaks). The catch is that I want to wait 1-year before delivering

them to the client (writing this into the contract). In the meantime, they

get small web-sized JPEGs with my name/copyright in the corner, a set of

prints, and the option to purchase an album. My thinking is obviously to sell

more prints and provide incentive to purchase an album thru me. Yes, I know

some people will try to print from the small jpegs, but I don't care about

that. It also further releases me from needing to archive their images.<p>

 

Here's my question...

<p>

 

What's a good response to a bride who might ask "Why do I have to wait a year

before getting the files?"... should I just be honest and say "I want to sell

you more stuff".

<p>

I'm also thinking about offering to sell them the high-res files sooner, but

at an additional price.

nice studio pics marc!

A photography business is FIRST... all about marketing, business, dealing with people, finance, computer work..... the images and creative part is only a small piece of it. I agree with the previous post.

I don't see a problem, but it seems that if you are asking the question then you do have some issues with your ex. If that's the case, either turn down the job or try and get over it and treat it like any other professional gig.

For those of you who have a studio, how much has it enhanced your wedding

photography business?<p>

Assuming it's a nice space, do you think it enhances your business image

enough to garner a slightly higher rate... that is, assuming your images,

personality and other marketing is all up to the test.

<p>

I haven't been doing this long, and no offense towards anyone doing this, but

it seems a little "un-pro" to me to be meeting in a coffee shop all the time.

Especially for post-wedding consultations when going through the images with

clients. Maybe this is just me that thinks this way. But right now, if I'm

charging about $1000 for just shooting the wedding (prints, albums, high res

files extra), I can get away with this. But in the future, it seems unlikely

that someone will book me at 3 to 5 times that rate while sitting in a

starbucks.

<p>

Very roughly, what percentage of your gross income (from photography) do you

budget for a studio + associated utilities/expenses?<p>

Do you also use it for some other shooting (portraits, etc.) or is

your "studio" just an office where you meet clients?

<p>

Is it really that much better than meeting clients at a starbucks?

<p>

Thanks!

Anytime you accept money for photography, you need a contract. This should be thought

through and ready when the client hires you.<p>

At the most basic level, you just need to describe what you are going to provide them and

what they are going to pay. But there are a lot more details that can be added. If you search

for "photography contract" or "wedding photography contract" you'll find lots of examples.

Look at those and take what you think works for you. <p>

Think like a professional... be a professional. Don't do the opposite.

It works okay when I use the "paginated" template. But not the "left" template, where all the

thumbnails are on the left side... I'm guessing with that one, it's trying to load all the images

at once, where the paginated one, it splits it up.

Anyone able to create large flash galleries in Lightroom?

<p>

I've been using the beta versions for a while and got 1.0 yesterday. The beta versions had a limit of like

300 photos for the flash galleries. Looks like 1.0 caps out at 500. Anyway, I just created a gallery of

about 250 images and I can open up the webpage fine locally, but when I upload it to my server the page

coomes up and the images are taking forever to load. Is this expected?

If you don't have hundreds of images to submit or a handful of really, really powerful ones,

you'll make pennies (literally).<p>

Talk with someone who shoots stock as their primary gig or someone with a huge library of

stock that they've accumulated from other commercial work. The stock photo market has

gone downhill in recent years... consolidation of the big corporations (Corbis, Getty), and

little crappy royalty-free places that give away your images to anyone for pennies.

You can't just think about battery life in terms of the number of shots you take or the number

of hours.<p>

You also have to consider how much you're chimping and leaving the LCD on which sucks a

good amount of juice. Also... auto-focus and image-stabilization on your lenses both use up

battery power.

I have an PS Action add my name/copyright to images that I post on the web. Most of the images are the

same dimensions. But I'd also liket to have this action scale the text relative to the image size. So if I

wanted to run this action on a larger or smaller image the text would scale proportionally (relative to the

dimensions of the image). Anyone know how I can do this? Thanks

Can someone please highlight the differences between the EOS 3 and EOS 1V?<p>

Is it primarily the more durable body of the 1V?<p>

Is the control layout the same on both the 3 and the 1V and is it the same as the 1-series digital cameras?

<p>

Does the 3 have the same autofocus system as the 1V?<p>

Thank you.

I'm new here and have been enjoying all the info on this forum. I'm primarily a sports photographer but

have somehow ended up booking a few weddings this year. These are relatively small weddings and I've

shot various events before so I'm not worried about any particular technical issues.<p>

My question is about capturing certain fleeting moments and shooting quickly. I have two 1D MkII

cameras which can fire off a good number of frames per second. This is great for my sports work

obviously, but I'm wondering if any wedding photographers take adavantage of continuous mode shooting

with whatever camera you have. Or have you just gotten really good at anticipating the right moment to

press the shutter. Or is it not really useful because so much work is done with flash which kind of rules

out continous mode shots