mike_senesouk

Adding to my coupon search. YaHOo supposedly offers a 50% discount and is expiring soon. The smug30 ends 9/30/08 according to my search.

I've had Smug for a couple of months now and already made up for the cost and then some on orders. So it's really not costing me anything and allows clients and potiential clients to see your work. I'm actually paying $104 for the pro account. When I signed up I used the coupon code smug30. This gave me a 30% discount. There's also smug20 too. I'm not sure if there is an expiration date on these or maybe a limited time discount or not. Try doing a search for coupon on Google. That's how I came across these codes.

Sa bai dee

 

I have the 17-55 f2.8. I also have the 28-70 f2.8 and the 70-200 f2.8. I, personally, wouldn't ditch the Tamron but wouldn't go with the 20 prime. I primarily use the 17-55 and find the zoom capability to be very beneficial. I can't imagine what I would need a 20mm prime for. I could use the 85mm f1.4 though but the 20 doesn't make sense to me.

C'mon Sam's Club isn't that bad. Where I'm at, a lot of photographers (professionals) uses them. Ones with studios too. My sister frequents it. The photo department knows her enough to know what she needs done. She's actually made friends with them. We even shot a wedding for one of the staff member who worked there. I have to admit that the 4x6s are crap. But like Stephen says, they're proofs. For anything bigger than 8x10, they have the Epson machine to do that which I prefer. And believe it or not, they actually comply with copyright laws too. If the pictures looks professionally done and someone tries to make a copy of it there, they won't allow it. (If they catch it)

 

Yes they do print the file number on the back. Or you can tell them not to. If you want to be discrete...

I like how he says, "of both the bride and the bridegroom,their parents,the officiating ministers and our guests." the "bridegroom, their parents" not OUR parents?

Thanks everyone. My sister works with me but unfortunately she's one of those who takes a little longer to learn and learns by trial and error. ;) I'm trying to make some changes for next year and thought that this would be something we'd think about.

I'm sure most if not all of us have a statement like this in their

contract, "In the event that the photographer can not make it on the day of the

wedding due to sickness or other (fill in the blank), another photographer of

equal qualification will be substitued..."

 

So the question is, who would this qualified photographer be and how did you go

about selecting this person? I'm sure this would have to be discussed and

agreed to between you and said photographer(s). How much of a heads-up do you

give said photographer? Events such as an emergency is not something we

schedule for. Can you rely on this photographer to step up to the challenge if

today is the day of the wedding and you couldn't make it? How much would this

photograper get? Since you would've already been paid in full? Would you have

to sign some kind of contract with that photographer?

 

A photographer of such qualication is also likely to be booked, possibly on the

same day. What happens then? Do you have a second selection.

 

Not something we don't want to think about or ever have to use but I just

wanted to see how others go about and what you thought about it. I'm sure it

does happen. So for those that went thru it, how did it go?

Crap!! Sorry, could've sworn it was within file limit to display. Umm...not enough coffee??? ;)

What I do is a lot of test shots. Usually if it's a one time event. The introduction, cake cutting, bouquet toss. I'll take a couple test shots before the event unfold to make sure the exposure is right on. Exposing by distance is kind of hard to do. Every location is different. Ceiling height, angle, color and angle of bounce all effect the exposure. The attach picture is of the bride and groom making their way in during the introduction. I'm about 15ft away. The ceiling is white about 10ft high. The flash is angled up and forward. Nikon D200/SB800/F2.8 17-55. Shot at ISO 250 @ F3.5. 1/60. No post processing on this yet. This is straight out of the camera. Well, not exactly strainght out of the camera. Lightroom took some contrast out. (You wanted the technical data).

 

I've been testing the CLS for a couple of weeks now. It doesn't fire consistantly. It fires when it's in the mood. (Yes, it's very moody). I have 3 Sb800 and tried each one of them as Master and it's all the same.

I always try to get in the circle. Not inside the circle but to be a part of the circle. I'm just one of the link. Only I'm not dancing. This way no one gets in my way and no hail mary shots. When I'm done, I just leave. People don't mind. You're the photographer, you need to get your shot and they understand. At the end of the night, people go up to you and say "you did a great job" even though they didn't even see the pictures but they saw how you worked. I usually try to target one or two people dancing. It usually always look better than a group of 15 people dancing. I don't use a ladder. It limits my range of movement. It's hard enough to have 2 cameras on my shoulder and a Quantum battery pack.

"its 2007 not 1985, do clients really want that?"

 

Apparently they do. My sister is goo goo gah gah over it. We just did one recently for a client. 20x24 wrap around for around $71. The image was wrapped around the side of the canvas. We use Millers. She sister was so excited about it, she called the client over who picked it up the same day it arrived so I didn't get to see it at all. It was the first canvas from Millers and I really wanted to see how it looked. Was very mad about that too. I was assured that it looked much like that of a photograph quality. Saturated in color and sharp. We have 2 done by a local print shop which cost a lot more and it looks faded and kinda crappy I think. Can't really compare it to Millers since I haven't seen it.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions. I continue to look at other photographers work to get some ideas. It's a great help to get some viewpoint from others. Sometimes you just don't think about the other important things because you're too focus on something else.

 

Jeremy, the bride was a young bride so she was ready for just about anything. I noticed that when we were walking on the gravel path that she was just dragging her train along carelessly and decided to pick it up only to make it easier to walk. She wasn't too concerned about getting it dirty so laying on fallen leaves didn't bother her at all. The groom was more concern about getting his suite dirty because it was a rental and he would have to pay for it had it gotten dirty. But the bride had the last say.

Just thought you might like to see my latest wedding. Outside wedding in

Northeastern Pennsylvania. Not a lot of post processing has been done on them

yet aside from the usual. It's only been 4 days, so I have gotten much of a

chance to do much to them.

There is a second shooter here which is my sister. You may see her in the

background of some of my shoots. She has a habit of getting in my shots. Her

shots is from the Nikon D200 and mine from the Fuji S3 and S5. Flash was used

despite what the Exif data says. Just dial down used as a fill light.

Anyone has comments, suggestions or questions, you're welcome. If I can answer

them, I'll try to.

 

http://www.pbase.com/mikezen/inbox

As a wedding photographer, we need F2.8 even if we don't always use it. But it's there when we need it with focusing not being that big of an issue. Also worth mentioning is that when you're shooting at F4, your flash has to work much harder than if you shoot at F2.8 and of course your battery drains much quicker. By not shooting at full power, my flash recycles faster and I can shoot at a faster rate. Sometimes this is more important than focusing issue. I will tell you that looking my some of the wedding pictures that I shot last night that there were some out of focus shots but this was more of an operator error than it is a lens issue.

I think 3 shots and then the buffer is full. Then it's a somewhat long wait. Last month, I did a series of shots where I had the bride jump on the groom's back. I wanted to be able to capture the sequence as it was unfolding. I was able to put this in they album which looked very cool. The only way I could get those shots was to shoot in Jpeg. Other than that it's RAW. $600 for an S3 is a great deal. This puts a very capable professional camera in the price range of most people starting out or as a second or even primary camera. I still prefer it over my D200 and S5.

I agree with Bill, although I don't know what this "dire consequences" would be. A contract is written and sign to protect both parties. What does your contract say if full payment is not received within a given amount of time? Does it state that the show will not go on specifically? Maybe it needs to say that. If it does than I think it's intended to be followed but if it doesn't say anything than would it be appropriate to pull out of the wedding? I would shoot the wedding but make it clear in advance that you're not going to play any games with them. They will not see or get anything until you've received full payment and you will not spend any time working on the pictures. They found you, chose you and signed a contract with you because they liked something about you/your work. They're not going to try to get out of full (agree upon) payment just because they don't like something. They will be something they won't like. I guarantee it.

Ouch. We try not to shoot too many of pictures like these because we don't want to spend forever in front of the computer fixing them. From the looks of the sun spots, you don't really have much of an option if the whole surrounding was lit like that. What you could've done was turn the group a little to the right. Having the sun behind them is usually always better than having it on them. Especially in the face area. After which you give them a touch of flash then you won't have to post this question. There's not much you can do, I don't think. Contrasty situation in the face area of them men.

I suggest to shoot often. They don't necessarily have to be wedding shoots. Take your girlfriend to the park on a weekend and shoot her. (Just make sure you have a air-tight alibi) ;) Test your flash, exposure, composition, how you relate with your equipments and the feasibility of using that Sekonic in the field when you're given 45 minutes to shoot. Just as well that your shooting the bride on her wedding day, anything you learn during these shoot can easily relate to that. Take those shots home, download them and see how you did and what needs improvement.

 

You can go buy books but why do that when most if not all that you need is right in front of you? There are a lot of sites out there that are devoted to helping new people learn about photography and wedding photography more specifically. All for free.

 

Another necessity that you'll need to consider to go along with your Sekonic (I have one of these too) and the expensive tripod is a battery pack (Quantum Turbo). To juice up your flash. You will find that it helps the flash recycles faster and last longer and be more consistant and you won't have to change battery as the bride is walking down the isle. Too bad we can't call a time-out.

There's a lot of schmooching in this wedding. I really liked them standing in the middle of the street shot.

Neil, you know from Planetneil.com, (did you think I was going to start of with, Karen?) Anyway, he calls it "The Boob shot". (I like the way he thinks)What he does is put the camera on the boobish area and use the setting from there as how he taught us. He explains it better on his site.

 

http://planetneil.com/tangents/category/flash-photography/

 

Towards the middle of the page.

I know what you mean. I'm not big on books myself. You may want to go to Youtube.com and do a search for "Photoshop tutorials". People create videos that you can follow as well as watch. They have some very cool stuff there. Watch people get beautified. ;)

Film? What's that? If you must go film than at least write each of your settings down on a piece of paper. That way you can reference back on what you did right or wrong as opposed to trying to remember what that setting was.

 

Certainly you can mustard up some kind of cash even if to buy a somewhat used digital camera? Mistakes are cheap and fixable. With film, it can cost an arm and a couple fingers. In the end, you'll probably make up for it in cost of film, printing and time. The same money that you would've spent had you bought a digital. The time it takes you to learn is quicker as Colin stated. Besides, you're going to go digital anyway. Why learn how to use a film camera and then have to learn how to use a digital camera down the road?

As a second shooter, you're likely to do a lot of candid shots. If there's one thing that you're doing than you must do that one thing right. The internet holds a lot of information to be had. I can offer you this site as a suggestion to compliment the above tips.

 

http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/11-tips-for-better-candid-photography/

 

This site also offers many other tips and helpful hints if you care to wander about it.

I've had the D200 for a while but primary use the Fuji S3 mostly and just recently acquired the S5 which is technically the D200 in disguise. The D200 was used by the second shooter and I've only gotten a chance to use it this past weekend on a wedding doing a little experiment. I was trying to check out the wireless capability of the 3 SB-800 that I have. Interestingly enough, the SB-800 sitting on the Fuji can not be used as a master? I'm thinking it should be able to go up to +3 when it can go down to -3. I've only started to read up on the manual. I'll have it lick. I hope.

 

Yeah, 1/60 @ f4 and a flash sync of 1/250, doesn't make sense. It's either going to be 1/60 or 1/250. And using the diffuser shouldn't give you that much light lost.

The D200 will only give you +1 flash compensation. The max flash sync is 1/250. Reducing it will only allow more ambient light into the shot.

 

Using like settings meaning same iso and your flashes are pointed in the same direction? Is he getting consistantly brighter pictures throughout the life of the batteries? As the batteries drain, there will be less output. Check your Exposure Compensation as well (that's the button +/- next to the shutter release). You're comparison is looking at the same series of photos downloaded on the same computer and not through the LCD, I take it. ;)

 

Somehow, I don't think your settings are as alike as you may believe.