scrivyscriv

<p>That situation is unfortunately fairly common in the low-budget wedding industry. I ran in to it a small handful of times, and it ultimately comes down to managing the customer's expectations... If they think you missed something and you end up delivering ANY MORE PHOTOS at all to make them happy, they will believe that you are holding out on them and will not leave you alone until you hand over all of your unedited files. They think that's what they really want.</p>

 

<p>You can't really do anything about it now, other than just finish up and give the client what they paid for. In the future, though, like Bob, David and William et all, just wrote, you have to stand your ground on the day of.<br>

<br />I can't tell you how many times I've been irritated by "photographers" and guests with cameras getting in the way.. Sometimes literally in front of my camera... while my wife and I are working. I just don't take it - the client is paying me for MY work, not them for their work. If the guest gets crappy photos, oh well. If I get crappy photos, I'm in trouble. You really have to keep in your mind, "What's best for my client?" If it includes being or acting rude to someone who is overstepping, sometimes it just has to happen. Most of the time you can be super cool about things.<br>

<br />The best way I've found to clearly get your point across to everyone else: Dress super professionally, look sharp, don't have a potty mouth, don't overshare your photos on the back of the camera, and walk confidently. Then when an issue comes up, just give the offending person a "You're wasting my time" stare-down. And tell them you don't have much time left, because it's X-o'clock. The battle is already won if you show up looking, speaking and acting like a pro.<br /><br /><br />Let's face it, a wedding is usually RUN by the photographer. We didn't sign up to be a wedding coordinator; just to take photos. But that's what it turns in to, 8 times out of 10. And that's okay, because we know what needs to happen, and most people at the wedding have no idea, or are too busy setting up their own vendor stuff. We are everywhere the bride is. We are her mental rock, even though she never realizes it. So take control of what you need to get the job done - if guests or unpaid photo/video people are interrupting, take control and set the tone. They will all remember what you MAKE them remember in your photos.</p>

<p>I use a Canon 5D mk 2, and usually have an 85 f/1.8 on it for the party entrance, for most indoors low-light weddings. Two weddings ago I worked in a small art gallery and needed every bit of the 17-40. 6 months ago at the Pink Palace outdoors I used the 200 f/2.8 exclusively down the aisle. <br />I try to go as long and fast as I can, and zooms don't fit well for me. I still don't know how people use the 24-105 with no flash and expect to get decent resolution from their uber high ISO, in comment to the 24-105 recommendation.</p>

<p>Hey all,<br />It's been a while since I've posted on P-net but I started having issues with my RadioPopper JrX system and wanted to share the root cause and solution, in case anyone else is having problems too.<br /><br />I had two JrX receivers and Canon RPcubes triggering Canon 430EX & EXII flashes, and started getting an intermittent trigger on receiver 'A' and no triggering at all on receiver 'B.' I'm outside of my warranty so I opened up both triggers and found that one leg on the 3.5mm sync port had snapped off at the board and was making intermittent contact, causing the no-trigger symptom in receiver 'A.' I de-soldered and removed the jack port, soldered a tiny wire to the contact and resoldered it to the board. <br>

Receiver 'B' just needed to be unsoldered and reseated, and worked fine after I did that.<br /><br />The root issue I had was too much physical stress being put on the jacks, causing them to 'work' on the board and come loose. <br /><br />Bottom line, don't put any stress on your jacks when you plug in. I had my RP cord wrapped around the flash body to take up the slack, and that's what did it. </p>

<p>As long as you're getting credit for the photos when people ask about them, consider it grassroots (and very effective) marketing. One bride I worked with managed to save all of her photos to her computer and repost them on facebook before I even mailed her the DVD.. No mention of copyright or photographer, but I know she gives my business credit for the photos when asked, because I've had two referral inquiries from potential clients who know her and saw the photos.</p>

<p>Plus, if you think about it, your photos are reaching a much wider group of people than if you just had them on your site, or your site + facebook. They are reaching your target demographic, essentially by implied endorsement of your target demographic's peer, free of advertising cost.<br>

Win-win, right?</p>

<p>Side note from the who-shot-john about how relevant shutter count is:</p>

<p>All the major used re-sellers give you at least a 30-day return policy with no questions asked. If you get the camera and find the shutter cycles are too high for your peace of mind, it's no hassle to just send it back. All you're out is shipping back.</p>

<p>I've seen a few of those in the Memphis area CL. Way too low! One was even listed for $1800ish.</p>

<p>No - it's not really replaceable. I'm sure you can get it out but I personally wouldn't recommend it. Accuracy and shim thickness are measured in .001" amounts, and all screens are designed so they will pretty much not interchange with any other camera, with a few exceptions that don't include the Rebel G.</p>

<p>Maile - have never seen a photo of shoes done so seductively. Very classy! I'm going to borrow the thought, if you don't mind!</p>

<p>Yeah I've never heard any noises like that from a 135L. KEH charges $45 for a basic checkup and will deduct that from the cost of the repair if parts end up being over $45ish; that is, if you don't want to wait 6-8 weeks for Canon. (Not affiliated with KEH - just a satisfied customer)<br>

On the plane note - I bought a Pelican 1510 carry-on roll case just so I could take all of me photo gear with me on the plane. I've never even allowed it to be gate checked, much less checked at the ticket counter. Handlers don't usually make more than a buck over minimum wage, if that... There's no real incentive to do a good job for the large majority (not all) of handlers.<br>

I think some parts of the cargo hold are pressurized and climate controlled on most aircraft though - whomever loaded Shatner's dogs must have put them in the wrong area.</p>

<p>This question was way more valid before Canon released the 7D. All the bodies they made up till then were all advanced amateur bodies, and I think a lot of us felt like Canon was making the choice to stick with EF-S for a while when they introduced a semi-pro/pro body with an EF-S mount.</p>

<p>Different horses for different courses, though. I personally like the reduced apparent depth-of-field that an ultrawide gives on a 35mm format body, compared to a smaller format with the same angle-of-view.. which would be more apparent depth. So I'm choosing to buy lenses that are compatible with the EF mount. I use my ultrawides and wides on the 35mm format, and my teles and normals on the APS-C format.</p>

<p>I personally believe that EF-S will be around for a while, just like the APS-C and APS-H formats have stuck around since their introduction a decade ago.. or so..</p>

<p>Ty - RAW (all caps) refers to Canon's proprietary file extension for a raw data file. raw (all low caps) is the adjective describing the un-processed information</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Your website takes forever to load and I almost clicked off it before anything came up. I wouldn't expect a bride-to-be to stay on the page waiting for it to load when she hasn't even seen any photographs to entice her to stay longer. The navigation is not intuitive - I personally hate having to click more than once to get to a gallery, and I'm positive I'm not the only one who feels that way. Especially after having navigated hundreds on other photographer sites recently.<br>

<br />Your images are solid, pretty sharp, and well exposed. They are also unremarkable, if I can be so honest. My $.02 is just to develop more of an identity, a signature look, something that says "I can give you different photographs than everyone else can, because my vision is different." You'll find a niche for whatever vision you settle on, I can guarantee you that. Whether you can make salary on it is another story. When you're passionate about something and put all of yourself into it, it'll show, and eventually you'll start pulling in money. You are already on your way since you obviously have a good understanding of the technical side of the craft.</p>

<p>Get your stuff out in the open. Put it on facebook. When you get a wedding, make sure you treat the b&g like stellar high-dollar clients, give them fast and quality service and access to web-sized photos so THEY can upload them to facebook. I personally believe it's all about networking, which is a project in itself. If your clients are blown away by how friggin' awesome you are, how cool you were with them, how fast you were, how amazing their photographs were, they will sing about you when anyone asks. That personal recommendation to their friends is worth more than any $700 Bride's handbook ad, in my personal opinion.</p>

<p>Just keep going. Everyone struggles to get a business off its feet. Those who don't struggle are few and far between - most of us just don't talk about it. Guess we just prefer to look more successful than we feel we really are.</p>

 

<p>Why not bring both the digital and the film cameras?<br />The lens on the digital is way too slow for indoors and night stuff without a tripod or a flash, so..</p>

<p>Fuji makes a 1600 color film that's made to be rated up to 3200 or 6400, that's my personal recommendation for a film. 3200 ISO and a 50mm f/1.4 should be good enough to miss a lot of motion blur. I've used an 80-200 f/2.8 zoom with 3200 Tmax in the past and got shutter speeds high enough to shoot handheld pretty much the whole time inside, and f/1.4 is 2x as bright as my f/2.8.</p>

<p>If you get your lighting and exposure right in-camera, you'll have very little post processing to do in Photoshop. I use speedlights off camera on a light stand and balance them with ambient light to get, and note this very important concept, good lighting ratios. Everyone preaches 'soft light' but not so much 'soft directional light.' Your photo has soft light but it is ambient with little direction.<br>

<br />If you want your images to pop more, the best thing you can do is not photoshop - get books on lighting and study them. You don't have to use off-camera lights to get incredible results; you just have to pay attention to where the natural light falls and fully maximize its intensity, direction, and color.</p>

<p>Once you get into off-camera lighting you'll either never do it again because it's a hassle, or you'll kick yourself for not doing it sooner. I got my setup for dirt cheap - ebay triggers were $15, lightstand and tilter were $65, umbrella was $10, and one of my workhorse flashes came from a thrift store for $3 with a roll of film.</p>

<p>If you're set on using Photoshop to make them pop, select and sharpen the iris and eyelashes. My first pass is a a radius of .3 and strength of ~190; second pass of .7 radius @ strength of ~50.<br>

Also use your curves window. A shallow S-curve, with the darks curving down and the brights curving up, will emphasize the deeper colors and leave skin tones mostly alone.</p>

<p>I use three different lenses depending on how many people are in the frame, how bright the ambient light is, using flash or not, etc.<br>

My go-to for posed groups is a 28 f/2.8. You can find it used for a decent price since it's an older lens. It's sharp, focuses pretty quickly, and has a good combination of depth-of-field and field-of-view that makes it an ideal for mid-sized groups of people. Add an off camera flash at 45 degrees to the camera, and you have a great combination.<br>

With one person in the frame, I'll use a 50mm f/1.8 mk I or an 85 f/1.8. The 50mm for indoors, 85mm for out. You can use the 50mm for smaller groups of people, like three or four. Any more than that and some people start to be out of the focus range.<br>

The 85 is for photographs while kids are running around. It autofocuses so quickly you can't even tell it moved.</p>

<p>A note regarding B&H - I have done business with this company for at least five years now I believe, and have always had problems cleared up immediately. In fact, I ordered a Wein mini-to-PC sync cord for my off camera flash triggers as part of a larger order last month, and when the cord began to only fire intermittently after two weeks of use, I emailed B&H and the rep told me to just toss out the defective cord because he would be sending a new cord the next day.<br>

And the next day, I had an invoice number for the replacement cord in my email inbox.<br>

<br />B&H is definitely legitimate. I have and will continue to do business with them specifically because of reps like Motti W(not on P.net, but he's the rep who replaced my cord) and Henry Posner, who go way above what's expected. So, thanks, Henry - I really appreciate your hard work.</p>

<p>Don't think it will be a problem if you are keeping it all frozen after the fact.</p>

<p>Switch your focus button to the *alt button on the back and see if it works then. It could be a bad shutter button switch.</p>

<p>It is completely different from the 70-200. I have the 85 and an 80-200 f/2.8 and use them for totally different reasons - they are both very good, but just because they have an overlapping focal length does not necessarily mean they are equivalent.</p>

<p>I personally would not give up either.</p>

<p>So how did they come out?<br />I'd love to see a few shots!</p>

<p>How does everyone here practice during off peak weeks or months? I'm sure we all like to stay warmed up and keep our reflex actions intuitive but the truth is for many of us, especially part time photographers, we need to constantly keep in practice to stay fresh. I don't think this is something stressed enough once we get beyond 'entry level.'<br>

So, how do you practice for weddings? Photojournalism? Events?<br />Where do you practice?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance for posting. I hope we can all benefit from seeing the answers.</p>

<p>John,<br>

The 10-22 EFS is generally regarded as equal in quality & construction to other L lenses. You won't be disappointed in its IQ and build.</p>

<p>Michael - all of your lenses, or just certain FLs?</p>

<p>Alan - all of those bodies use infrared or near-infrared assist. You're on the same train of thought I'm on, but I haven't come up with a fix yet. PF, that's a very interesting idea, definitely worth trying.</p>