lightsmith1

<p>The photography business is more about business than photography and the best way many have found to break into the business is to work as a lowly paid assistant to an established photographer.</p>

<p>At least with regard to the wedding photography business there are some very average photographers who have done very well by virtue of excellent marketing and most important paying for the services of public relations firm.</p>

<p>I disagree with the comments about the need for a DX camera. The image magnification from a given lens is a function of the focal length and not the sensor size. Safari shooting is early and late in the day and having the ability to use a higher ISO setting to be able to use a faster shutter speed is a plus. VR only helps if the subject is not moving.</p>

<p>Check out www.lensprotogo.com for lens rentals. Not cheap but less expensive than buying a lens if you are not going to be using it after the trip.</p>

<p>With long supertelephotos there is a marked difference in autofocus speed with cameras like the D2x and D3 as compared to consumer D80 level cameras. I have compared a D2x to the D300 and the D2x (and the D3) was much faster to autofocus with the 200-400mm lens. I would want to test against the D700 as well before taking one for an important and expensive photo expedition.</p>

<p>In any situation where you foresee problems it is best to cut your losses quickly and to say as little as possible whether verbally or by email. I would not lie and say the date was taken. I would say that based on my experience as a wedding photographer I did not feel that I was the best person for their wedding and offer to provide alternative photographers to contact.</p>

<p>Technically you are on shaky ground to make an offering and then if the couple say yes, to refuse them without a solid reason and not feeling comfortable is not legally a good reason but can be considered discrimination, bad faith, etc. which is why it is important to say as little as possible to prevent a word or phrase coming back at you later.</p>

<p>From my experience if a bride is not easy to communicate with before the day of the wedding she is not likely to be easy to communicate and work with the day of the wedding. Difficult members of the family or bridal party or problem vendors all go with the territory. But if I do not have a good rapport with the bride and the groom it is not going to be a good wedding experience for me and I am not going to produce the best possible work if the couple is in a funk on their wedding day - and it does happen.</p>

<p>"Real photojournalism is a shooter going out and taking pictures of events for a publication (newspaper, magazine, AP, Reuters..etc...etc..) They get the shots in an unpredictable environment under extreme lighting conditions with almost no control over composition"</p>

<p>Sorry but I had to laugh when I read that statement. Compare newspaper photographer going out to a public event and needing to get one good photo for the editor to a wedding photographer who will be spending 8 or more hours with the bride and groom and their family getting ready, at the ceremony, shoot formal pictures of 50 or more people, and then bring back candids images of the reception, and present well over 1000 pictures to the bride and groom and all the pictures should tell a story, capture a moment, be in focus, composed, and with a correct exposure using a combination of the venues' tungsten and fluorescent lighting with fill added by the photographer's flash and have the image look "natural" and not like something by Weegee (Arthur Felig).</p>

<p>When I look at the PJ images in Time, Newsweek, People, API, most show very little photographic skill and very little in the way of journalism.</p>

<p>It is to be expected that photographers are often not skilled at portraits, posing, directing people, product photography (rings, cake, etc.) and capturing candid moments with well composed images in the vein of Cartier-Bresson. Often PJ is an excuse to not "bother" with shooting anything other than candids as the photographer lacks the necessary skills to provide other types of images. There are also photographers, in particular those running a portrait studio during the week and shooting weddings on Saturdays, that find it very difficult to make the transistion from a full controlled environment where they can use one lighting setup, one camera, and one lens all week long, to the controlled caos that is wedding photography where the only thing the photographer can hope to control is their equipment and their sense of humor.</p>

<p>Couples in selecting a photographer should trust their gut reaction to examples of the photographer's work and what they see or don't see will tell them whether there is likely to be a good match. If they do not like what they see they cannot expect miracles later. The same applies to selecting a second photographer where both their skill with photography and in working with people is clearly evident in their images.</p>

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<p>Most important is to be specific as to what you will be providing. If it is coverage from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m state that exactly. If you will be providing up to XXX number of images and in JPEG format at XXXX by XXXX file size state that. If it is to be delivered on a DVD within 72 hours after the event and color corrected state that.If you will retain the copyrights to your images but will provide them for a specified use for a specified period of time (like for a brochure for 1 year of reprinting) then state that.</p>

<p>A contract is primarily a written agreement so that both sides have a clear understanding of what will be delivered and what will not be delivered and this is the most important part. An attorney, unless they have photographers for clients, will be relatively clueless when it comes to what you need in your contract.</p>

<p>Your camera's sensor will produce a 3:2 aspect ratio which is perfect for 8x12 but if you shoot edge to edge you will find it very difficult to provide your clients with a 8x10 without cutting someone out of the picture or making a custom mat.<br>

You will also want an aperture that provides sufficient DOF for the people. Even if they are all in a row the people at the edges will be further from the camera.</p>

<p>You will get the most consistent exposure outdoors with or without flash by shooting in manual mode. Lots of bright sky, dark backgrounds, bright background, clothing, etc. can all make for inaccurate exposures when you rely on the camera to decide on the exposure settings. Program Mode is a fail safe mechanism for which you pay the price of loosing most of the creative controls over your photography. Better than nothing but hardly optimum.</p>

<p>Shooting in manual mode you can use the aperture you need for the blurred background - though you may need to add a + 2 stop neutral density filter when shooting on a bright sunny day. This is where using the 70-200mm at its 200mm setting also helps.</p>

<p>For fill flash adjust the EV settings on the flash to add the amount of light that is needed, adding more for back lit subjects and side lit subjects in bright sun.This is also where you may want to override the zoom setting of the flash so more of its light gets to your subjects.</p>

<p>One of the drawbacks in shooting in bright sun is that you are also often at f16 with your lens and the flash is really challenged to put out enough light for an exposure at that aperture at distances greater than 8-10 feet.</p>

<p>If you have the sunlight coming from behind or to one side and behind the B&G you will get shots that show the detail of the dress and detail in the faces (where you direct the flash).</p>

<p>I would take a 5D Mark II and your present 5D. A lens on the 1.3 crop 1D Mark III will appear to give you more reach but the image magnification is based on the lens and not which DSLR you use. The 100-400mm IS lens would be a good choice as you are often shooting early in the day or late in the day when the light is low but not photographing fast moving subjects where IS will not help. A 500mm f4 with a 1.4 teleconverter can be rented for your trip from places like www.lensprotogo.com.</p>

<p>If you use models always get a release and always pay at least a token amount for their services and don't just trade images for time.</p>

<p>With couples as mentioned it is a good idea to have both language in your contract for services that states you retain the copyrights for the images and that you are requesting the client to allow you to use the images for "promotional" purposes.</p>

<p>If you use your clients images on your website you are on safe ground. If you sell the images to a stock agency or on TV or in a mailing you should get a new release that specifies the new use that is intended for the images.</p>

<p>This is where some of the WPJA photographers that show unflattering photos of guests in order to look "PJ" are really treading on water and definitely stepping over the line. You can do this when you work for a newspaper (and they have an editor and attorney to pass ultimate judgment on what gets published) but it is not wise to do so for a contest.</p>

<p>I shoot "unlimited" hours so my weddings tend to end around 11:00 p.m. or later and by the time I arrive back at the office and upload my cards and back them up it is often 1:00 a.m. so the idea of starting another wedding day at noon the following day and giving the second bride and groom and their families 100% is not reasonable. I know that half way through the second wedding my energy level would start to drop and I would be short changing my second bride.</p>

<p>I can only speak for myself but when I am tired I am less creative and move around less and alter my perspectives less and so what I deliver is less. Usually this is at the end of the evening with an out of town wedding when I am photographing the last hours of the reception dancing and the second photographer has left a couple hours earlier.</p>

<p>If I shot European or especially UK style weddings I could see doing more than one wedding each day and 4 on a weekend. I also use my Sunday late afternoons for engagement shoots and environmental portraiture as it is easy for people to come into the area for the weekend, have the session on Sunday, and be back at work on Monday.</p>

 

<p>Regardless of focal length I know I am going to get a percentage of shots of people with subject motion blur is I shot at speeds under 1/80. If I shot at 1/60 or slower and am not careful about pausing and shooting I will get camera motion blur in a fair number of shots.</p>

<p>The focal length reciprocal rule of thumb is just that a rule of thumb. It works most of the time in most situations with most equipment. But if you want the highest percentage of sharp images possible for a given situation you will need to shoot at the fastest possible shutter speed even if it means forgoing DOF to a degree. Better to be at f4 and 1/80 than at f5.6 and 1/40 when shooting hand held.</p>

<p>Easy with the Canon software to also confirm that the camera really did try to focus on the point you selected. It is easy with bright backgrounds for the camera to select a brighter or higher contrast object in the background. Some lens like the Canon 24-70mm f2.8 are known to have problems and may need continual recalibration which is why Canon finally added the ability for users to recalibrate the lenses AF settings for themselves and not keep sending new lenses into Canon for repair.</p>

<p>Lastly you can print out a lens AF calibration chart and do your own lens testing with the same lens on two different cameras to determine whether the problem is with the lens or the camera.</p>

<p>Although there have been AF problems with the Mark III cameras it has been mostly evident with telephoto lenses shooting in bright sunlight. I used my Mark III cameras for wedding photography with the 16-35mm f2.8 II zoom and a variety of primes and my OOF shots were less than 1% regardless of the conditions.</p>

 

<p>For travel the D700 is advantageous in having the internal commander flash to trigger a remote strobe without needing to carry a SU-800 or set it up and without having to carry a second strobe. You can easily leave the vertical grip at home and just carry a second battery in your bag in case you do not have time one evening to recharge.<br>

Lenses are the heart of any system and not having the focal lengths you need is a big handicap, especially the "odd" focal lengths to differentiate your images from everyone elses.<br>

I would put the entire $8k toward lenses and flash. At a minimum I would want to carry the 16mm fisheye, 14-24mm f2.8, Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 or Tamron 28-75mm f2.8, and the 70-200mm f2.8 VR along with a 1.7x teleconverter. If I left anything at home it would be the 24-70mm lens.</p>

<p>With the high ISO capabilities of the D700/D3 there is very little to be gained by having primes and having very limited focal lengths at your disposal and more lens changes means more dirt getting inside the camera.<br>

Add in the cost for some type of portable backup (standalone data store device) for your images and a decent travel tripod.</p>

<p>For what you are photographing a perfect lens would be the 24-105mm f4 IS L lens. The 85mm would be my third choice for portraits for people where longer is better. In a prime for a FF camera my choices in primes would be between a 105mm f2.8 and a 135mm f2 lens. But in most situations the 70-200mm IS is a more versatile lens, especially with a full frame camera. Max aperture of f4 is not a problem for portraits or even for a Quinceanera where the lighting is usually quite good.<br>

<br /> Many people have shot with the 35mm to great effect, especially when using APC-C or APS-H sensor equipped cameras where it becomes a "normal" perspective lens.<br>

But for portrait photography and event photography where you mention only having the 50mm lens you are in need of more options than a prime can provide.</p>

<p>Professional photographers do not cancel weddings the day before the wedding. I did a 12 hour wedding even though I had food poisoning and a high fever. So I suspect there is a lot more to the cancellation and the "photographer" than you have been told which is a red flag in itself.</p>

<p>I would prepare a contract that is very specific about what you will deliver (up to 500 images as JPEGs at 1500 x 2100ppi on a DVD for example) and the exact hour you will start and you will leave and wording that due to the circumstances including lack of adequate notice you will not accept responsibility for the ultimate quality or quantity of the images provided.</p>

<p>You are really going in blind in every sense of the word and often when there is a bad start there is a bad ending and as the "paid professional" the bride will have certain expectations of which you have no idea. A very specific contract that is exact in what you will and will not be providing and cash payment up front is the only way to entertain this sort of job.</p>

<p>For the wedding ceremony a 70-200mm f2.8 is essential and the VR is often critical. The lens is good for reception use as well, just leave off the lens hood to diminish its canon profile.</p>

<p>I am not aware of a 18-55mm f2.8 lens for Nikon. There is a Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 lens which at f2.8 throughout its zoom range would be a good lens for weddings. The Nikon 18-55mm lens is f3.5~f5.6 depending upon the zoom setting and is really much too slow for wedding photography unless you are shooting outdoors in bright sunlight. If you have the Nikon 18-55mm zoom I would upgrade it before investing in the 70-200mm lens.</p>

<p>For weddings a camera with ISO 1600 performance and clean images is important as well as reasonably good low light autofocus (this is where IR AF assist from a strobe or the SC-29 can be critical.<br>

For groups in normal light using a DX camera a 17-55mm f2.8 works great. Another lens for very low light shooting, as when the DJ turns out the lights in the mistaken belief that it will get more people to dance, is the Sigma 30mm f1.4 lens. The Sigma is very sharp, very fast to autofocus even in low light and the f1.4 means you can shoot in 1/4 as much light as with a f2.8 zoom if need be. The Sigma 30mm on a DX camera is really a "normal" lens like using a 50mm lens on a full frame camera.</p>

<p>The SB800 works great. The SB900 adds more power but the SB800 is more than adequate for most purposes and when it is not, I use a Quantum. The SB900 is bulkier and heavier than the SB800 and cost $100 more for features that many photographers will not benefit from in most uses but Nikon needs to make money and the dollar is weak so there is not a lot of choice other than to get a Metz flash which I would not recommend to most photographers.<br>

One thing that is irritating with regard to Nikon is how they keep changing the user interface on their flash units so if someone has a SB26, SB80DX, SB600, SB800, and a SB900 they will find themselves with 5 different modes for changing settings. When you are trying to quickly adjust your flash it is nice to have one interface and one set of quirks. When I got SB800's I replaced all my older units. Now I will be needing to get at least 2 SB900's to have one primary and one backup flash that work the same way and spend $900.<br>

But to answer your question, get the latest flash electronics you can buy as it will have the most recent tweaks for the latest cameras, like the D3 which was introduced long after the SB800. I would expect the SB900 to work slightly better than the SB800 with D3, D300, and D90 cameras for this reason. If you find yourself using the SB800 I would not worry about it. The exposure accuracy of the SB800 with the D3 far surpasses any Canon camera with the 580EX II strobe (why I came back to Nikon) and has more than enough power. Somehow people overlook that with ISO settings of 1600 and higher the amount of light needed from the flash is a fraction of what was needed just 2 years ago (with the ISO 640 D2x for instance).<br>

I used to think Canon flash units were overpriced now but Nikon has caught up to them with the SB900.</p>

 

<p>If you start with a 8-bit JPEG any manipulation of the image will cause data gaps and tone shifts. If you need to provide CYMK files to your clients it is far better to start with a RAW file. And it is more than just color. With the 14-bit RAW files produced by a number of cameras there is a DR of 12 stops which helps to capture highlights without loosing shadow detail. Yes it slows the camera down and might be a problem for sports photography but not for most event shooting. With JPEGs the RAW data is converted by the camera into a JPEG so you are letting the camera do the processing so your settings need to be dead on for the intended product you need to deliver to your clients. If you shoot with different cameras or with another photographer shooting a different camera it is much easier to take RAW files from all the cameras used at an event and make batch adjustments to produce final images that look like they were shot from the same camera.</p>

<p>It depends on demographics but also what caliber of second shooter you want to have working with you. I pay my second photographer's $500 which is acceptable to them and I get consistent quality work from people tha have excellent skills both in photography and working with people and have backup equipment. I know I could pay less and still get photographers but I would end up paying more at the back end of the process.</p>

<p>Assistants I pay by the hour and they are not paid to take pictures but to support me during the day and enable me to get more images.</p>

<p>Between now and the wedding I suggest you take your camera and flash to a hotel lobby or similar location at night and practice with the different camera and flash settings. With digital the cost is zero and it is easy to review your images and see which camera and flash settings provided the most consistent exposures - which is what you need.</p>

<p>In general, setting the camera on manual for the ambient light in the room and then dialing up or down the flash EV for the fill light works the best. It is OK for the room to be underexposed by a full stop as it provides a brighter context for the subjects lit by the flash in the foreground - in camera vignetting in effect.</p>

<p>I hope that you realize how big a chance your are taking in allowing your friend to hire you to photograph the biggest day of her life and that you have neither experience nor any backup equipment. If anything goes wrong with your camera, your lens, your flash, or Murphy enters the picture, you will have a disappointed friend who will remember your failure for the rest of her life. You may be doing your friend a favor, but you are also jeopardizing that friendship by gambling that you can pull off photographing her wedding having had no experience photographing one before. Why practice on a friend?<br>

You can get useful tips and pointers but there is no substitute for experience and when you are the designated professional and the only one, from the moment you arrive and throughout the day and evening everyone will be looking to you for advice and direction which you will not be prepared to provide. </p>

<p>And having a photographer cancel is unfortunate but I expect that there are 100 photographers within 100 miles of the wedding location who are available to photograph your friend's wedding and all of them have more experience and equipment than you do at the present time. If it were me I would use my time to find my friend another photographer instead of trying to learn how to use my camera and flash and learn all about wedding photography. It is ego gratifying to have someone pay you to do something that is fun but with a friend it is important to step back and look at things with a cool head.</p>

<p>I know this sounds harsh but I just got off the phone talking to a sales rep at one of the top bridal magazines in the country. Her sister's "pro" photographer did not have a single formal picture of the wedding party with everyone in the frame and without limbs cut off. Her mother's album stays in the closet and her mother does not even want to talk about it. The officiant can screw up, the musicians can screw up, the baker can screw up or the florist or the limo drive or even the hair and makeup people, but if the photographer is not up to the task the impact is far greater and much longer lasting in the bride and groom and their families memories of the day. At the end of the day your friend and her husband will have their rings and your pictures - no pressure?</p>

<p>I have never needed to use flash in even the darkest of churches and that includes shooting with ISO challenged cameras at ISO 640 settings. Flash disrupts the ceremony and I would never ever do this - and there is absolutely no need anyway. I create enough of a distraction with the comparitively loud noise made when releasing the shutter and do not want to add to it with flash.</p>

<p>I have shot at ISO 1600 with a 70-200mm zoom at 1/10 second at f2.8 and using the 200mm zoom setting and still had acceptably sharp images better than 50% of the time and this was with hand held shooting.</p>

<p>Now I have a camera that is great up to ISO 4000 and so there is even less need and this is why wedding photographers spend the big bucks on D3/D700/5D/Mark III cameras and on 70-200mm zooms with optical stabilization, either VR or IS. If you do not have the budget for this then I would suggest investing in a $30 monopod.</p>

<p>With lenses in the 17-70mm range there is not even the need for optical stabilization at the shutter speeds one usually needs. During the ceremony no one is moving very fast so there is not much worry about subject motion blur. If you properly brace the camera and gently release the shutter you can take acceptably sharp images at speeds of 1/30 which is more than adequate when using wide angle or normal focal length lenses. </p>

<p>Even during the processional I use flash for fill, especially because often the strongest lighting is coming from behind the bride as she comes down the aisle. Flash also helps with IR autofocus assist to get faster autofocus performance from the camera and enables use of a smaller aperture to get greater depth of field.</p>

 

<p>Studio lighting takes time to setup and time to take down and unless you have an assistant doing this for you it is time that would be better spent taking pictures. As for the vibes, flash can be used as appropriate to minimize interference with the activities of the day.</p>

<p>Bridal prep and groom prep no flash is used. Group photos flash is used for fill. Processional flash is used both for light and for AF IR assist for camera. Ceremony no flash is used. Formals flash is again used and flash during the reception is almost always used on at least one camera (I will use 24-70mm on one camera with flash and 85mm f1.4 on other camera without flash).</p>

<p>For more power than you can get with a standard hot shoe type of flash I recommend the Quantum flash units which are fully compatible with Canon and Nikon TTL flash systems.</p>

 

<p>Skin tones are the most visible area when white balance is off so that is the first thing to adjust. %d cameras have the worst auto WB of any camera I have used so it is critical to adjust your images as step one. Second is to adjust the levels. I am also assuming that you are shooting RAW and not JPEGs as with the latter the camera is making many different adjustments.<br>

Overall skin tones are excellent with Canon cameras and WB is not a problem with cameras produced after the 5D. Not a big deal to fix in post processing.<br>

As you have maybe now started to realize the camera does not a good photographer make.</p>

<p>A used 30D would be an excellent camera that has very good autofocus in dim light and very usable ISO 1600. The 20D has many inherent autofocus and flash problems and is to be avoided entirely. Canon fixed the 20D problems with the new 30D which is how Canon usually "fixes" its problem gear. You will need a 17-55mm zoom as was mentioned and this will work for 90% of the shots you will want to take and you can pass on the other 10% as you are doing this as a hobby and favor to your friends so they should understand.</p>

<p>One thing to be aware of is that gear failures are more common with cameras in the middle ground, $800 to $3000 which combine complexity with production cost control. Your $1000 DSLR is more like to have problems or its lens than the simple point and shoot camera that cost $300. That is why no responsible wedding photographer would shoot a wedding with only one camera or one lens or one flash.</p>

<p>What you need is album software that makes it easy to send proofs to your clients. You Select It by an Australian photographer makes it easy to create your pages and to send a PDF file to your clients with the images individually identified on the page so they can say image C014 on page 14 needs to be changed and you know exactly which picture they are referring to in their note.</p>

<p>Photo Junction has a new pricing model and a brand new album creation program that is the best supported product (they are based in New Zealand). Highly recommend first looking at their program. YSI is excellent and there are both Mac and PC versions, but like Page Gallery, the support is virtually non-existent.</p>