keithdunlop

<p>"letting them use my photo free of charge does me no good at all."</p>

<p>It also doesn't do professional photographers any good! It's hard enough to make a living from photography these days without photographers (both pro and amat.) willing to give away work for free.</p>

<p>Either do your homework and research the budget for the film, the distribution, etc., and work out an appropriate level of compensation for the licensing and usage of your image, or say "no thank you".</p>

<p>What I do with up-lighting is let the lighting control the overall mood of the room. As Nadine said, you never want your flash to overpower the mood lighting. I shoot receptions with my on-camera flash painted straight up, dialed back to -1, and gelled to a tungsten balance (you always want to match the temperature of your flash with the ambient). ISO (if shooting digitally) also has a lot to do with how much ambient you retain. I usually shoot receptions at around 1600. With this type of a set-up, you allow the mood lighting to control the overall color and feel for the room, while providing a bit of necessary pop on your subjects.</p>

<p>What you absolutely don't want to do is blast your subjects with direct daylight balanced flash. All you'll end up with is harshly lit faces and dark backgrounds.</p>

<p>Richard Photo Lab is where many pros, including myself, send their C41 for processing and scanning.</p>

<p>The professional thing to do is to follow-up with the couple. Even if you suspect that the meeting didn't go well (30 minutes is a pretty short meeting in my experience), you should always send some sort of courtesy follow-up. I don't know if you're doing this as a business or hobby, but cultivating leads and turning them into booked clients requires a level of effort and commitment on your part. The couple is lead until I hear otherwise, and if I waited around for leads to contact me, I'd be out of business pretty quickly. Also, prospective clients like to see that you have a genuine interest in their business.</p>

<p>After the first meeting I usually send something along the lines of, "It was a pleasure to meet you . . . (yada, yada) . . . please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any additional questions, and I look forward to hearing from you". After that I send periodic communication until I either book the couple, or get word that they booked with someone else.</p>

<p>"I can't afford a spyder unit at this time"</p>

<p>Unfortunately, the only reliable way to get your prints to match your monitor is to have a properly calibrated monitor. There really is no way around this. You need to be able to set your monitor luminance (white point) and color temperature with sufficient accuracy. I would check eBay, Fred Miranda, or Photo.net classified for a used calibrator -- shouldn't be too much of an investment.</p>

<p>Steve,</p>

<p>Proper 35mm film scanning requires a dedicated film scanner. The new Plustek 7600 Ai is getting really good reviews and is a terrific alternative to paying the used price premiums currently being asked for the discontinued Nikon Coolscan V. There is an instant rebate at B&H right now and you can get it for $419.00, which is a really terrific deal considering the cost of the Silverfast software on a standalone basis.</p>

<p>I'm in the camp that your back-up body should always be the same as your primary. It just makes sense to have an exact duplicate so if you have to grab it for something you don't have to think about slightly different controls. You certainly don't want a DX crop body to back-up a FF body.</p>

<p>Why not just rent a second D700?</p>

<p>If your interested in Bruce Davidson, this might be of interest: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/01/video-bruce-davidson.html</p>

<p>For any sort of page layout task, including wedding albums, InDesign is the best program hands down. Once you get over the initial learning curve, it's incredibly efficient for creating album page templates and spreads.</p>

<p>There's a great tutorial for getting started here: http://blip.tv/file/2622273</p>

<p>There's also an InDesign album design script set available from Albums In Design.</p>

<p>I'm a little bit south in San Luis Obispo, but travel to San Francisco for weddings quite often.</p>

<p>"The Zeiss lenses are not much good wide open."</p>

<p>That's a ridiculous comment -- there are some truly spectacular performers in the Zeiss ZM lineup. The 25mm f/2.8, 35mm f/2.0, and 50mm f/2.0 are especially strong performers and will satisfy all but the purists who think it's blasphemy to put anything other than a Leica-branded lens on an M body.</p>

<p>My best advice would be to make your own comparisons and decide for yourself what you like better. You can rent the Zeiss lenses and the Summarits at LensRentals.com and do your own side-by-side comparisons.</p>

<p>RedCart is a bit costly on the front-end, but is far and away the best proofing and order management system I have ever used.</p>

<p>I shoot with both Nikon D700's and Leica rangefinders. The Leica M9 sensor is no match for the Nikon D3/D700 sensor in terms of noise. Most people report usable files up to 1250, but further than that and the Leica gets quite noisy. But I find the comparison a little unfair. The Leica isn't meant to compete with a 1Ds3 or a D3/D700 in the area of noise. The advantage of the Leica is the small form factor of a rangefinder, discreteness, and the ability to take advantage of better lenses. The Leica can also be shot hand-held at shutter speeds as low as 1/15 and slower, something a bulky DSLR can't do without a tripod.</p>

<p>However, the new noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom 3 are terrific, and many people report getting comparable files with a little post-processing work. See this thread on the Leica User Forum: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/digital-post-processing-forum/129065-m9-high-iso-lightroom-3-a.html</p>

<p>For me, as long as I can clean up M9 files in post-processing, I'll take a little more noise than I'm used to.</p>

<p>I do like the somewhat triangular nature to the composition where the bride's head, the groom's head, and the dress, all work to tie the image together. Likewise, the groom's direction of looking helps keep the viewers eye coming back to the bride.</p>

<p>However, as much as I like the emotion of the image very much, but there are two relatively minor issues that my eye keeps coming to. First is the trash bin (or whatever the box is to the left of the groom), and the large tree truck growing out of the groom's head. I think by taking two steps to the left and recomposing, the image would be much stronger.</p>

<p>Overall, a really nice image, but that one that is improved by paying better attention to the background elements that seeped into the composition.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Nikon D700, Nikkor 35mm f/2.0, f/2.0 at 1/500, ISO 1250, LR3.<br>

<img src="http://www.frame37studio.com/images/KeithDunlop-Graff1357.jpg" alt="" /><br>

Flower girl admires the bride in her wedding dress.</p>

<p>All those little red lines under the words you typed in your post means something is not spelled correctly. When you're soliciting work, simple things like proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation in your communications are important to your appearance as a professional, and the first impression you leave with a potential employer.</p>

<p>Rob said, "That empty spot in your head? That's where the clues go. Try to keep them in next time, they're useful."</p>

<p>The internet age has really destroyed any sense of civility and manners that previously existed in discourse between people with differing opinions about things.</p>

<p>I use Leather Craftsmen for flush-mount albums, Asuka Book for coffee-table albums, and my lab ProDPI for economical press books.</p>

<p>I do two bridal shows -- one in October and one in March. The trend has been for the March show to be more productive in terms of bookings. I think that one issue is that you have Thanksgiving and Christmas coming on the heels of the show, and I think that effects wedding planning. Peoples attentions are turned to family that time of year. Many of my leads from the Fall show contact me after the first of the year.</p>

<p>Are you not going to be<em> in</em> the wedding? And, what does the bride's side of the family think about this idea?</p>

<p>I can't figure how this would work logistically since you are a significant family member, and assuming, that you are part of the groom's party. But that issue aside, it's a really bad idea for you to try to take this on for your brother given that you have no wedding experience and require "bottom up" advice.</p>

<p>My suggestion, contribute money to help your brother and his bride hire a professional photographer to capture their once-in-a-lifetime memories. At the very least, hiring a pro will help avoid any family tensions down the road should you try to take this on and it doesn't go so well.</p>

<p>Kevin Swan's tutorial videos on designing wedding albums in InDesign are a terrific place to start.</p>

<p>http://blip.tv/file/2622273</p>

<p>The older Nikon 60mm AF-D Micro is a stellar lens for rings shots and other detail images. It can be had on eBay or Fred Miranda for $300.00 or so.</p>

<p>Bob,</p>

<p>I actually agree that this particular wedding is not entirely consistent with some of the other work on your website. Your most recent event posted on your blog (Bryan and Trish) has much more relaxed and fluid portraiture of the bride and groom, and in general, has a more artistic aesthetic than for the couple that complained.</p>

<p>That being said, I unfortunately will tell you that I don't totally fault your clients for some of the problems you had:</p>

<p>1. You were prohibited from shooting on ground level in the sanctuary -- This is something you should have been aware of ahead of time by contacting the facility coordinator and asking about any photography restrictions. Researching the location restrictions should always be part of your pre-planning, especially if you have never shot at the location before. Sure, your clients could have been more communicative and told you about this ahead of time, but it's really your job to get this information.</p>

<p>2. Guest photographers -- Your clients should not be charged with policing guests who bring cameras to the wedding. Guests with cameras are a fact of life, as are the over-bearing Uncle Bob's. But it's entirely impractical to expect that your clients can control this. Some weddings are better than others in terms of the volume of P&S's in the crowd, but it's just the nature of the business. Learn to work around it.</p>

<p>3. B&G, and MOB dictating picture taking -- This is likely the result of two issues, one, the lack of communication prior to the wedding, and two, a disagreement over style between the family members. It's not usual for the MOB to have a completely different idea about how her daughter will be photographed. I've also had situations where the couple themselves don't agree and have argued over the shots I want to take at the wedding. Regardless of the specific dynamic which took you out of your game, you just gotta roll with it. Ultimately, they are the paying client and you are paid to do what they want. If they subsequently complain about the results, that's when you tactfully respond that the images are consistent with their requests on the wedding day, and that although any art form is ultimately subjective, you regret any dissatisfaction on their part. Then, wish them well as they begin their new lives together.</p>

<p>We would have to know exactly what your file naming is in order to answer your question. What is the "custom name", "original file"??</p>

<p>My Nikon 85mm f1.4.</p>

<p>It pays the bills.</p>