shadforth_stephen

<p>Its not rocket science. If you want to make wedding photography your sole source of income then the formula is pretty easy...</p>

<p>Determine whet income you need to live comfortably. Say A$100k pa/40k Pounds <br>

Work out how many weddings you can do in a year. Say 40. Thats $2500 per wedding.<br>

Doing one a week for 40 out of 50 weeks in the year. In our dollars, thats about 1000 pounds per wedding.<br>

Close to what you plan to charge.</p>

<p>Now for the sanity check: Can your market segment handle a fee of 1000 Pounds per wedding, and can you attract enough business to book 40 weddings a year?</p>

<p>A$2500 for a professional job is common here for weddings. And definitley don't give the customer ALL your images. 50 is plenty, including 5 fine art quality prints.</p>

<p>S95...<br>

It has the same sensor and internals as the G12, but its smaller, lighter and has a faster lens.</p>

<p>Why not the 85/1.8 and the money you save will get you a used 80-200 2.8. You only lose a half a stop and get back some valuable depth of field wide open.</p>

<p>And here one is not even allowed in the church. The photos are done after the ceremony, on the steps usually or out in the gardens. We might get some shots of the bride arriving, but again, outside only.</p>

<p>I also had a workflow thread going about LR3 as an end to end solution. There still seem to be a body of opinion that supports the view that View/Capture NX2 is better for interpreting the Nikon NEF files, and then exporting the TIFF to LR3 for final editing and catalogueing.<br>

My question of Patrick and others here is this: Whats your opinion of the above two step process. Some say that the lastest LR3 does the NEF conversion as well as NX2. If thats the case I could confine my whole workflow to LR3. That would be a real timesaver. I really don't want to face the steep learning curve and costs of CS5. Maybe later when I am more skilled. </p>

<p>Having worked for Hitachi all over the world in my past life, I agree with David H.<br>

Its no use contacting Nikon USA or Nikon EU. They are just the face of the fulfillment and service arm. All the decisions on product marketing are made in Tokyo. Occasionally they will query their overseas subsidiaries sales forecasts, but generally they will only manunfacture against hard orders. The idea of holding a large inventory is seen as hugely risky.<br>

The other thing they do is continue to produce and sell a certain product if its important for their image or marketing position. But Japansese companies are very adept at "marketing by brochure". Japanese consumers are notorious for basing their purchasing decisions simply on what the brochure says. If the blurb says its good then it must be. Consumer interaction through forums and user groups are very rare. Its also seen as un-Japanese to criticise an icon manufacturer like Nikon.<br>

One also needs to look at Japanese manufacturers in two groups. And their members behave quite differently. The first group, the zaibatsu, are made up of legacy traders and manufacturers which existed before WW2. They have a much more conservative nature and see themselves as guardians of Japanese reputation. These are the traditional trading houses like Mitsui and manufacturers like Nikon, Hitachi, Toshiba, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu etc.<br>

Then you have the newer, more consumer goods oriented ones which became established in the 50s and 60s...Matsushita, Sony, Sharp, etc. These guys are still seen by the zaibatsu companies as johnny-come-lately's even though they go back half a century. These companies tend to jump in and out of markets and don't have the long term view of the others. When I worked for Hitachi in Japan, it was almost like we were defending Japanese culture and reputation. We were doing marketing and sales plans going out 5-10 years. They also looked at product cycles within this 5 year "term" structure. Its only been in the last 15 years or so that the zaibatsu have woken up to the fact that they have to move in markets much more quickly and also represent their own pruducts directly in their own name, instead of behind overseas distributors.<br>

Hitachi is also your typical Japanese domestic producer who rarely sold products overseas as "Hitachi", except for consumer goods like air conditioners and washing machines. They were very late in exposing the Hitachi name to overseas consumer scrutiny. I was one of a very few non-Japanese to make it past local country management. My time with them in Tokyo and Hitachi City opened my eyes to just how well run and planned these companies are. The depth of loyalty to the company from its employees was very strong. There is no such thing as a bad debt. In the mornings at 9am every employee in Japan would suspend work, stand up and sing the company song in unison. Your life was Hitachi and in return for this loyalty, your were housed in a company apartment and looked after long term. They rarely dismissed anyone for anything other than fraud, and even then they would try to find a low risk slot, or in my bosses case, a lowly position in the hair dryer factory. Later, working for the likes of Sun and HP, the contrast was stark. I went from this culture to one where the longest view was to the next set of quarterly numbers. It was maddening to work at a senior level where 80% of your effort went into the politics of avoiding being retrenched.<br>

Nikon take their long heritage in optics very seriously...a bit like Leica. Their heritage underpins their behaviour. Mistakes can be made and I can just imagine the tone of the board meetings when Canon were dominating the pro space there for a while. Today, Nikon react quite quickly to market forces, but there is still a conservative approach which can be a blessing in some ways. You can bet that they have learned a lot in the past 5-10 years on how to preserve product and design longevity and thats good for us all.<br>

</p>

<p>Being keen to still use my film cameras, I've done the research to see which well known manufacturer seems to have its act together moving into the future. Epson.<br>

But you will have to get your head around this: There will be two types of relatively affordable scanners. The cheaper slot-based scanners that do strip film, and then the more expensive flatbed scanners that do strip, MF and LF plus hi-res document scanning....a la Epson V700 (soon to be replaced with the V900).<br>

The good thing about Epson is their aim to provide a solution for the quality fine art photo printing market by combining the scanner and printer into one bundled solution, managed by a Photoshop Elements script. We will just have to wait and see.</p>

<p>Two of your four lenses are DX. So you are at a fork in the road....Just like me. I hummed and ha'd for weeks. I had a D300.<br>

Decision 1. If staying on DX, get the D7000. Better than the D300.<br>

Decision 2. Go to FX, D700 (used for $1800), and sell your DX lenses and get the FX equivalent.<br>

I came from film straight to D300. Great camera, a miriad of menues and settings. But the D7000 is better with superior low light performance and a much improved menu system, plus you can save two shooting profiles in the U1 and U2 switch.<br>

The D700 is better again and a mini D3. That where I am putting my money. Sure the D700 will be replaced within the next year, but that also means prices are dropping too.<br>

I'll never buy new. Someone else can cop the depreciation in the first 12-18 months after release.</p>

<p>The price of high end inkjet printers is coming down. Both Canon and Epson have relly good A3 printers for less than $1k. And their larger ones are also not too expensive.<br>

The issue will of course be the skill of the operator in maximising the quality of the output. If you become an expert at it, as some fine art photographers have become, it saves you a lot of money.<br>

I'm going to give it a go.</p>

<p>Tommy, what city do you live in? Did you take out Applecare as well? Maybe its a local resource issue.</p>

<p>We are in Sydney, and Apple service here is legendary here. I also think they put you at the top of the warranty repair queue if you also have Applecare.<br>

As for the rest of the PC brigade...Dell, Toshiba, Sony. These guys take forever to fix things. HP is pretty good. We have one of theirs...its got a dead power supply and I'll fix that myself.<br>

We have three iMacs and only ever had one blow a graphics card once in 5 years. Yes, it takes a week to get it fixed, buy they never quibble about it.</p>

<p>I think its less than optimal that you need to fire up LR3 to get at your files, thats all, but I guess if you save them in a tiff or jpeg format then you don't need LR3 to find them. We'll soon find out.<br>

Another writer mentioned View NX2. And yes, I can use that for the initial RAW conversion if I want to.<br>

So there are some options here and I'll give them all a go and see what suits me first.</p>

<p>Why are we there? I'd leave them to it...them and the Pakistanis. But, no! There is a lake of oil under the northern valleys, rare metals to be mined in the Hindu Kush and Pakistan has the Bomb. Can't let just anyone run the country, can we?</p>

<p>The longer the US pours zillions of tax dollars into these police actions, (a "War" has to have a declaration by both Houses) the less money will be going into health, education, infrastructure and non-military, job creating, manufacturing.</p>

<p>Take all that defence money and plow it back into the domestic economy, and see the US prosper like never before. </p>

<p>If the Russians couldn't contain the insurgents with 1.2m troops and a hundred MI 24's, then what hope is there. </p>

<p>I knew when I pressed the confirm button that it would prick some Adobe fans.<br>

Two good examples: The "catalogue" based filing system instead of a Windows or Finder based system, and the .psd file type used unless you specify an open one like tiff or jpeg.<br>

It doesnt affect me because I have to output all my commercial files as tiffs, so I avoid this problem. I hate proprietary systems and lived with the problem for 30 years in my IT career. </p>

<p>To have the confidence to charge full freight for your work and reject requests for freebies, your work has to be significantly superior to the pro-am photographer masses. This can be made easier by presenting the finished images on fine art paper etc.<br>

If one looks at the recognised portrait, landscape and wedding photographers, one will see that they always try to make their finished product look like no one else could do the same. Thats easier than you think. Its better to sell one print from a limited production (say, 50) for $300 than to pich your image at $50.<br>

I was at a function earlier this year for one of our most successful landscape photographers. I asked him whether it was difficult to sell his iconic panorama images for the high prices he demanded. He said that it was easier to sell one, framed, for $1200, than it was to sell the same image, on inferior paper, unframed, for $300. High price brings with it a perception of exclusivity and quality. He also said that he could name three photographers out here who made better images than he did. Its all in the perceptions.</p>

<p>I wonder how long it will take Nikon and Canon to start using open DNG as their RAW file format? I see that Leica have gone that route with its RAW files.<br>

I guess an important step got me in the workflow would be to archive the RAW file as it comes out of the camera and then work on a copy in NX2 and then LR3.<br>

My only caveat I have with relying on a 100% Adobe solution is the fact that Adobe is likes to use file formats to make you more dependent on their solution. And this goes to the way they organise image files which can't be found using Windows Explorer or the Finder. And this is true of all their products.<br>

I worked for an Adobe Enterprise Software partner and though their solutions were elegant, one had to go along with their proprietary filing formats and structures.</p>

<p>The appeal of shooting RAW for me is the fact that I'm not asking the camera to do any processing, but having that done in LR3.<br>

To streamline workflow, I was hoping to be able to save a set of adjustments like a template and apply them to categories such as sports and landscapes. The crucial thing for me is to batch process. The other requirements is that lots of the stock agencies require a set of given adjustments and a certain minimum tiff file size. These requirements are for work. For my own purposes I would do a lot more or differently.<br>

Its looking like I will allow LR3 to do it all.</p>

<p>100% agree. And this is my dilema. I will be getting LR3 anyway, so perhaps I should start there, and if their seems to be a need, then use NX2 which I already have. I probably would not be skilled enough at post processing to detect a difference anyway.<br>

The simplification to the workflow of just using LR3 is a strong argument.<br>

The other ponderable is that I also shoot a lot of film, so scanning it and exporting the tiff's into LR3 would be simple, I'd imagine.</p>

<p>I know this topic has been touched on before, but I have a specific couple of questions.<br>

I am about to purchase a D700 and I am contemplating which raw converter to use in the initial workflow.<br>

Would I be better to use LR3 for everything...raw conversion and then editing and archiving, or would it be better to use NX2 JUST for the raw conversion, and export the files to LR3 as tiff's to complete the editing etc? (is this the correct workflow for this possible solution?). <br>

Technically, what would I gain or lose by doing this? I really want to use LR3 for workflow, but there are so many comments that NX2 works better for raw conversion as it understands the NEF file format better. Some say that the engine in LR3 is as good now for converting NEF files.<br>

Please don't conplicate the responses by suggesting some other favourite raw converter instead. Getting my head around the complexities of digital post processing workflow is tough enough for this old film shooter.</p>

<p>I think you are right, Dave. With all the hype about the D7000 smoking everything except a D3x for resolution, its nice to read a pretty objective review. High ISO performance is not everything. I was tempted by the U1 and U2 hard switches for different shooting modes, though. But its not brilliant enough for me to reconsider my decision to move up to FX.<br>

I liked the D300 and to me I can put up with the same plethora of menu's on the D700. After all, I took the time to do the 4 way setup that Nikonians provide. </p>

<p>The four core manual lenses I used in film were the 105/2.5, 50/1.8, 35/2 and 28/2.8. My decision to sell my D300 and buy a D700 was to 1. go FX and 2. get the best FX sensor platform I can afford under $2k, used and 3. have a platform where my older manual lenses will have another life. I'll never buy new. Someone else can cop the depreciation.<br>

Right now, the answer to all three questions is the D700. That may not be the case in a years time, but right now, as it is in the D3, its the best FX sensor from Nikon for the price. I genuinely want to play with all my lenses and as I am relatively new to digital, my skills will not challenge the camera or the lenses I have.<br>

On the D300, way and above all other lenses that I had and used on it, the Tokina ATX Pro 11-16/2.8 was probably the only modern lens that I really liked and it was terrific on the D300.<br>

So I am looking for a similar lens for the D700 that costs between $500-800. I thought the 20/2.8 AF-D (or earlier manual versions) might have served the purpose and saved me some money. Now I'm not so sure.<br>

I think whats been discussed in this thread has been valuable as there is no recommendation better than feedback from actual users. </p>

<p>"Cheaper" in what context?<br>

If you have an excellent body, Canon or Nikon, the resolving power of the sensor will show up the shortcomings in even some pro lenses, let alone the consumer lenses. You will think somethiongs wrong when you look at larger prints.<br>

The 50 and 85 will certainly compliment the 5D, but stepping up to FX in Canon brings with it caveats...so decide after doing the research.</p>

<p>If one waits for the best, there will always be one better. I had a D300 and sold it only because of the finder and DX issues with all my old film lenses.<br>

The jump to FX for me is a step back to what I like about Nikons F film models. The D700 will satisfy me and at less than $2k used, thats a lot of camera for the money. I was also tempted to go to $3k and get a used D3, but it would be too big for me.<br>

That $1k difference buys me a good landscape lens and I considering the alternatives there.</p>

<p>Both Ken and Bjorns sites talk about the history of the 20mm. There was some concensus that the sharpest AI version could be the f3.5 or f4. Both these are for sale on Adoramas site. Ken is of the opinion that the later 2.8's are realistically as good, but to choose and test first as there were some variations in manufacturing quality.<br>

Michael R also is testing a 20/2.8 AFD at the moment to see if it holds up to the 17-35/2.8 zooms. Obviously there are a number of D700 shooters who want a good prime at the 20mm point, but who don't want the 14-24 because of cost and risk of damage to the huge front element. Perhaps one should consider the 21mm or 19mmm Zeiss, but they are also very costly. <br>

Shun might comment that the D700 sensor is showing up the deficiencies of older Nikkors that were not apparent till now? I know this is the case with the Canon FX models. It also may be why Nikon is releasing new 1.4 primes ahead of the D700 replacement. There is certainly a body of thought that considers lens performance more critical with these new FX sensors.<br>

I am getting a used D700 myself next week and I have fast AIs nd AFD's lenses from my film days. I was also thinking of buying a 2.8 AF D. Now I'm nervous. I haven't made a lens choice mistake before. I have the 18-35/3.5 which Ken gives a gong to, so I might wait and see what results that lens gives before I make a decision on a prime. </p>

<p>Can I summarise all this for you Liz?<br>

The answer is yes, and very cheaply. There are '000's of manual Nikon lenses out there in all focal lengths that will fit your FM2. The new ones will too with some caveats. You can get a 35mm f2 or a 50mm f1.8 lens that is ideal for low light, for as little as $100. Anything faster than f2 will be fine for low light with the right film. And for heavens sake, don't get all depressed and sell the FM2...they are an appreciating commodity second hand. So that takes care of the hardware.<br>

You will find some stocks of 800 and 1600 ISO colour negative (for prints) around, and colour slide film to 400 ISO, but if you do need higher ISO's to avoid flash, you will be happy with more plentiful B&W film up to ISO 3200.<br>

Which ever film you choose, Costco will develop your film and give you your shots back in hi resolution on a CD/DVD. And bingo, there's your post processing done for you. </p>

<p>Yes, Shun. Three weeks till I get my D700.<br>

I'm spoilt by the finder in the F4s.</p>