Reluctant Wedding Photographer

In article , ChrisM
wrote:

Maybe we are talking at cross-purposes... Do 'formals' include shots of the
bride and groom?
If so, HOW can you take them BEFORE the ceremony? It's traditionally
supposed to be bad luck for the groom to see the bride before they meet in
the church!

Taking the formals afterwards results in the bride and groom looking
haggard. You are rushed...people are in a hurry to get to the reception
to get drunk (and possibly laid). It's not a situation conducive to
quality photography.

You explain to the bride & groom when you are booking the wedding that
the day should be spent with their friends and relatives, not being
constantly hassled by a professional photographer. By taking the
formals before the ceremony, they can have fun with their guests and be
only briefly interrupted for cake/toasting pics (which they'd be doing
anyway).

If you explain it properly, it's not a problem. I did it for many years.

In article , George Kerby
wrote:

The formals are ALWAYS taken after the ceremony, Mr. Wedding Photographer.

That way all the drunks can move on to the party while the family and
entourage will not be distracted. The resulting images are the best...

Obviously, you don't do wedding photography for a living.

On 11/7/07 10:21 AM, in article , "Juan Moore
Beer" wrote:


As far as shooting in RAW. Its a great idea but if you do you will need
about twice as many mem cards as you thought you would. Also, you will need
to go thru every shot and convert them. If you work in RAW, then you know
what your doing. If you've never worked in RAW before, now is not the time
to find out.

Of all the great advise I have received, the RAW issue is one I can not
get my head around, and one of the only concrete issues the group seems to
be somewhat divided over.

I am currently using an option to shoot in RAW and Jpeg, but do not yet
fully understand the pros and cons.

I understand the memory issue to some extent, but are the any other
critical issues that may make it wise for a beginner to avoid RAW for an
important event?

__________________________________________________ ______________________*
: the next generation of web-newsreaders : http://www.recgroups.com

In a nutshell: RAW will save your ass if you get it in a crack.
JPEG is ok if you never make a mistake.
I use both.
If you can, do so.
Get another card if space is an issue.
You're welcome.

On 11/7/07 9:15 AM, in article
, "Cynicor"
wrote:

George Kerby wrote:
"Cynicor" wrote:
Mr. Strat wrote:
My recommendation would be the old master of weddings, Monte Zucker.
But if a person learns the basics of professional portraiture, the
principles are the same.
That would be a great recommendation had Zucker not DIED earlier this
year. Don't you read newspapers?
LOL!

This is all the recognition I ever wanted. Thank you, George!
Even MORE than the 192 dollar bills? I'm flattered!

Image quality and not memory storage cards should be your primary
consideration.
If you use raw you are the processor, not the camera.
Using raw gives you access to all the data captured by the sensor.
A jpeg is an irreversibly truncated version of that data. That may yield
acceptable results but they are far from the best or even optimal image that
can be coaxed from the data.
Is a drugstore machine print the best that can be got out of a negative?
If you do not understand how to process raw images then it would not be
disastrous to do an important shoot in raw but you would have to come up to
speed about raw image processing rapidly.
If your camera allows simultaneous raw and jpeg capture that would be good
way to start.

On 11/7/07 11:31 AM, in article ,
"Mr. Strat" wrote:

In article , George Kerby
wrote:

The formals are ALWAYS taken after the ceremony, Mr. Wedding Photographer.

That way all the drunks can move on to the party while the family and
entourage will not be distracted. The resulting images are the best...

Obviously, you don't do wedding photography for a living.
Obviously you have never done many if you do the formals before the
ceremony. That violates every known rule about the bride and groom on the
wedding day. So you are talking out of your ass.

As far as the snide comment about how I make a living, you are right. I
wouldn't be here today if I had to put up with crap again. I stay away from
that and portraiture. My bread n' butter is catalogue, architecture,
commercial and industrial as well as candid event work.

Weddings require Prozac cocktails beforehand.

In article , George Kerby
wrote:

Obviously you have never done many if you do the formals before the
ceremony. That violates every known rule about the bride and groom on the
wedding day. So you are talking out of your ass.

As far as the snide comment about how I make a living, you are right. I
wouldn't be here today if I had to put up with crap again. I stay away from
that and portraiture. My bread n' butter is catalogue, architecture,
commercial and industrial as well as candid event work.

Before closing the studio, I photographed somewhere in the ballpark of
600-700 weddings. In the early days, I'd do the formals whenever. I
later learned that the people look like crap if you do them afterwards,
and it's too much work to round people up when they're in a hurry to
party.

It's better for you...better for the bride & groom...better for all
involved...and the photographs look much better. You might want to take
some professional wedding seminars to see how it's done by people who
make a living at it.

"Juan Moore Beer" wrote:

As far as shooting in RAW. Its a great idea but if you do you will need
about twice as many mem cards as you thought you would. Also, you will need
to go thru every shot and convert them. If you work in RAW, then you know
what your doing. If you've never worked in RAW before, now is not the time
to find out.

Of all the great advise I have received, the RAW issue is one I can not
get my head around, and one of the only concrete issues the group seems to
be somewhat divided over.

Heh, this group is divided over *everything*. :-)

I am currently using an option to shoot in RAW and Jpeg, but do not yet
fully understand the pros and cons.

I understand the memory issue to some extent, but are the any other
critical issues that may make it wise for a beginner to avoid RAW for an
important event?

The "memory issue" is simple: RAW takes up 4-6 times as
much, so the advice above was probably way too
conservative regarding how many "mem cards" you need!

I disagree on whether now is the time to learn RAW or
not. With JPEG, not with RAW, you need to know exactly
what you are doing when you shoot the image. That *is*
the issue with shooting JPEG only! You either get it
right, in the camera, or there is very little that can
be done about it later. That applies to all but the
simplest of "corrections" that are accomplished in
software.

When you shoot JPEG only, the exact same corrections are
done, but you choose what they are from the menu provide
by the camera's software, and then you throw away the
original data used to generate the results! You cannot
learn more about it later and redo the images from the
same data. You cannot realize that a different setting
would have been better, and correct for it. etc etc
etc.

If you shoot RAW (and even better of you do RAW+JPEG)
you can know very very little about post processing when
you make the exposures, and come back six months or 5
years later and, with new knowledge or new software,
potentially do a *much* better job of post processing.

There are three downsides, only one of which should
actually affect a one time only attempt at wedding
photography.

First, post processing does take lots of time. If this
is a one off job, you won't make money at it. I assume
that is not the reason for doing it, so it just doesn't
make any difference at all.

Second, the actual process of shooting can also be
slowed down. It takes time and a large memory buffer in
the camera to shoot rapid fire, and you will hit the
limit much quicker shooting RAW as opposed to JPEG only.
But weddings are not exactly fast moving sporting
events, so that probably is not an issue. Just make
sure that as significant points approach you do not
shoot too many shots too fast leading into it, or just
at the moments where the new spouses kiss, your camera
will refuse to take another exposure for 15 seconds, by
which time of course they have probably quit.

The one remaining issue, which as was noted above
actually is significant, is the number of memory cards
you'll need to hold a few hundred shots. One possible
way to avoid trouble if you have only two or three cards
is to set up your laptops someplace where you can swap
cards between the laptop and the camera, one clearing
and the other filling. Otherwise, buy lots of cards.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/floyd_davidson
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

On Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:05:14 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

will refuse to take another exposure for 15 seconds, by
which time of course they have probably quit.

Wow, 15 seconds between RAW frames? My 6MP P&S camera will do a RAW + full-size
JPG frame every 1.2 seconds, unlimited at that speed up to the space of the
card.

Interesting.

Sorry for the interrupt, the other advice is good, I was just astounded by
something I had read.

P&Ser wrote:
On Wed, 07 Nov 2007 13:05:14 -0900, (Floyd L. Davidson) wrote:

will refuse to take another exposure for 15 seconds, by
which time of course they have probably quit.

Wow, 15 seconds between RAW frames? My 6MP P&S camera will do a RAW + full-size
JPG frame every 1.2 seconds, unlimited at that speed up to the space of the
card.

Interesting.

Sorry for the interrupt, the other advice is good, I was just astounded by
something I had read.

I assume that the OP meant that would occur for a camera
once the buffer was full - after shooting x number of frames
at whatever maximum burst speed the camera would shoot at.
15 seconds to write that to the card seems long - so perhaps
he's talking about a real old model, but even then most old
model dslrs a few years old will shoot perhaps half a dozen
raw images at 3 frames per second before the buffer is full,
then slow down to the speed that data can be written to the
card, which is probably closer to a frame a second than a
frame every 15 seconds.