My first wedding (pics)

Yestersday was my first wedding as main photographer, shooting with my new D80. My assistant, my girl friend, was shooting with my "old" D70.

To be honnest, it will be my last wedding: a lot of stress, everything happens so quickly, and it was hard on my (human) body after almost 12 hours of shooting... Maybe I had too much expectations from my pictures.

I am not a "happy tigger", as I never take more than 100-150 photos per days for a hiking day, for example. But I was litterally shocked that we took as high as 900 photos (thanks to my laptop and DVD to empty my two 1 GB cards, after the ceremony).

After using my new D80 for 12 hours consecutively, I can say it's a PURE JOY to use. When switching with my D70 for a couple of shots, I felt it was a really old camera. The shutter lag of the D70 felt slower, and the LCD and viewfinder felt so tiny.

I used 18-70mm kit lens, 50mm 1.8, 80-200 2.8 and SB-600. I used the SB-600 for ALL indoor shots, and my flash batteries lasted all the day.

I made a better bounce card ( http://www.abetterbouncecard.com ), and IT'S A MUST. The light was soft, without hard shadow, even inside the high ceiling church. And it cost me a big 1$ for foamy paper.

I provide some of the shots from the wedding, no PP:

D80, 50mm, ISO 400.



D80, 80-200mm, F3.2, ISO 100.



D80, 50mm, F2.8, ISO 400.



D80, 50mm, F2.8, ISO 800.



D80, 18-70, F5.6, ISO 100.



D70, 18-70, F8, ISO 200.



D80, 80-200, F4, ISO 400.



Hope you liked it, comments are welcome!

like the 4th picture,,hope next time a little bit wider lens,,great job

Thank you for your comment. I do have some pics with wider lens.

Great pics. Love the car shot.

Nice to hear your comments too about the D80. I am a D70 owner & in the process of upgrading so your positive comments about the camera put a nice big smile on my face.

well done!

http://www.adrianjonesphotography.co.uk

My first DSLR was a D100 in 2002 then I added a D70 and this spring a D70s. Friday I got my D80 and after using it for basically test shots and such, I can say that feels and handles very nice. I like the control layout better than the others. It jsut seems easier and more logical to use. I have big hands with somewhat fat fingers and it works well for me. It could be a bit wider but it still feels good to me. Also, I have no problem with the "feel" of the plastic as it seems sollid enough. That viewfinder is a joy to behold after using the others and the larger monitor is actually usable.

In addition, I am a RAW shooter mostly. I have been shooting RAW since the second year of my D100. But since ACR dosn't accept NEFs from the D80, yet, I have been shooting JPEG and with WB on "A". Very nice pictures.

dave

I like the one with the bride walking down the aisle. Was that with a flash?
The overhead with the car was good, the last with the steps is nice too.

Interesting church - where is that?

--
Mike
D5O
http://www.pbase.com/mike_weber

The first pic you might want to brighten it up a bit in PS, before showing to the bride~ look a little underexpose in my LCD..

I like the picture of the church! really nice church btw!
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D50 + 18-70mm +85mm f1.8+ SB800

Great work! Im sure the bride and groom were happy with the shots.

Good shots. I think you'll have to do a few weddings to get the hang of it and truly enjoy them.

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N I K O N - D 2 X - D 7 0 s . S B - 6 0 0
18-70mm f/3.5 DX, 55-200mm f/4 DX
24--120mm VR
18--200mm VR - pending...
50mm f/1.8 DX, 105mm f/2.5
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it's not all about the sharpness...

nice job! for 12 hours you only took 900 photos? I'm sure you could take more than that.
--
Ryan
I got the best of both worlds...

You did a fine job, perhaps the stress comes from the 12 hours and 900 shots.

I shoot weddings and try to keep my time there to less than 7 hours, since I shoot film my shot count is not as high as yours, I have several wedding packages beginning with a 4 roll wedding and the most popular is the 5 rolls, so do the math 5x36=180 shots.

The albums in the package are either a [12 8x10] or [24 8x10] plus the 5x7 albums are repeats of the bigger one, so out of those 180 shots I make sure the formal shots for the albums are covered and the rest is the krap they requested, like pictures with aunt Betsy and grandma, the majority of those pictures don’t sell.

Once there was a coworker getting married and on a tight budget, I did not wanted to do the wedding because of the $$$ issue, to get out of doing it I told her the only way I would shoot it was if she let me do it with 3 rolls, she agreed and I had no problem getting the required pictures in 108 shots.

In November I have a freebie wedding of a family member and planning on using my D80 and see how it goes with digital, can’t see myself chasing people to get more than 200 pictures.

This coming Friday my daughter is getting married and I was told not to bring any camera, the official photographer already bragged to her that he will be shooting in excess of 1000 pictures.

or in jpeg? BTW, nice work, but I would crop the first one to remove some empty chairs.

Lee

Mike Weber said:

I like the one with the bride walking down the aisle. Was that
with a flash?

Click to expand...

Yes with SB600 and better bounce card!

Mike Weber said:

The overhead with the car was good, the last with the steps is nice
too.

Interesting church - where is that?

Click to expand...

This cathedral is located in the south shore of Montreal. Here is a wide angle picture (ISO 1600 hand held):

Mike Weber said:

--
Mike
D5O
http://www.pbase.com/mike_weber

Click to expand...

Usually, I shoot in RAW with my D70. I really like the freedom and final results this format gives me (I am using Raw Shooter mainly).

But for this wedding event, I wanted to make it simple and to reduce PP as most as possible. Also, my two 1 GB cards would have been full a lot sooner!

You did fine, and next time you will do better. Remember you are your worst critic. So the wedding pic will generally look better to someone else. So far I have done two weddings in the past two months. I enjoyed them and so far I have never taken over 400 pic's at one. And a lot of them were double takes to compensate for closed eyes and goofy faces. I don’t know why people can’t keep a straight face and keep there eyes open for group shots. My biggest problem with weddings is my back. Boy it hurts after standing for 4 hours. But my rig is a little heavier then yours. I use the D70, CB junior flash bracket, Sb-800 with sync cord and homemade reflector mounted on top. Gets heavy after a while. May be upgrading to the D200. But the D80 size and weight is one thing I like the most about this camera.

Mark

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Church Event Photographer

Full time auto tech, part time photographer. Just wished it were the other way around. Mark Thompson/MTT
Louisville, KY. USA

http://mtt.smugmug.com/