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I shot my first wedding ever with a 3 day old D90. How it went:
- Thread starter dipiteee
- Start date
Peter Gabriel
Leading Member
Nice job, with some great shots of the preperation as well as the glamour.
Pic 3 seems to be out of focus though.
Beautiful bride.
--
Take a look at my pictures...
http://www.petergabriel.dk
My kit as of now: Nikon D90, SB-600, 50mm f/1.8 and Nikon 16-85mm 4.5-5.6 VRII
IF DX
Pic 3 seems to be out of focus though.
Beautiful bride.
--
Take a look at my pictures...
http://www.petergabriel.dk
My kit as of now: Nikon D90, SB-600, 50mm f/1.8 and Nikon 16-85mm 4.5-5.6 VRII
IF DX
Jody Leonard
Leading Member
I am so glad you had the nerve to post your photos.
I also shot a wedding for someone, that was actually just an aquaintance...so I charged them, even though I am more an amature at this point. I shot it with a D50 w/ an SB400 flash.
Like one poster said, not all brides are bridezillas. She was very pleased with the results and gladly paid my $250 fee.
I clicked "slideshow" on 240 keepers and added 4 songs and slapped it on a DVD. She liked it so much, the ordered 25 DVDs at $5 each. Took about 2 hours and cost me $6 in blank disks. I also made a disc of all photos at full res for her. In all, she got nice photos of her wedding at a good price and can print to her heart's desire with a musical slideshow that brought her to tears.
My point is, not everyone can afford a $1,500 pro photographer, and will gladly PAY someone to take good shots with a DSLR who at least knows enough to get the good shots that Uncle Pete would miss.
My endeavor helped pay for my new D90 w/ SB600 flash. After using it 3 days, my D50 would have been left in the trunk also, if I had it for the wedding like you did.
In the end, I spent about 16 hours of my time (10 hrs shooting, 4 hours PP and 2 hrs for the DVDs) to make $350. Low pay but it was part of my self-education. Weddings are VERY hard work. One must be quick and confident. I was sweating bullets but the experience paid off and my next one will be much better.
A special thanks to you pros with the good CC. You are what makes this forum more educational than any book ever written! But it is getting your feet wet with experience that one truly learns from.
Jody
I also shot a wedding for someone, that was actually just an aquaintance...so I charged them, even though I am more an amature at this point. I shot it with a D50 w/ an SB400 flash.
Like one poster said, not all brides are bridezillas. She was very pleased with the results and gladly paid my $250 fee.
I clicked "slideshow" on 240 keepers and added 4 songs and slapped it on a DVD. She liked it so much, the ordered 25 DVDs at $5 each. Took about 2 hours and cost me $6 in blank disks. I also made a disc of all photos at full res for her. In all, she got nice photos of her wedding at a good price and can print to her heart's desire with a musical slideshow that brought her to tears.
My point is, not everyone can afford a $1,500 pro photographer, and will gladly PAY someone to take good shots with a DSLR who at least knows enough to get the good shots that Uncle Pete would miss.
My endeavor helped pay for my new D90 w/ SB600 flash. After using it 3 days, my D50 would have been left in the trunk also, if I had it for the wedding like you did.
In the end, I spent about 16 hours of my time (10 hrs shooting, 4 hours PP and 2 hrs for the DVDs) to make $350. Low pay but it was part of my self-education. Weddings are VERY hard work. One must be quick and confident. I was sweating bullets but the experience paid off and my next one will be much better.
A special thanks to you pros with the good CC. You are what makes this forum more educational than any book ever written! But it is getting your feet wet with experience that one truly learns from.
Jody
Gary, thanks for taking the time to go through the pictures and give good criticism. Anyone wanting to take wedding pictures will need a certain amount of technique, ideas, vision and down to earth readiness. It's important to know your flash and know when to use a tripod.
One place I sort of disagree is in how important these pictures are going to be. Some people are simply not interested in standard pictures in an album anymore. Personally, I don't have any pictures from my wedding day (at the city hall).
And as I said in a previous post, I was asked to shoot candids at a friend's wedding. I am soooo glad there was a pro to do the formals and group shots. I DID shoot during the outdoor ceremony and got TONS more shots than the pro who was using 35mm and medium format film.
I Know they were very happy with my pictures and implied that I might have done a better job. I don't kid myself- because I didn't have to do the special shots leaving me be free to wander. So my pictures were nice add ons I would say.
But during my wanderings, I stumbled on an idea that is extremely foreign to us camera nerds. Pictures don't have to be sharp or even in focus. Case in point: The couple had lots of enlargements on their walls that were simply out of focus P&S snapshots! Here I am, debating a couple of shutter speed or aperture settings to try to get a better ISO or a wider DOF, etc etc etc, and ALL they care about is having some lousy snapshots on their wall!
I know, I know, they weren't lousy because the subjects were the people they loved. The pictures were simply ways to remember the people and places of their lives.
Even here were I am, I scan the walls and see no photos. The only ones are stuck to the fridge in the next room. There's just a smattering of random pictures with tattered edges. A childhood pic of me, some class pictures, of our sons, and a picture of us on an outing with some friends and their son- who died of cancer at five years old. Hmmm, it's strange to think how pictures, though easier and easier to snap, become used less and less. They take on a different meaning to the younger generations.
Which brings me back to that wedding I shot, .... The groom just recently died of cancer 2 years after the wedding. And my pictures from that day, have suddenly taken on a new and different meaning.
Guy Moscoso
One place I sort of disagree is in how important these pictures are going to be. Some people are simply not interested in standard pictures in an album anymore. Personally, I don't have any pictures from my wedding day (at the city hall).
And as I said in a previous post, I was asked to shoot candids at a friend's wedding. I am soooo glad there was a pro to do the formals and group shots. I DID shoot during the outdoor ceremony and got TONS more shots than the pro who was using 35mm and medium format film.
I Know they were very happy with my pictures and implied that I might have done a better job. I don't kid myself- because I didn't have to do the special shots leaving me be free to wander. So my pictures were nice add ons I would say.
But during my wanderings, I stumbled on an idea that is extremely foreign to us camera nerds. Pictures don't have to be sharp or even in focus. Case in point: The couple had lots of enlargements on their walls that were simply out of focus P&S snapshots! Here I am, debating a couple of shutter speed or aperture settings to try to get a better ISO or a wider DOF, etc etc etc, and ALL they care about is having some lousy snapshots on their wall!
I know, I know, they weren't lousy because the subjects were the people they loved. The pictures were simply ways to remember the people and places of their lives.
Even here were I am, I scan the walls and see no photos. The only ones are stuck to the fridge in the next room. There's just a smattering of random pictures with tattered edges. A childhood pic of me, some class pictures, of our sons, and a picture of us on an outing with some friends and their son- who died of cancer at five years old. Hmmm, it's strange to think how pictures, though easier and easier to snap, become used less and less. They take on a different meaning to the younger generations.
Which brings me back to that wedding I shot, .... The groom just recently died of cancer 2 years after the wedding. And my pictures from that day, have suddenly taken on a new and different meaning.
Guy Moscoso
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
the weddings i did were for my wife's very best friend, and my brother. neither of which i could no to even if i wanted to. long enough ago that i shot them with kodacolor print film. they came out ok. i was using 2 flashes both not linked to the camera. you set the fstop and shutter to 1/60sec(that was sync speed) and the flash supplied the light. i was running out of flash battery evry 50 shots, so i had to keep the flashes plugged into a wall outlet for charging all the time. what fun.
the point i wish to make and did make in my previous post is simple. you the pro wedding phtog cannot control the use the customer is going to make of your efforts. you do. if they, the b&g, want to line the bottom of birdcages with you 8x10 wedding pics fine there is nothing you can do about that. BUT you cannot assume they will make a casual use. 5 yrs from the wedding they may take all the shots and make 20x30s with them. the idea is that the quality HAS TO BE THERE. for any use the customer wants. if the use is casual then you end up putting the work into the pics that will never be used or appreciated. only you will know how very good the pics are. but after the wedding the b&g say to you they want large enlargements of 16x20 and 20x30 and the quality is not there because you didnot put it there. what are going to do? the only thing left is to tell them no because the work is not good enough. and this after they paid $2-3000. i do not think that it will go over well. not to mention what happens if they tell other people of the the photog's quality level and work output? you just saw your photo wedding business go down the drain.
this precisely why i said the weddings shot have to be of the max quality by you. and there is not an excuse good enough to tell the customer that it is not. they are not interested. they want that 20x30 and do not want to know why it cannot be made. even if the photo is of the stupidest scene imagenable, does not matter.
as i said in my above reply this is not fun, it is for the money, the payoff. the wedding photog has to deliver the goods. which is also why they charge the high prices. they do. the customer is paying for the expertise and absolute wedding dependability if the taking of good shots and they are taken no matter what. the wedding photog's future busines depends on this being true.
for myself, i got out of weddings. not because i could not technically do the work, but because i got into photography 38yrs ago with my first slr because it was a hobby and fun. wedding photgraphy is anything but fun. if i kept going in wedding i would get an ulcer. no thanks.
if there ios is one item i wish i could get into the brains of any woulkd be wedding photogs it is that wedding are not fun. it is serious. and it is a business.
eddyshoots
Veteran Member
One little addition:
Look at "dragging the shutter"
On indoor flash images where you are finding the subjects are washed out (direct on camera flash) but the backgrounds are dark or black you can take a long exposure. The flash will freeze your subjects and the long exposure will allow the background to "burn" in.
eddyshoots
Look at "dragging the shutter"
On indoor flash images where you are finding the subjects are washed out (direct on camera flash) but the backgrounds are dark or black you can take a long exposure. The flash will freeze your subjects and the long exposure will allow the background to "burn" in.
eddyshoots
Gary,
Very true. It's a business and if anyone has ANY intentions of turning their photography into a business then eveything you say is true. The grey area comes when the "do it for a friend" situation comes. That's when you gotta know your limits and know how to communicate that to your friends. I think almost everyone on these forums is going to (or have been asked) to shoot a wedding.
I play music for weddings. And exactly the same thing happens in our branch. As a pro, I know what I can play and what I can't/won't play. We communicate that to the customers. Once signed for the date, the customer won't know that I blew the tweeters on the left side speaker or I forgot a cable or we couldn't find the special version of the special request song. We have backups to all gear and can fix situational problems on the fly.
A similar thing happens in the music branch when they ask little johnny or the best man to play/sing/ or do a song. Most often it is terrible in comparison to what WE as pros do, but I do understand that the expectations are TOTALLY different. The memories of Johhny and his his flut-o-phone (recorder) will become a cherished memory even though it was terrible.
That's where, if you can shoot a friend's wedding with the B&G's expecting something akin to little Johnny's fluto-p-hone then you are in a great postion. If you go into it trying to replace a pro then you are betting against yourself.
Warnings by concerned members of this forum are welcome and important. Nobody here shooting a friend's wedding will be able to say they weren't warned. I think the OP was up front with her abilities and had her backup in the bag. And she got good advice on the pros and cons of it all. And despite some of the heated discussions it seemed to come out fine based on the B&G's expectations.
No bedding for tweetybird created here.
Guy Moscoso
Very true. It's a business and if anyone has ANY intentions of turning their photography into a business then eveything you say is true. The grey area comes when the "do it for a friend" situation comes. That's when you gotta know your limits and know how to communicate that to your friends. I think almost everyone on these forums is going to (or have been asked) to shoot a wedding.
I play music for weddings. And exactly the same thing happens in our branch. As a pro, I know what I can play and what I can't/won't play. We communicate that to the customers. Once signed for the date, the customer won't know that I blew the tweeters on the left side speaker or I forgot a cable or we couldn't find the special version of the special request song. We have backups to all gear and can fix situational problems on the fly.
A similar thing happens in the music branch when they ask little johnny or the best man to play/sing/ or do a song. Most often it is terrible in comparison to what WE as pros do, but I do understand that the expectations are TOTALLY different. The memories of Johhny and his his flut-o-phone (recorder) will become a cherished memory even though it was terrible.
That's where, if you can shoot a friend's wedding with the B&G's expecting something akin to little Johnny's fluto-p-hone then you are in a great postion. If you go into it trying to replace a pro then you are betting against yourself.
Warnings by concerned members of this forum are welcome and important. Nobody here shooting a friend's wedding will be able to say they weren't warned. I think the OP was up front with her abilities and had her backup in the bag. And she got good advice on the pros and cons of it all. And despite some of the heated discussions it seemed to come out fine based on the B&G's expectations.
No bedding for tweetybird created here.
Guy Moscoso
For those that are interested in seeing a few more of my wedding shots with the D90... I've gotten around to uploading a few more. I know I definitely need to work on mastering the use of the external flash. I did not properly balance the ambient light with my subject/flash output in a lot of the SB-800 shots.
With that being said, I wish I had taken more images period at high ISO without a flash during the reception and ceremony. The natural lighting really turned out well and the D90 performs like a champ in low light. I guess I'm not used to that always working out so well, hence fewer attempts... Of course not all of my shots are keepers, but almost all of them are in focus, which I think is impressive given the lighting. Anyway, on with a few more photos. Many more can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dipiteee/sets/72157607406402949/ Thanks again for all of the feedback. This has been a tremendous learning experience for me.
With that being said, I wish I had taken more images period at high ISO without a flash during the reception and ceremony. The natural lighting really turned out well and the D90 performs like a champ in low light. I guess I'm not used to that always working out so well, hence fewer attempts... Of course not all of my shots are keepers, but almost all of them are in focus, which I think is impressive given the lighting. Anyway, on with a few more photos. Many more can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dipiteee/sets/72157607406402949/ Thanks again for all of the feedback. This has been a tremendous learning experience for me.
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
as i said earlier, the pics are not bad, pretty good in fact considering the short familarity time. the big problem is the nonuse of flash for fill in. the subject are just too dark.
i modified your #3 pic just abiove in pe6. when first opened the pic was heaviliy cropped, then note that the histogram was mostlym to the left and bunched there. this denotes an underexposed imaged. used auto levels(which upped the general brightness) auto contrast(which disd not do much if anything) then the lighting-shadows/highlights window. this window opened preset to a 25point shadow increase it made a big differnce, i upped this to 35points. this was followed by noise ninja which upon analying the image told me thast it was fairly noisey, used NN to fix. followed by focus magic(if focus magic is used then sharpening is not and vice versa. there are mutually exclusive; if boith are used you will get artifacts.
let me know what you think.
one of the first group's beach scenes. same as above shot but the shadow control was set to 40points and 11points of brightness added. NN determined that the image was not too noisy.
much, if not all of the dark subject/brightness difficulties could eleiminated with fill flash.
i modified your #3 pic just abiove in pe6. when first opened the pic was heaviliy cropped, then note that the histogram was mostlym to the left and bunched there. this denotes an underexposed imaged. used auto levels(which upped the general brightness) auto contrast(which disd not do much if anything) then the lighting-shadows/highlights window. this window opened preset to a 25point shadow increase it made a big differnce, i upped this to 35points. this was followed by noise ninja which upon analying the image told me thast it was fairly noisey, used NN to fix. followed by focus magic(if focus magic is used then sharpening is not and vice versa. there are mutually exclusive; if boith are used you will get artifacts.
let me know what you think.
one of the first group's beach scenes. same as above shot but the shadow control was set to 40points and 11points of brightness added. NN determined that the image was not too noisy.
much, if not all of the dark subject/brightness difficulties could eleiminated with fill flash.
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
the beach pic but with the 2 boats on the right horizon removed-
J
jkjond
Guest
Gary - your processing has improved the overall lighting - but seems to have introduced a new problem. Note the grass, trees and her dress in your first pic, and her dress again in the second. All definition has been lost.
Which step caused this? I'm assuming it is the noise reduction working on a low res sample image - though I don't know, I've never touched noise reduction.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leechypics/
Make your own mind up - there are no rules in this game.
Which step caused this? I'm assuming it is the noise reduction working on a low res sample image - though I don't know, I've never touched noise reduction.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/leechypics/
Make your own mind up - there are no rules in this game.
GaryDeM
Veteran Member
when i brought the images up in pe i noticed that the dress was not all that defined and did not get better or worse with pp or NN. i think the reason you are talking it about NOW is because you can see it a lot better due to the increased brightness. the whole problem could've been eliminated with fill flash. in the original pics the dress and the groom's tux, there is almost no lines all in his tux. the tux seems just a black solid sheet. and her dress is almost blurry. i do not believe it was blurry, there was just not enough light there to define it. the fill flash would have defined the cloth and shown the fabric a lot better. on my dslr all i have to do for fill flash is popup the flash and take the pic as usual. the fill is automatic. on his d90 i have no idea how to do it. i do not own nikon.
i have used NN on my own shots and it makes no differnce in definition. it should be noted that NN can be profiled to the exact camera that took the pics. so that NN is looking for the specific noise the YOUR camera makes, and not generic noise. obviously, this not true here. my dslr did not tak the shots. in that case the NN switches to a generic noise looking/reducing mode. this is what happens with my pentax optio S5i.
also when you increase the lighting so much you also increase the noise right along with it. this is the reason that you do your noise reduction at the end of pp just before shapening.
i have used NN on my own shots and it makes no differnce in definition. it should be noted that NN can be profiled to the exact camera that took the pics. so that NN is looking for the specific noise the YOUR camera makes, and not generic noise. obviously, this not true here. my dslr did not tak the shots. in that case the NN switches to a generic noise looking/reducing mode. this is what happens with my pentax optio S5i.
also when you increase the lighting so much you also increase the noise right along with it. this is the reason that you do your noise reduction at the end of pp just before shapening.
I heard a rule of thumb somewhere on these forums: The dress is more important than the tux. You should shoot and avoid overblowing the dress and/or you should PP for the same result. Very few people will mention the tux but almost everyone ESPECIALLY the bride's mother will notice the dress. The dress is almost always bought whereas the tux is often rented. The emotional attachment is on the dress. And also the people who pay for the pictures are often the ones who paid for the dress.
Just some thoughts, there.
Guy Moscoso
Just some thoughts, there.
Guy Moscoso
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