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Home: Video University Forums: Digital Photography for Videographers:
My first wedding as photographer

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Postal Boy
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Jan 7, 2008, 3:09 PM

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My first wedding as photographer	Can't Post

It isn't anything fancy, but here was my first wedding as the photographer. It was pretty basic - no best man, no brides maides, no groomsmen, etc...so there are some family formals inside (it was way too windy outside, even though it was a pretty day), a 45 minute ceremony, and a 1.5 hour reception. The lighting was difficult because of the huge windows. If I exposed for indoors, then the windows were completely blown out. If I exposed for outdoors then the interior was completely dark. So, I used a flash bounced off of the ceiling. I would have liked to narrow the DOF so that outside was more blurred on a lot of them, but with the lighting I had to crank down the iris a lot, giving me pretty deep DOF.

Anyway,

Enjoy the view from Harpers Ferry...

http://postmavideo.com/clients/steer-carl/

-Postal

Sparky
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Jan 7, 2008, 4:51 PM

Post #2 of 37 (3255 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Very nice. I thought they came out quite good.

It was good to see a few of the formals taken at an angle of the fireplace as opposed to everything just dead center.

Are you making a change over to photography or just adding on to the current business?

Postal Boy
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Jan 7, 2008, 5:01 PM

Post #3 of 37 (3253 views)
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Re: [Sparky] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Well, if anyone around here wanted video I would do more of it. But they really don't - photography is more what they want. I am just getting started, but was amazed that I could get 160+ edited/finished proofs online within 3 days of the wedding, and have the album 70% designed within a week of the wedding.

With video I would almost be done capturing the raw footage by now Cool

I like the crispness of photo...the clarity and flexibility. I like the motion and storytelling of video. But to be honest, photography seems quite a bit easier to handle than videography, from equipment to venues. Granted, I had an easy first event. It was a fairly simple wedding.

I do have a question for you, though. I hang out in another forum or two as well, and people talk about prepping over 1000 images for the online gallery. I thought that 160+ was PLENTY for them to choose from. My wife mentioned that when she got married (first time) she had 50 images to choose from....(pre-digital)

I also tried hard to not do any "machine-gunning" and tried to "catch the moment" - not grab tons of moments to throw out. I ended up posting 167 out of about 650 images taken. How many do you end up taking at a wedding (mine was only about 4 hours start to finish)?

-Postal

Sparky
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Jan 7, 2008, 5:44 PM

Post #4 of 37 (3250 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I also tried hard to not do any "machine-gunning" and tried to "catch the moment" - not grab tons of moments to throw out. I ended up posting 167 out of about 650 images taken. How many do you end up taking at a wedding (mine was only about 4 hours start to finish)?

I shoot for 6 hours most of the time and there are two of us. After editing out the ones I don't like I end up with approximately 800 - 850. This figure is actually lower than it was 12 months ago. My target for '08 is going to be closer to 600 to 700. How many do we take? Probably about 1200+. We also shoot a lot of reception dancing when there's time.

One thing that really adds to the total ... I'm absolutely anal when it comes to altar formals. I will take four or five and my assistant will take three or more. I need to get more proficient.

I very rarely set my camera in anything other than single shot mode, but I do change over to a multi shot prior to the first kiss, exiting the church and other times that I know things are going to move fast (and I don't need flash).

I can come home after a wedding, download my images, edit the images I want to keep and make a backup file before going to bed. I can edit the images for exposure, contrast and white balance in one day - easy. I then make gallery files at 750x750 and upload.

Essentially I can have a DVD with their images in the mail and an on-line gallery/shopping cart prior to the end of the week. I love it.

I don't offer albums in my packages (actually don't have packages) because I like the way video was done. I hand them a DVD and I'm done. Now ... I do have albums and sell quite a few. The good thing here is that they usually just take my selection of photos and design and go with it, so I don't have to wait for them to get around to it.

I have one wedding to videotape this year and I only took it because I did her sister's wedding. I'm really hoping I can learn to say NO this year to anything other than our Basic Video Package which is an add-on to our photography package. I just want to be done with editing wedding videos.

Shadow
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Jan 7, 2008, 7:31 PM

Post #5 of 37 (3243 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I just flipped through a few of them but what I did see was very nice, especially for a first go.

Well done, I'm sure they'll be thrilled.

__________________________

Postal Boy
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Jan 7, 2008, 9:05 PM

Post #6 of 37 (3237 views)
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Re: [Sparky] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

What do you use for a shopping cart and online gallery, Sparky?

Sparky
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Jan 7, 2008, 10:10 PM

Post #7 of 37 (3229 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

What do you use for a shopping cart and online gallery, Sparky?

http://www.picturespro.com/pages/photography_shopping_cart/

Tim is extremely good at customer service. Anyone that knows me knows that I'm a computer idiot, so I really depended on him to help me get it setup.

Brackish
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Jan 7, 2008, 11:58 PM

Post #8 of 37 (3218 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I've heard it mentioned elsewhere that some pros
who are delivering 350-400 images get a reaction
from the client that the client thinks that 350-400
is "a lot" of images - the client is more
or less surprised they get that many.

I've also heard the pros say that over 1000 images for the client to
sort through is overwhelming to the client and causes
frustration.

The sense I get is that most pros are delivering about
1/3 of the images taken so that's in the ballpark for you, what
with the 160 delivered for 600 taken.

----------------------------------------------
"We'll always show up at the wedding with a gift bag for the bride. Inside we have these incredible fuzzy slippers in the teal of our branding."

(This post was edited by Brackish on Jan 8, 2008, 12:41 PM)

Postal Boy
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Jan 8, 2008, 10:45 AM

Post #9 of 37 (3194 views)
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Re: [Sparky] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I have the paypal virtual teller - where I can enter the information and bill a credit card, but I don't have the automated "business" stuff...It says it does have the option to just send the form with the billing information on it.

Do you just compile the order and send it to the lab manually?

-Mark - er...Postal

Sparky
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Jan 8, 2008, 11:15 AM

Post #10 of 37 (3191 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I don't remember all the options he has, but in my case the order comes to me, I prepare the files and ftp them to the lab. From there I have them drop shipped to the client.

This is after I receive a notice from them that they've selected the photos and another one that says I received a payment from Paypal. So far it's worked out fine.

rodovideo
Enthusiast

Jan 8, 2008, 11:55 AM

Post #11 of 37 (3190 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Very nice shots.... Now remind us all what camera(s), lenses, flash....
You could definitely get business from around here. One day... maybe this year, I'll attempt a wedding. Your use of bounce flash looked really good.

Thanks for posting
Mike R.

Look toward the Son, and you will not see the shadows

sample images from RODO PHOTO

Rodo Media BLOG

Postal Boy
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Jan 8, 2008, 12:38 PM

Post #12 of 37 (3176 views)
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Re: [rodovideo] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I use a Canon 30D with a 580EX speedlite flash for the ceremony and "candids".

The formals, well, I think I blinded people on the highway since I used the 580EX as the master (bounced off of the ceiling) and two 430EX flashes bounced off of the ceiling in different directions.

Outdoors the master flash wouldn't trigger the slaves (major problem with the Canon IR triggering system outdoors with bright light already present...need to get some radio controlled ones) so the images that worked out was just a straight on 580EX flash on the camera. All of the camera mounted flashes used "a better bounce card" ;) - a white piece of hobby foam that I put some velcro spots on to velcro it to my flashes (all my flashes have velcro attachment points on them for gobos, gels, etc...just slap what you want on and it sticks...when you take them off, the black velcro doesn't show up...)

Here is a raw edit (just shrunk) of the setup in the lounge...I think I need a wider lense Blush

RustyB
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Jan 8, 2008, 2:21 PM

Post #13 of 37 (3149 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Cool setup! That's more lighting than I see MOST wedding photographers use. I rarely see them use anything more than their camera-mounted flash. I think many use the trendy "photojournalism" buzzword as an excuse not to put any effort into the formals. Good job!

the People's Video Collective blog
wedding video and the means of production

Sparky
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Jan 8, 2008, 2:29 PM

Post #14 of 37 (3146 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Just curious ... when you're using that setup are your 420s on a manual setting or TTL?

Postal Boy
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Jan 8, 2008, 3:02 PM

Post #15 of 37 (3142 views)
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Re: [Sparky] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I use manual setting...and the master flash can control how much power they put out...I think they were at about 1/16 power.

Kenneth
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Jan 15, 2008, 3:00 AM

Post #16 of 37 (3005 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Very nice. Overall your composition is very good. I would say next time go for some more abstract images,especially with the details, like the place settings, cake, etc.

It's clear you took most of them from a standing position. The one thing that I notice that clients like is when photographers shoot from bizarre angles, like down on the floor or from a 2nd story window.

http://www.photoreflect.com/...08S000249&po=249
......................................................................
Philadelphia Wedding Video
The Kenneth Stillman Blog
Philadelphia Trash the Dress

Postal Boy
Veteran

Jan 15, 2008, 9:03 AM

Post #17 of 37 (2998 views)
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Re: [Kenneth] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

True...it was a very small venue (the one small, long room) with about 40 guests total. They did the ceremony and reception in that room. The lobby of the hotel is where the "formals" were taken. I have noticed, though, with proof prints, the copies I have adjusted are a little bit "flat", but a bump in saturation, focusing on the skin tones, has fixed that. Something for me to keep a closer eye on in the future. I will keep looking at "out of the box" types of thinking, with different angles and so forth.

Kenneth
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Jan 15, 2008, 9:21 AM

Post #18 of 37 (2996 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

From talking to photographers I can tell you that some of the photographers will do a fake depth of field by blurring the background slightly.

The photographer that took the picture in that link gave me a great tip and she called it the beauty blur. You can do this one time and record it as in action in Photoshop and then do it to any picture you want with a single click.

Dupilcate your layer. The top layer do a gaussian blur of 6-7 pixels, Then drop the opacity down to 30-35 %. TADA! THeir skin is now softer and they have slight halo around them.
......................................................................
Philadelphia Wedding Video
The Kenneth Stillman Blog
Philadelphia Trash the Dress

RustyB
Veteran

Jan 15, 2008, 10:37 AM

Post #19 of 37 (2990 views)
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Re: [Kenneth] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

....she called it the beauty blur.....Dupilcate your layer. The top layer do a gaussian blur of 6-7 pixels, Then drop the opacity down to 30-35 %. TADA! THeir skin is now softer and they have slight halo around them.

Do photographers still do this? I thought it was a 1980's thing? Wink

j/k....I admittedly do it to pics and video sometimes. I think I quit after watching a Magnum P.I. marathon on TV last year. Laugh

the People's Video Collective blog
wedding video and the means of production

RustyB
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Jan 15, 2008, 11:38 AM

Post #20 of 37 (2983 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

...the copies I have adjusted are a little bit "flat", but a bump in saturation, focusing on the skin tones, has fixed that. Something for me to keep a closer eye on in the future. I will keep looking at "out of the box" types of thinking, with different angles and so forth.

I personally wouldn't be worried so much with the "out of the box" shots yet....no shots taken from underneath the front row of pews...or shots taken hanging upside down from the rafters, until I was experienced enough in getting the basics at a wedding and proper exposure...exactly like you did. But who knows...I'll probably photograph a couple of weddings next month for free to see first hand how it goes. My main concern will be remembering to take the lens cap off. Laugh

the People's Video Collective blog
wedding video and the means of production

Postal Boy
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Jan 15, 2008, 9:23 PM

Post #21 of 37 (2953 views)
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Re: [RustyB] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Don't worry, rusty...someone will point it out to you about half way through the ceremony... Tongue

Kenneth
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Jan 16, 2008, 2:29 AM

Post #22 of 37 (2909 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

In Reply To

Don't worry, rusty...someone will point it out to you about half way through the ceremony... Tongue

Right, and when the camera stops recording images halfway through the parent dances it's probably because you forgot to put an SD card in the camera. Wink

......................................................................
Philadelphia Wedding Video
The Kenneth Stillman Blog
Philadelphia Trash the Dress

Postal Boy
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Jan 16, 2008, 9:07 AM

Post #23 of 37 (2900 views)
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Re: [Kenneth] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Ah...my camera has an option that won't let the shutter release if a card isn't in....something that I actually had to turn on since taking some family pictures - or THINKING I was taking some family pictures - a couple of months ago...

Jenn M
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Jan 30, 2008, 8:40 PM

Post #24 of 37 (2621 views)
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Re: [Postal Boy] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

I'm a little late ... but I think you did a fabulous job! It's a little daunting (I think) to shot indoor formals. I much prefer outdoors - ya know, lighting and all.

Nicely done. Not sure how 'technical' you want to get with your approach when it comes to posing ... that may be my only critique - but still, what you delivered is as any good as any other digital photographer I've seen. You can get some good tips from reading different things on posing - basic stuff - turning a females' far shoulder away from the came to slenderize... etc. LIttle things - bride put her shoulders back so she doesn't look like she's hunched.

Here's to more!

-Jenn

(This post was edited by Jenn M on Jan 30, 2008, 8:42 PM)

Postal Boy
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Feb 1, 2008, 8:44 AM

Post #25 of 37 (2561 views)
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Re: [Jenn M] My first wedding as photographer [In reply to]	Can't Post

Thanks...as far as posing goes, I know (and my wife has LET me know) that it is a very weak point on my part. So I have gone out and purchased a few books on wedding and portrait photography/posing, and there are some good tutorials on the web if you dig for them.

Hopefully a little better each time.

-Postal

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