 Amanda R. Milam |
Wedding Photography: Help! I will be shooting an indoor wedding in a few months and need some major help! I will be using my Canon Rebel 2000 SLR camera with a 28-80 and 80-200 lens. Any suggestions on what type of film I should use for inside a church? I also need some suggestions on what I should charge (it's for my cousin and keep in mind that I'm fairly new at this). I did a wedding a few weeks ago for a family member, but it was outdoors. I'm nowhere near a professional photographer, but I don't want to do it for free. Any tips and/or advice will be greatly appreciated.
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John A. Lind |
Amanda, See my Survival Guide: http://johnlind.tripod.com/wedding/ Your first and biggest issue to tackle will be light ... and being able to create enough of it. Working distances are much farther than in the average home ... and spaces are much bigger (the light from flash isn't bounced) ... in most churches and most reception halls. Film: Use the 160 if you can create enough light; use the 400 if you're "flash power challenged." There's a section in the tutorial about this. I didn't write it for someone trying to start doing it professionally ... you will need to learn and use more equipment for that ... and it's enough to fill a good-size book. However, it should get you through your immediate commitment. Regarding charges ... for a cousin, if I know that cousin well, I would consider cost (film plus developing, proof prints, proof book and travel mileage), plus something for the value of my time for the shoot itself and for a reasonable amount of time doing the "back end" work pulling together everything into the proof book. Also, I strongly advise against handing them the exposed film and letting them develop/print it ... since it will most likely go to the cheapest one-hour lab in town. The film developing will very likely be OK, but the printing of the negatives could be anything from OK to absolutely horrid ... and they won't blame the lab for poor printing ... they'll blame YOU! One-hour labs also very rarely see something like Portra ... and their print machines have basic filter pack settings called "channels" set up for color balancing the prints made from different color negative films. The color balancing for printing is tweaked from that starting point (at a one-hour? maybe; it's supposed to be). It's extremely unlikely a consumer lab would have a channel set up for Kodak Portra! In addition, the print materials used are typically the most dirt cheap their store (or company) buyer can find, higher contrast grade, and punchy color ... which is not what you want for wedding work with lots of skin tone ... and perhaps a white wedding dress with detail (that needs to show) right next to a black tux that also needs to show most of its detail (lest it look like a pure black cave). Wedding work is critical stuff and needs to be done by a professional full-service lab that handles wedding photography well and knows how to print it properly to maintain good skin tones, color accuracy, and not lose highlight or shadow detail. Good Luck! Keep the faith. You can do it if you plan, practice elements of what you'll need to do, and organize yourself for it.
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Keith G. Williams |
Amanda, Check out John's Web site! Excellent info, John, Thanks!!!!
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Norbert Maile |
Hey people,,,,, lets not forget black and white! 400 is a good all purpose and 3200 will get you some really cool shots especially close up. You can shoot it at 1600 to get a "sharper image". Black and White is all the rage. Check out the book by Bambi Cantrell on Wedding Photography or rather Wedding Photojournalism.
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