The Amazing Sony A1/A7/A9/APS-C & Anything else welcome Mega Thread!

Raymond Lin said:
Anyway, bought that 90mm when ebay had 10% off the other week.

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It’s a cracker lens.

Be careful with the hot shoe on that flash few people have broke them already and there is no replacement hot shoe yet.
 
f/2.8 said:
There is also cheap and then there is cheap. :LOL:

I thought you where still in Currys to be honest.

My first wedding on my own I charged £450 for all day.

A friend of the wife is getting married next year and asked about us shooting her wedding, we offered her a really good price because we know her. We where still too expensive and we are pretty cheapish anyway, even without the discount we offered. She ended up booking another fella who is doing it for £200. Only found out the other day it's a dude I went to school with. £200 and he has promised her he will stay with her from getting ready until 11.00 p.m. :ROFLMAO: This isn't even his first wedding, he has done about 100 or so. She also said he was happy to do all the family photos she wanted, where as I had said we wouldn't. The wedding isn't for more than a year and she already has a list of over 60 family photos she wants taken.
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60! SIXTY! They'll be there all day. Had a cheapo wedding I booked a year or two ago about 4 weeks ago. Church wedding, then onto a village hall. No outside space, no decorations inside the hall except one hanging plaque thingy, buffet dinner. Overheard the brides Mum complaining she had to pay £180 to feed 40/50 people! Fortunately first dance was 6pm so i made an exit shortly after. My hardest gig so far, trying to look busy when there is nothing to photograph is the hardest thing. Most guests were in jeans and a t-shirt too...
 
jonneymendoza said:
I want to try out doing weddings. Whats the best way to go about doing it?

Charge for peanuts for first wedding?
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I think some people might book you based just on the quality of your pictures even if in a non wedding portfolio. You've certainly posted some stunners in this thread. The question may be if you can produce quality in the higher pressure and slightly chaotic wedding environment.
 
T_J_G said:
60! SIXTY! They'll be there all day. Had a cheapo wedding I booked a year or two ago about 4 weeks ago. Church wedding, then onto a village hall. No outside space, no decorations inside the hall except one hanging plaque thingy, buffet dinner. Overheard the brides Mum complaining she had to pay £180 to feed 40/50 people! Fortunately first dance was 6pm so i made an exit shortly after. My hardest gig so far, trying to look busy when there is nothing to photograph is the hardest thing. Most guests were in jeans and a t-shirt too...
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I know that is what I said, thing is there will only be about 150 guests so 60 group photos is just plain stupid, but she wouldn't listen. She told the missus that was the main reason she didn't book us then the groom told my missus that they we came in too expensive. Either way I am glad we aren't doing it.
 
Lovely response guys regarding wedding photography. To sum it all up. i would need to do the following:

  1. Build a portfolio filled with wedding shots taken as a second shooter or main shooter
  2. Start advertising yourself as a wedding togger with your portfolio at hand
  3. book a client, shoot and make a profit!
http://www.jonathanrichardsphotography.com/ally-and-nass-wedding-reception one of shots i done.

Did not include some of the others i done so far. I think i removed one wedding i shot of my mate as they are divorced.

Do you guys still have shots of "divorced" couples in your portfolio?
 
jonneymendoza said:
Lovely response guys regarding wedding photography. To sum it all up. i would need to do the following:

  1. Build a portfolio filled with wedding shots taken as a second shooter or main shooter
  2. Start advertising yourself as a wedding togger with your portfolio at hand
  3. book a client, shoot and make a profit!
http://www.jonathanrichardsphotography.com/ally-and-nass-wedding-reception one of shots i done.

Did not include some of the others i done so far. I think i removed one wedding i shot of my mate as they are divorced.

Do you guys still have shots of "divorced" couples in your portfolio?
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Not any more.

The second wedding I photographed as a second the couple split up before they came back from honeymoon. I still used their photos for some time.

Edit - @jonneymendoza had a chance to have a quick look at that link there. None of those are suitable for portfolio. They just look like random snaps taken by a guest at a wedding. You need getting ready, ceremony and couple portraits, other stuff like bridal party etc. are a bonus. Most brides will book based on couple portrait images.
 
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f/2.8 said:
Okay then.

It will be difficult to book any wedding even for very little money without some sort of wedding portfolio, not impossible but difficult. I have seen people struggle to get weddings even when they are offering to work for free.

Your best option would be try and get some second shooting gigs. This will allow you too to get the experience of working at a wedding, see how everything works and hopefully get some cash or images for your portfolio. Most photographers that use a second will give the second the option of either working for free and being able to use to some of the images or getting paid, usually not both. If you go the route of working for free so that you can use some of the images for advertising bear in mind you might not be allowed to use them for several months or at least until after the couple has received the photos. Quite a few will ask you to wait until 6 months after the couple have received them, but not all.

I have seen lots of posts on here over the years saying how difficult it is to get second shooting gigs but to be honest that is nonsense, it is very easy to get second gigs if you go about it the right way. Firstly, don't reach out to local photographers in your area by email, complete waste of time. I get 5/6 emails like that every month and they go straight in the bin once I realise what they are. Someone who is actually a member here emailed me looking to second shoot a while back. :D Not sure if they realised who I was on here or not.

You need to try and make friends with a few wedding photographers, so you need to hang out where they do. The easiest way to do that will be to attend a few wedding photography workshops. Seek out the guys and girls who are full time, show a genuine interest in what they do, get as much info on how they do things as you can look them up online etc. Don't mention during the workshop that you are looking to second shoot. Once you have all the info you need phone them, don't contact by email, social media etc. Just ring them and say Hi, I met you at such and such workshop, love your work blah, blah, blah, looking to get some experience, happy to come without a camera and hold bags etc for a couple of wedding if you let me shoot later on. Whatever it takes really. Better to pick those whose style you actually like. Also better to do this with photographers who aren't in your local area and won't see you as competition. Once you have some images you can use join the thousands of second shooter groups on Facebook post in each of them with images explaining you want more second gigs. Reply to all the wanted ads on there looking for seconds. Don't bother with those until you have some wedding images first you will be wasting your time.

Once you have say 10 weddings under your belt that you can use images from set up a website and social media etc. At that point if you are cheap enough you should at least be able to book a few weddings yourself quite easily enough to give you a little spare cash anyway. Don't use images taken at workshops, that is just a s*** show.

If you want to actually have a proper business though the approach from then on is very different.

You may want to have a think about what your expectations of shooting a wedding are. Shooting very cheap or free weddings 99 times in 100 is going to be a complete waste of time for building a portfolio and will lack any sort of creativity. Cheap weddings, will be in crap venues, with couples who don't value photography. You will get very little creative engagement from those sort of weddings. Those type of weddings will involve working all day for couples who treat you like crap and are very demanding in terms of making you do what they want rather than giving you the freedom to do what you want to do. You only get that freedom from couples when you are able to prove what you are capable of from your portfolio. More expensive weddings will be at much better venues, with couples who aren't booking you just because they feel they have to have a wedding photographer. I have done really cheap weddings and the vast majority of the day in every case has been taken up shooting endless amounts of awful group photos. Thank God I don't have to do that crap any more.

Be prepared to hate images shot as a second later on though, once I started shooting my own weddings and developed my own way of doing things I deleted all of those images from weddings I had seconded from my website and social media as they really didn't fit with the way I like to do things. Cringe even think about them now.

I fell into weddings by accident I had no intention of shooting them. Everything even just that @F/1.4 told me about them put me off completely. Many years ago I helped a guy I know with a glamour photography workshop. At the workshop I got friendly with a wedding photographer who was based over 50 miles from where I am. She worked with her husband at the time. During the workshop she asked me if she could come to some glamour/fashion shoots which is what I was mainly shooting at the time, that actually never happened but when her husband was struggling to get time off work for a wedding she had a few weeks later she got in touch with me. I then shot some weddings with her, I wasn't allowed to use the images because she paid me for the first few. After that when she had nicer venues and couples I shot a couple for free so I could use the images. Over a 3/4 month period I shot about 25 weddings for her in total and had images from 10 weddings to set up my own website etc. as eventually once she learned to trust me she allowed me to use images as well as paying me.

If I was starting now I would do things very differently but that is because I would be coming at it form a business point of view rather than than just dipping my toes as I did then. No point going into how to do that though if you are just looking to earn some beer tokens to supplement your income.
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Good read, cheers
 
jonneymendoza said:
Lovely response guys regarding wedding photography. To sum it all up. i would need to do the following:

  1. Build a portfolio filled with wedding shots taken as a second shooter or main shooter
  2. Start advertising yourself as a wedding togger with your portfolio at hand
  3. book a client, shoot and make a profit!
http://www.jonathanrichardsphotography.com/ally-and-nass-wedding-reception one of shots i done.

Did not include some of the others i done so far. I think i removed one wedding i shot of my mate as they are divorced.

Do you guys still have shots of "divorced" couples in your portfolio?
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You make it sound easy! Dont forget to sort insurance, contracts, website, marketing plan, tax planning...

About 10% of your time will be with a camera in hand, do not underestimate this.

Happy to help guide if you need it though. Even though I’m a newbie to it all!
 
T_J_G said:
You make it sound easy! Dont forget to sort insurance, contracts, website, marketing plan, tax planning...

About 10% of your time will be with a camera in hand, do not underestimate this.

Happy to help guide if you need it though. Even though I’m a newbie to it all!
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He is looking to make a few extra quid that the tax man won’t know about. He will likely shoot a couple of weddings at most, realise that it isn’t an easy way to make a few extra quid and never do another one again. That’s what happens with most.
 
f/2.8 said:
He is looking to make a few extra quid that the tax man won’t know about. He will likely shoot a couple of weddings at most, realise that it isn’t an easy way to make a few extra quid and never do another one again. That’s what happens with most.
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Yup, that was me a few years back. I'd be in no rush to ever try it again tbh. At this stage I've turned down a lot more than I've ever actually shot, inc 2 of my best friend's weddings. I could have gotten paid nicely to be the photographer + guest, but nope, there was no way I wasn't getting pished. And that is a no-no for the wedding photographer.
 
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Even though wedding photography doesn't apply to me in the slightest, it's still interesting to read about on here. I've been to a few weddings recently and I do always pay particular attention to the photographer - I guess that's just in our blood! I certainly know which one I'd pick from the 5 I've seen in action.

Thanks for taking the time to write out some really good replies guys.
 
Cagey75 said:
By 'pished' I'm talking legless ... a few pints is grand
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Depends on the wedding and how well we get on with the couple but I have got absolutely hammered at a few. Obviously after we have picked up for the evening. Free drinks is a perk of the job. :cool:
 
f/2.8 said:
He is looking to make a few extra quid that the tax man won’t know about. He will likely shoot a couple of weddings at most, realise that it isn’t an easy way to make a few extra quid and never do another one again. That’s what happens with most.
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Or i quit my day job and become full time. who knows lol
 
f/2.8 said:
It’s a cracker lens.

Be careful with the hot shoe on that flash few people have broke them already and there is no replacement hot shoe yet.
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That isn’t my immediate problem, my immediate problem seems the be to get spare batteries will cost a small fortune. I’d like one spare for each flash.
 
jonneymendoza said:
My other godox flashes been ok so far touch wood
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Me too, but I am very careful with them. I know guys who have had to swap out the hotshoe twice during one wedding. Quite a lot of wedding photographers that use Godox always carry spare hotshoes.
 
Shoot Em Up said:
For the love of god I hope this is true so we can all move on.

Next I’d like to see a Sony prime lens in the 12-16mm range with f2 minimum. Now that’s a lens I could get excited about.
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It'll be more expensive than laowa and probably bigger because it'll have AF.
 
If the 35mm f1.8 has one of those cheapo crappy focus mechanisms they can shove it where the sun doesn't shine.
 
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