Wedding photography advice - please help

I too hope the OP will return and update us :)
 
Phil V said:
As it was too late for the OP to receive my offer of a better camera, I can only hope it went well - It'd be nice for the OP to share his experience and maybe some images.

And during my recent forced sabbatical - i had time to study a little ancient philosophy:

Here's a couple of quotes from Marcus Aurelius that some might find useful:

For the OP
The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

It ought to be easier on the internet to spot the opinions of those who know nowt, but unfortunately it isn't.

And for my new 'friend' (you know who you are):
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.


I would have posted Saturday when my ban ended - but I was busy running a portrait photography workshop.
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Here's another one you could quote, from an ancient photographer called Garry Edwards. "Lost sheep masquerading as sheepdogs" :)
 
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Phil V said:
I would have posted Saturday when my ban ended -
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Wait! What? .. You got banned? seriously.. haha its like the old days.. wedding threads and people getting banned... Well done you :)
 
Phil V said:
Apparently nowadays it’s considered rude to point out when people are spouting nonsense.
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Strange that - I do it all the time and haven't been banned - yet:)
 
Garry Edwards said:
Strange that - I do it all the time and haven't been banned - yet:)
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I joined the staff when I was asked, because I realised my own personal kind of Yorkshire "forthright" would probably see me with more short forum holidays than time available for posting. It's only the constraints of keeping (marginally) professional about how I word things that stops it even now...
 
Just to elaborate on the suitability of gear for weddings.

I’d never choose to shoot a wedding on an entry level camera. Simply because they often make things more difficult than they ought. (I’d never recommend shooting anything with an entry level camera - they’re not designed for taking pictures).

@SwissPhot
A word about weather resistance - the bride will be in a dress that cost thousands of ££s, will have spent over an hour on hair and makeup. If I absolutely need her outside in the rain, it’ll be for 2 minutes with a brolly, and a brolly or a plastic bag are all I’ll need to protect even the least weather resistant camera.

Cameras with ‘old sensors’ aren’t gonna suddenly be incapable of taking photos. As long as the photographer is aware of the limitations of the camera. I was shooting weddings with 7d’s when many amateur gear snobs were spouting that the sensor was incapable of anything beyond 800 ISO, oddly it never seemed to bother my customers that their wedding album contained images that had some noise in the shadows.

In conclusion: you’ll need 2 cameras you’re familiar with, a couple of fast zooms, or primes, and a spare just in case. A speedlight, though 2 or more is better with a remote trigger.

If I was doing it again tomorrow I’d want a couple of R6’s, cos they make my life so easy. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it with a couple of 40d’s. :)
 
Phil V said:
Just to elaborate on the suitability of gear for weddings.

I’d never choose to shoot a wedding on an entry level camera. Simply because they often make things more difficult than they ought. (I’d never recommend shooting anything with an entry level camera - they’re not designed for taking pictures).

@SwissPhot
A word about weather resistance - the bride will be in a dress that cost thousands of ££s, will have spent over an hour on hair and makeup. If I absolutely need her outside in the rain, it’ll be for 2 minutes with a brolly, and a brolly or a plastic bag are all I’ll need to protect even the least weather resistant camera.

Cameras with ‘old sensors’ aren’t gonna suddenly be incapable of taking photos. As long as the photographer is aware of the limitations of the camera. I was shooting weddings with 7d’s when many amateur gear snobs were spouting that the sensor was incapable of anything beyond 800 ISO, oddly it never seemed to bother my customers that their wedding album contained images that had some noise in the shadows.

In conclusion: you’ll need 2 cameras you’re familiar with, a couple of fast zooms, or primes, and a spare just in case. A speedlight, though 2 or more is better with a remote trigger.

If I was doing it again tomorrow I’d want a couple of R6’s, cos they make my life so easy. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it with a couple of 40d’s. :)
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I think that this highlights the problem with wedding photography threads, which always seem to end badly.
People just don't understand what can go wrong when photographing weddings, which is anything and everything!
Cameras jam up for no reason, and so do flashguns. I've never had an actual fault, but when the camera doesn't work because a setting has been accidentally changed the result is the same, no camera, and then the backup comes out of the bag. Anyone who hasn't had that problem has very little real-world experience.

These problems are far more likely to occur with entry-level cameras, which tend to be small and fiddly, especially for people like me who have large hands. And, speaking of back up equipment, ideally it should be identical. I've never had that myself, when I did wedding photography my main camera was a D3 (fine in the pouring rain) and my second camera was a D700 (same image quality but with slightly different layout and not protected against the weather) and my flashguns weren't identical either, but with a lot of experience (as I was a full-time pro) these differences weren't a big problem. But even swapping lenses could be a challenge, sometimes the zoom control was push-pull, sometimes it was twist, and even this slowed things down a bit - all lenses should have identical controls too.

But, if we explain in a wedding thread that the starting point is £20K in equipment it doesn't go down well, and someone is bound to say that a phone is good enough (which it may be if the photographer is just a guest and expectations are very low) and that an entry-level camera is a real luxury. This wouldn't happen with other specialties, for example if someone wanted to start a small business doing van deliveries nobody would suggest that an old rust bucket of a Transit van is good enough, everyone would accept that a new Mercedes costing £35K is the absolute starting point. My own youngest son is an agricultural mechanic, his Mercedes van carries over £60K in tools, nobody would suggest that he could manage with a toolkit. from a pound shop . . .

What people don't always get, when they ask questions on a forum, is that some responders know what they're talking about and others don't,and there's no way of knowing which is which, and the people who do know are likely to say things that they don't like.

And, of course, it isn't just about equipment, skill and knowledge and the ability to produce the right results under all lighting and weather conditions, it's also about handling the people. Many "photographers" complain about "Uncle Joe" spoiling their shots by getting in the way, taking his own shots. I never had that problem, I just had a quiet word and told them to keep out of my way. I'm not a people person and don't even understand the concept of tact, but I never allowed anything or anyone to get in the way of the job that I was paid to do. Just a couple of times I had to go further, and to say, in a very loud voice, that if they did that just once more I would go home and leave them to finish the job, and peer pressure and embarrassment would work the miracle - how many amateurs would do that?
 
well i wish i paid more to hire a better photographer at my wedding.
.
.
Pictures were great but there was one big issue.
.
.
Photographer left after a while and didn’t take pictures of our relatives (both mine and the wife’s).
.
Its a shame because weddings happen only once (hopefully
The hired photographer was talking pictures of the decorations, cake, wedding dress (on it’s own?) and shoes, which actually really made me wonder…How could he forget the most important thing…
Anyway lesson learned,
Unfortunately i had to learn the hard way.

Truth is no matter what’s been said here people will still go on doing their thing.
Its a shame because members genuinely try to help

✌️
 
Garry Edwards said:
I think that this highlights the problem with wedding photography threads, which always seem to end badly.
People just don't understand what can go wrong when photographing weddings, which is anything and everything!
Cameras jam up for no reason, and so do flashguns. I've never had an actual fault, but when the camera doesn't work because a setting has been accidentally changed the result is the same, no camera, and then the backup comes out of the bag. Anyone who hasn't had that problem has very little real-world experience.

These problems are far more likely to occur with entry-level cameras, which tend to be small and fiddly, especially for people like me who have large hands. And, speaking of back up equipment, ideally it should be identical. I've never had that myself, when I did wedding photography my main camera was a D3 (fine in the pouring rain) and my second camera was a D700 (same image quality but with slightly different layout and not protected against the weather) and my flashguns weren't identical either, but with a lot of experience (as I was a full-time pro) these differences weren't a big problem. But even swapping lenses could be a challenge, sometimes the zoom control was push-pull, sometimes it was twist, and even this slowed things down a bit - all lenses should have identical controls too.

But, if we explain in a wedding thread that the starting point is £20K in equipment it doesn't go down well, and someone is bound to say that a phone is good enough (which it may be if the photographer is just a guest and expectations are very low) and that an entry-level camera is a real luxury. This wouldn't happen with other specialties, for example if someone wanted to start a small business doing van deliveries nobody would suggest that an old rust bucket of a Transit van is good enough, everyone would accept that a new Mercedes costing £35K is the absolute starting point. My own youngest son is an agricultural mechanic, his Mercedes van carries over £60K in tools, nobody would suggest that he could manage with a toolkit. from a pound shop . . .

What people don't always get, when they ask questions on a forum, is that some responders know what they're talking about and others don't,and there's no way of knowing which is which, and the people who do know are likely to say things that they don't like.

And, of course, it isn't just about equipment, skill and knowledge and the ability to produce the right results under all lighting and weather conditions, it's also about handling the people. Many "photographers" complain about "Uncle Joe" spoiling their shots by getting in the way, taking his own shots. I never had that problem, I just had a quiet word and told them to keep out of my way. I'm not a people person and don't even understand the concept of tact, but I never allowed anything or anyone to get in the way of the job that I was paid to do. Just a couple of times I had to go further, and to say, in a very loud voice, that if they did that just once more I would go home and leave them to finish the job, and peer pressure and embarrassment would work the miracle - how many amateurs would do that?
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Whilst what you say makes sense, I'd mention I dont know a single wedding photographer who started with 20k worth of gear, nor for that matter any mechanic (and we've two in the family) who started with thousands of pounds of snap-on tools. They bought a cheap tool kit to start their training and built up from there, often on credit with the snap-on van that goes around.

Every body has to start somewhere. I would guess most wedding photographers started by doing friends or family weddings with the gear they happened to have, be that a top of the range or entry level. Then word goes around, Fred took nice pics at his brothers wedding, ask him. It builds from there.

Theres a lot of camera "snobbery" go to any camera club to see it in action, first question you'll often get asked is what camera do you have? Say any non top of range and get a frown in return. The fact is pretty much any entry level camera is more than capable that producing a stunning wedding album, even on the auto setting, in fact most compacts could do it these day.

Ok they may not be weather sealed, but I've been doing weddings over 50 years, and I can not remember a single time I've been standing out in the pouring rain with a B&G, shes paid a £150 for a hair-do, £100 for make-up and a £1k for a dress, not happening.
Pro cameras are generally better, better in low light, safer with dual card slots and built tougher, but then I dont knock nails in with my camera, and I've never had a card fail at a wedding... and I have flash for low light
 
swanseamale47 said:
Whilst what you say makes sense, I'd mention I dont know a single wedding photographer who started with 20k worth of gear, nor for that matter any mechanic (and we've two in the family) who started with thousands of pounds of snap-on tools. They bought a cheap tool kit to start their training and built up from there, often on credit with the snap-on van that goes around.

Every body has to start somewhere. I would guess most wedding photographers started by doing friends or family weddings with the gear they happened to have, be that a top of the range or entry level. Then word goes around, Fred took nice pics at his brothers wedding, ask him. It builds from there.

Theres a lot of camera "snobbery" go to any camera club to see it in action, first question you'll often get asked is what camera do you have? Say any non top of range and get a frown in return. The fact is pretty much any entry level camera is more than capable that producing a stunning wedding album, even on the auto setting, in fact most compacts could do it these day.

Ok they may not be weather sealed, but I've been doing weddings over 50 years, and I can not remember a single time I've been standing out in the pouring rain with a B&G, shes paid a £150 for a hair-do, £100 for make-up and a £1k for a dress, not happening.
Pro cameras are generally better, better in low light, safer with dual card slots and built tougher, but then I dont knock nails in with my camera, and I've never had a card fail at a wedding... and I have flash for low light
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I accept that. My first solo wedding was over 60 years ago at the age of 16, a neighbour asked me to be their photographer, I didn't charge much and I fancied her sister:)
Not a high end wedding - I remember that I had to lend the groom a tie - and I shot it with my EdixaFlex 35mm camera, which was hopelessly inadequate for the job, but the couple were delighted with the results.

But that was down to pure luck. I did have some experience because I was working for a wedding photographer at the time, but I was just lucky that nothing went wrong.

So yes, been there, done that, but when I answer forum questions my advice is "Do what I know is right, don't do what I've learned not to do":)
 
I was thinking this is supposed to be for a friend. Just be honest up front and tell her or him your not really qualified to do it. Then if your still asked, go for it! Could very well be they can't afford to hire a professional photographer. In which case your actually doing them a favor. As for a lens, I'd use something like an 18-105. Your not a pro and for what might be a one time thing use a lens you can afford that can work for you elsewhere as well. If, as you say, this is a friend and your up front with them, no problem. If there is a problem after being up front then they weren't a friend in the first place, nothing lost! Need to add. If there might be low light, take a flash!
 
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I always thought the intention behind automation was to make things simpler!

What I've taken from this thread is that modern cameras have led to expectations on both sides of the lens that many struggle to achieve. It was so much simpler when you showed up with a pair of TLRs (one to use, one as a spare) took the standard pictures and went on to the next job.

If you didn't get complaints, the boss was happy. If you got reprint orders, he was even more happy! :)
 
Phil V said:
As it was too late for the OP to receive my offer of a better camera, I can only hope it went well - It'd be nice for the OP to share his experience and maybe some images.

And during my recent forced sabbatical - i had time to study a little ancient philosophy:

Here's a couple of quotes from Marcus Aurelius that some might find useful:

For the OP
The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

It ought to be easier on the internet to spot the opinions of those who know nowt, but unfortunately it isn't.

And for my new 'friend' (you know who you are):
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.


I would have posted Saturday when my ban ended - but I was busy running a portrait photography workshop.
Click to expand...
 
Many moons ago, I got asked by a friend to be their photographer at their wedding.

At that time I didn't have a DSLR even. I used a combination of a PAS 5MP camera and an iPhone.

By any standards, the photos were rubbish. It put additional pressure on me so I didn't, perhaps, enjoy the day as much as I should have done. But they seemed happy enough. Better than nothing I suppose. But only just.
 
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I think a lot of us know people that cannot afford to hire a pro photographer for their wedding. I've done three like that but let them know right up front I wasn't sure what I was doning. Were not high quality photo's but they will be memories!
 
OP is so lucky to have so much advice from people who done weddings.

I totally agree with talking to bride and groom and establishing expectation and what you are capable of doing, and what they would like.
Problem is with more wedding videos & photos online like facebook and Instagram the expectation of 'I want something like this' is high !
I s this is all about money, ie they can not afford a pro then learn your camera inside out, watch lots of YouTube videos, practice with some friends at the venue posing and taking staged shots, or going to some where similar and practice during daylight and night time. Get a speedlite and lean it also inside out, and if possible ask a camera club member to come along and help.
They will tend to do it for free as they like the experience as well.

I would say you bugger this up your friendship may be toast, so read, watch, learn and for the love of god go and practice with male & female friends,
 
Just to give you a story that helps.

I was asked by my wife's cousin to take some photos at her wedding.

I have done this previously at other family weddings etc.

So the day she asked I gave her my standard reply, "No, problem, but I will only take informal shots, recording the event. Get a professional and I'll be a second shooter and get the informal shots".

"Yes that'll be great".

"Oh and by the way I'm not insured, so please do get a professional in".

"Okay I'll do that".

So the day of the wedding arrives, I get there and this other chap I know who is a friend of the groom.

"Ah, glad you're here Satz, here's a list of the photos they want".

"Eh? I'm not the photographer for the event, I'm just taking informals."

"They said to me that there was another photographer and I was doing informal shots too".

"Well they've shafted us both".

I took photos and did the list, no flash, in a dark room, not much natural light.

I was so angry.

So when I got home, my wife and I had a disagreement, wife was adamant that we only give her cousin the list of shots. Not any of the other shots I got, which some were great.

But I just gave them the list and nothing more.

8 years later, we still don't talk about it with the couple. But the couple have let other family members know they wished they had got a professional in. Because they didn't have many shots from the wedding.

The family do know she's so tight fisted, and that she and her husband are to blame for what they got.

So lesson learned for me.
 
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To add to the above...

I also did the same for her sister, who got married beforehand.

She had a professional in, and I just did my own thing. I asked if she minded, as they would be just for me. Any good ones I'd let the couple have them.

So, after the wedding I put together a little photo book for them.

Took them around and they both cried their eyes out, really emotional.

When I asked why they were so emotional.

They said, "Your photos are better than the ones the photographer took. That set was awful and really didn't capture the day".

So there are two sides to every story.
 
If you look around on FB you will see loads of photographers who clearly have zero idea of what they are doing. No idea of lighting, posing or camera control. I don't get it, in the these modern times with mirrorless how people can still get things so wrong. My best bit of advice, is to ask for advice, which is what the OP did here. I hope it went well.
 
It is the PHOTOGRAPHER who makes the photograph appealing, the lens is merely a tool. Put a good violin in the hands of a 7 year old will NOT make for nice music!

When covering weddings on film with medium format, the lens that I used most often was equivant to about 25mm - 50mm (15mm - 30mm for APS-C)
I would mount a lens for couples portrait shots equivalent to 85mm (50mm for APS-C)
Rarely I would shoot from farther away and mount equivalent to about 150mm (about 85mm for APS-C)
And I was careful to not stand close to any human in the photo if shooting at equivalent of 24mm (16mm on APS-C); 28mm was safe to use, even close to someone...the issue being Perspective Distortion induced by the too-close shooting distances the wide DOV would permit.

This information published for sake of follow-on readers of this thread, since the OP event in question is in the past.
 
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Phil V said:
In conclusion: you’ll need 2 cameras you’re familiar with, a couple of fast zooms, or primes, and a spare just in case. A speedlight, though 2 or more is better with a remote trigger.

If I was doing it again tomorrow I’d want a couple of R6’s, cos they make my life so easy. But that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it with a couple of 40d’s. :)
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A most important consideration is in boldface print
 
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