Friend's Wedding

[xtian]

My Friend got married Saturday, they had a professional photographer with a Mark IIIs Canon, and an assistant with a 5D, and one of my friends came with his D3 (shooting off 3 frames in a 1/3 of a second for every shot it seemed, and he ended up shooting 1000 shots YIKES!!!) and another one came with a D300. I brought my Epson R-D1 and only a CV 40/1.4, I left the 5D at home, and I had a LOT of fun.

This was technically the first time I REALLY used this camera since I bought it a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes my focus was off, missed some shots because this and that... but ended up shooting about 200 shots.

Here are some quick post-processes. Still working on the other pics but these were the above avg one in terms of "fun" or "nice" for me. The one below is my favorite 😀

Slideshow at Flickr of the 14 images that I put up for now.

 

[Krosya]

Some nice photos in that slide show. Good work!

 

[gavinlg]

Those are fantastic - if you could do more of the same quality, you'd be besting many of the local wedding photographers around.

 

[Matthew Allen]

Very nice, and particularly impressive given how little time you've had the camera. Have the shots had much PP? I'm curious because some of them have a rather film like quality to them. What software do you use?

The bouquet throwing (I assume that's what she's doing) one is neat. On the face of it, it might seem a slightly awkward composition but I think it really works and the expressions are great.

Matthew

 

[MCTuomey]

jeff ascough used to shoot high-end weddings with rangefinders ...

really nice work - i agree with Gavin's comment.

i cringe at the thought of the culling your friend has waiting for him.

 

[mani]

Great shots - i especially like the delicate colors the R-D1 renders when the lighting allows. Keep up the great work!

 

[dcsang]

jeff ascough used to shoot high-end weddings with rangefinders ...

really nice work - i agree with Gavin's comment.

i cringe at the thought of the culling your friend has waiting for him.

Beautiful shots - I really enjoy seeing people's work from weddings.

Mr Ascough has tried to continue shooting weddings with rangefinders by using the M8. Key word there is "tried".

<rant>
As for the amount of photos being shot - depending on the bride and groom and what they are expecting from their professional photographer, 1200-1300 is pretty "normal' for me for a full day of wedding shooting (say 10am-10pm or thereabouts).

I have, however, seen/heard of other photographers that will shoot "machine gun" style and get well into the 2-3000's. One pro from Orange County has shot, in one wedding; one day, 11,000 images. To me, that's insane.

However, with the advent of digital and the ability for that many photos to be taken, because the "development" is taken out of the process, it seems that brides and grooms have come to "expect" a lot of proofs (online or on CD).

In my opinion, I think that creates a daunting task for them when they sit down to attempt to approve images for an album.</rant>

Sorry for the hijack.

Dave

 

[palec]

They have wonderful feeling and some of them are really outstanding, well done!

 

[Tuolumne]

Good work. This really shows the lovely color the R-D1 is capable of.

/T

 

[tomasis]

im sure your first shot is better than all DSLR users shoots alltogether 😉 they should purchase a movie camera instead.

 

[nikon_sam]

Nice slide show...loved the opening shot, very emotional...
The one above works for me...some may claim her position is off but the action allows for her to be where she is...

 

[xtian]

thanks, I used Lightroom for the PP. For the more "fun" shots I added a lot of vibrance, made the white balance more yellow, high contrast/brightness, and lots of vignetting.

I guess the most "normal" PP was the bride walking down the aisle holding back tears, just did some tonal balance and little vignetting.

yeah, the 200 shots were taken mostly in a 2 hour span at the reception, for me.


I usually use Digital Photo Pro (the Canon Raw software) to Photoshop, so I'm still trying out lightroom to speed things up... not as much control as photoshop but does make things faster.

I looked at the Epson Photo RAW, and it seems the NOISE pattern on EPR are better looking than the noise pattern found on Lightroom for the same image, can't figure out why that is. EPP looks grainier but consistently so, Lightroom looks more smoothed out but looks blotchy. 😕

anyhow. thanks ya'll.

 

[kuvvy]

Got to agree, some nice shots there. Like the bouquet throwing shot if a little tight on the RH side. The large group shot is nice and is very natural looking. results from the RD-1 look good and I wish I could find a decent used one around.

I used to do wedding photography some years ago, shooting on medium format and would only take five rolls, 60 shots. My daughter is getting married in a couple of years time and is already looking around for a photographer. They have some nice shots and everyone is shooting digitally it seems. Prices so far have ranged from £1250 ($2500) - £3000 ($6000). Wish I'd been able to charge those kinda prices.

 

[cmgphoto]

Dave -

I completely agree with you about it being especially daunting for the bride and groom to have to make an album from that many images. I do fall on the side of to each his own though. I understand everyone's point of view regarding the situation, but I also think that there is no right or wrong, it's just personal preference.

That being said, I do consistently turn out 5000-6000 images per weekend, ot counting another 1500-2000 from my assistant. Some may think that's crazy, but it's they way that I like to shoot. I hate the "I shoot that way to make sure I get good images and if I didn't I wouldn't" arguement. You can go to my site and see that it's not about quantity for me, it's quality with quantity.

I do, however, see the beauty in the rangefinder approach in weddings. It would certainly slow me down and make me think much more. Maybe that's why I bought the Bessa L, Bessa R, and a R-D1S!

 

[Matthew Allen]

I usually use Digital Photo Pro (the Canon Raw software) to Photoshop, so I'm still trying out lightroom to speed things up... not as much control as photoshop but does make things faster.

I looked at the Epson Photo RAW, and it seems the NOISE pattern on EPR are better looking than the noise pattern found on Lightroom for the same image, can't figure out why that is. EPP looks grainier but consistently so, Lightroom looks more smoothed out but looks blotchy. 😕

Interesting, could this perhaps be down do different defaults for sharpening and noise reduction? When I import RAW files from my Pentax DSLR to Lightroom it defaults to 0 luminance noise reduction and 25 colour noise reduction. Have you checked what values it's using for the RD-1?

In general I'm a big fan of Lightroom because it makes handling RAW as easy as using JPEG. I think if it had a dodge/burn tool it would be as close to perfect as I could reasonably expect software to be.

Matthew

 

[pfoto]

Great stuff xtian! 🙂

Mr Ascough has tried to continue shooting weddings with rangefinders by using the M8. Key word there is "tried".

Has he given up? 😱 If so do you know what his problems were?

 

[xtian]

Interesting, could this perhaps be down do different defaults for sharpening and noise reduction? When I import RAW files from my Pentax DSLR to Lightroom it defaults to 0 luminance noise reduction and 25 colour noise reduction. Have you checked what values it's using for the RD-1?

In general I'm a big fan of Lightroom because it makes handling RAW as easy as using JPEG. I think if it had a dodge/burn tool it would be as close to perfect as I could reasonably expect software to be.

Matthew

Yup, I checked them and zero'd the color noise reduction, and zero'd the sharpening as well (defaults to 25 sharpening and 25 color noise reduction). But it looks like Lightroom is applying an Anti-Alias filter with a noise reduction/smoothing function as well. Not THAT apparent in color images but in B&W images it is night and day at 100% view. I'll try to post up a separate thread regarding this issue... but likely when I work B&W I'll just use EPR i guess.

 

[dcsang]

Great stuff xtian! 🙂 Has he given up? 😱 If so do you know what his problems were?

I don't know if he's "given up" per se.

That's about all I can say about it publicly since it was discussed on another forum.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Johnmcd]

Xtian,

Beautiful R-D1 colour! And beautiful composition and OOF.

40 Nokton is hard to beat. It's my first choice.

Cheers,

John

 

[mani]

Yup, I checked them and zero'd the color noise reduction, and zero'd the sharpening as well (defaults to 25 sharpening and 25 color noise reduction). But it looks like Lightroom is applying an Anti-Alias filter with a noise reduction/smoothing function as well. Not THAT apparent in color images but in B&W images it is night and day at 100% view. I'll try to post up a separate thread regarding this issue... but likely when I work B&W I'll just use EPR i guess.

PLEASE update us on this! I've been trying Lightroom and my only reservation about the R-D1 files so far is that sometimes they feel a little soft. This can often be dealt with by careful sharpening - but I love grain, as a mostly film-shooter these days.