I agree with William regarding the equipment. I used a 35mm Pentax and a 90mm Tamron macro prime on two film bodies for my first two paid photo jobs. One was a demonstration and the second one a party. I had a fast 50mm and the 24mm Pentax in the bag too but used them only inside a church with very low lightning.
Primes change the way I/you shoot and wide ones force you to get even closer and in contact with people which can be seen in the photos. I would not use a zoom for a party event but take a simple 35/85-100mm combination for a small package. greetings Markus -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of William Robb Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 5:10 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: OT - Wedding photography advice solicitation ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Loveless" Subject: Re: OT - Wedding photography advice solicitation > I really appreciate all of the advice I've received, and I certainly > didn't mean to start an argument. Discussion, even with > disagreements, is good, though. My initial intention was to shoot the > wedding with the K100D, the kit lens, and a telephoto zoom. Not > ideal, I know, but I'm not professing any ability at this kind of > thing. I'm also not going to invest in new lenses to shoot a wedding > for free. That will have to wait until I decide if this is a field I > want to try to make some money in. > > In addition to the digital rig, I had planned to bring along the MX > with a couple of primes and some Neopan 1600 for a little contrast to > the color images. And one other film body, just in case I have > problems with the digital rig. > > Most of my shooting these days involves chasing two little girls > around, and I'm in a "fast action" mode. The zoom lenses tend to be > ideal for this. On the other hand, I've always preferred shooting > with primes, but I'm not good enough for the primes to offer any > sharpness advantage when shooting without a tripod. I'm not fast > enough to keep up with the kids, either. So I rarely use a prime lens > anymore. > > I read a magazine article a while back about the wedding > photographer's lens kit. It was an older article from the 70s or 80s, > which discussed Nikon's recommendations. The lenses were a 35, 50, > and an 85 or 105 (I think). Imagine showing up to a wedding these > days with a couple of old manual cameras and a few primes! It seems > like most photogs I read about are carrying the latest and greatest > digital rigs with IS lenses, a laptop, at least one assistant, a > myriad of lights, and if they have a film camera at all it's an F5 or > a Leica. Who the hell can afford to do weddings like this? On the > contrary, most of the wedding photographers I actually see are either > shooting with medium format or a Fuji digital body, and working their > butts off because their assistant didn't show up or they didn't have > one in the first place. > > I have a little time to prepare, and I may just decide to suck up the > expense and shoot the whole thing on film. > > Thanks again, and keep it coming! Don't worry about me and Paul arguing, we're just a couple of old bears mooing at each other from our mountaintops. If you are comfortable with zooms, by all means use them, but consider that you are giving up valuable fill light due to their slow speed compared to a prime, and if the zoom is variable aperture, your fill exposures may also vary as you zoom. The photographers you read about are the ones with enough time on their hands to write about themselves. The majority are too busy trying to put groceries in the fridge to be bothered. At this point, I don't think I'd bother with 35mm film, except as a last resort back-up. OTOH, if you can shoot the bridal and group portraits on medium format, you will notice a difference in quality, especially the larger groups, where there may not be enough pixels to resolve facial details sufficiently off the 6mp sensor. Ask Cesár to loan you his 6x7 and tell him I said you could borrow a few lenses..... Later in my wedding career, I settled on 24mm, 35mm, 50mm and 85mm, with the 24 seeing almost no use, except for inside the limo and sometimes for overviews of the church if it was a nice one. I noted that I seemed to be missing shots that I would have gotten prior to trying to use more lenses becuase I had the wrong lens on the camera at the wrong time. If you only have the one focal length, and are familiar with it, you tend to think in terms of what that lens can do for you, and adjust the way you do things accordingly. With a fast prime, you can do things you just can't do with a zoom. My problem with zooms was (still is) slow maximum apertures which made focusing difficult in dimly lit churches, killed the fill light, and had wonky barrel distortions that made the architecture look funny. The barrel distortion thing shouldn't be a problem now, I suspect they have those things ironed out, but zooms are still slower lenses than primes, which will impede focusing and fill flash. William Robb -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
