Mind giving a critique?

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Valerie Hicks said:
you need a faster lens and one with IS. 70-200/2.8 or 24-70/2.8 are good solid lenses that still offer some flexibility in range (later on you might want a fixed 50 and 85). You have got to get rid of the grainy pics! The composition is largely better than the last batch we evaluated. Looks like she needs to get real handy with manual settings on the camera, as well as quickly changing focus point. If you set your focus point to the center, you'll want to zoom out some on pics so you can crop appropriately later; you don't want every last one to be focus center...remember rule of 3rds. Overall, I'd say her improvement is excellent, but these still aren't sale-able prints yet. MUCH closer however. Also, take note of some of the pics with heavy shadow behind the couple due to the flash. With the 2.8 lenses she won't have to rely on the flash much or at all. If a flash is needed, try oh try to get off camera flash rather than on camera for this reason.
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Thanks Val. VERY useful input. This batch was done with a 24-105mm but I bought a non-IS 70-200 F2.8 last week and used it this past weekend. This weekend's batch had a lot more problems with shake than I expected. She also paid attention to her white balance this week (AV mode), so I think they should come out more consistent than the week before (full auto). We had to do a bunch of WB edits and that's probably why they so all over the place. I really do appreciate you guys chiming in on this. I know it's not DJ-related but perhaps somebody might find it useful down the road in their biz evolution. IF we can pull off this photog thing, I'm hopeful it will give me the option of going FT in the next few years.
 
Looks like I have to take a few crash courses before getting a DSLR. I took photography 101 about 15 years ago with an SLR, but digital SLR seems to be more complicated. Plus, I only had one lens back in the day. I can't get any quality wedding photos with my P&S. :(
 
DJ Wes said:
One thing I highly recommend it to bounce the flash off the ceiling whenever possible. It makes the pics look much more natural, imo.
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Agreed. The paid photog this past Saturday is one of the big dogs in the area (Scoobie Schneider) and he had an interesting setup. 3500 sq ft room and he put speedlites with external batts and radio poppers in opposing corners, cranked up to 12feet (ceiling height). He then had an on-camera flash. The result wasn't anywhere near as obtrusive as an umbrella strobe and judging from the shots he gets regularly, it must work pretty well.
 
Jas said:
Looks like I have to take a few crash courses before getting a DSLR. I took photography 101 about 15 years ago with an SLR, but digital SLR seems to be more complicated. Plus, I only had one lens back in the day. I can't get any quality wedding photos with my P&S. :(
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If I can offer a suggestion, spend the extra money on a full-frame camera. I've been shooting a cropped-sensor, Canon T1i for several years before upgrading to a Canon 6d this year. Besides the much wider shot, the colors are far more vivid on the full frame. The entire 6d+24-105 lens ran something like $1800.
 
Jas said:
Looks like I have to take a few crash courses before getting a DSLR. I took photography 101 about 15 years ago with an SLR, but digital SLR seems to be more complicated. Plus, I only had one lens back in the day. I can't get any quality wedding photos with my P&S. :(
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You might want to look at the Panasonic Lumix DMC FX series cameras. Very good P&S cameras, imo.
 
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As Humphrey Bogart would say, "I ain't got that kind a dough."
 
Rick,

You and your wife don't over think this. Many of the pictures were great! I have a freind who does this for a living and I like when I get to work a wedding with him and his wife. He takes a bunch of pictures at a wedding. Many turn out fair, not perfect, and that is what the time in the studio enhancing them is for. He always goes through the pictures and picks out the best ones, then picks out the shots that he feels like the content is important enough to enhance, the rest he never presents to the B&G.

From previous phone conversations with you I am guessing you and your wife are very computer savy, so shoot lots of pictures with your best skills, then let the technology make you look good!!
 
oldschooldj said:
Rick,

You and your wife don't over think this. Many of the pictures were great! I have a freind who does this for a living and I like when I get to work a wedding with him and his wife. He takes a bunch of pictures at a wedding. Many turn out fair, not perfect, and that is what the time in the studio enhancing them is for. He always goes through the pictures and picks out the best ones, then picks out the shots that he feels like the content is important enough to enhance, the rest he never presents to the B&G.

From previous phone conversations with you I am guessing you and your wife are very computer savy, so shoot lots of pictures with your best skills, then let the technology make you look good!!
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Thanks for the positive reinforcement Ray. Very kind of you. I'm actually also appreciating the critiques as I know there are some pretty photo-savvy forum folks. Like all of us here, I want to make certain whatever service I'm providing to clients is the best possible. Wifey is still new to the mechanics of photography but she just has this knack of being able to really connect with people at an event. Once we get over the mechanics and get a few of these under our belts I believe this is going to be a huge benefit to my family (for a lot of reasons). That said, I just had my first face-to-face yesterday on a 12/13 wedding. I was a bit concerned because the bride's main concern was seeing sample pics. When it came up I looked her straight in the eye, smiled and said "We don't have any." then explained the evolution of our business. She shrugged and said "Okay" then we continued on. By the end she was ready to book and asked if she could pay the whole thing up-front. That makes two bundles that have a verbal "yes". Now if I can just keep from pulling my hair out as we put this whole thing together..................
 
dunlopj said:
Agreed. I use something called a "fong dong".

http://www.garyfongestore.com/featured-products.html
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There are a couple of photogs here who use those. I have puffers for each of our photobooth setups and use diffuser caps on my EX430 speedlite. This new YN565 has a built-in bounce card and I liked what I saw of it from this past weekend's shots. That diffuser sure makes a big difference, doesn't it?
 
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One thing you need to do is learn to be a merciless deleter .. for example, picture 1 and 2 are basically the same. Pic 1 looks to be flash lit and is pretty decent, Pic 2 is too dim and should be deleted, not posted. Same with 9/10, 14/15, 16/17, 18-20, etc. .. pick one, delete the others, especially if some are less flattering. Your wife's eye is probably much better than the client, so choose the best image, use the tools to straighten, color-correct, pop the intensity on some, before you EVER post a single image.
 
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steve149 said:
One thing you need to do is learn to be a merciless deleter .. for example, picture 1 and 2 are basically the same. Pic 1 looks to be flash lit and is pretty decent, Pic 2 is too dim and should be deleted, not posted. Same with 9/10, 14/15, 16/17, 18-20, etc. .. pick one, delete the others, especially if some are less flattering. Your wife's eye is probably much better than the client, so choose the best image, use the tools to straighten, color-correct, pop the intensity on some, before you EVER post a single image.
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I agree completely. However, I'm having to hands-off as she's, um, sensitive. Gotta ease our way into this. So far, she's been really good on figuring it out and making changes. I just have to resist the urge to micro-manage.
 
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Rick,

You are excessive compulsive, says the guy that is the same, so you might as well give up on the hands off thoughts :)-

All you have to do is control what gets posted for the world to see. Approach it with her in the proper manner, you want a small, highest quality sampling of each event on the web. People get bored looking at to many pictures, but a few high quality with the right subject matter make a big difference.

A sggestion, there should always be pictures of you, your system and your wife interacting with the customers, including a smilling group shot, if you are plugging yourself.

I look at what you put up and you and what you bring are never on dissplay. I know you have a few shots on your web, but make yourself and equipment part of every event now that you are doing photo.

Best of luck working with the wife :)-
 
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Here are a couple of shoots from this past weekend. Any hints or helpful critique is welcome. First one is the wife's first engagement shoot. Outdoors, and this is the place where I work. Everything done at one location and I was highly pleased with how many different looks we got out of the same venue. She got a good lesson on outdoor shooting as well as to preview your shots. In a 2-hour session she got over 500 and we culled it down to 180. Should have culled more but this is a personal friend of hers and a freebie so she wanted to give the client as many options as possible.

https://picasaweb.google.com/104949...on?noredirect=1#slideshow/6043922226691550930

This is the Quinceanera that we worked Saturday evening. Had no idea that a 2-hour session that morning would be draining but when stacked with this one, it made for a very long day. At the local country club (been there 3 weekends in a row). DJ/MC, Uplighting, Cake spot, Monogram, Live-Pics/Texting, Cocktail hour pianist, Photography. On the Photography, we setup an Alien Bee strobe in one corner and a YN565 speedlite in the other with a Canon ex430ii on the camera. I picked up some new Yongnuo radio transmitters (with TTL that worked like a charm. Started getting some kind of lens fog later in the evening and didn't notice it until we got home. Had to crank up the contrast a bit to get rid of it. BTW, both sessions were shot with a Canon 24-105 F4 lens.

https://picasaweb.google.com/104949...endersonvilleTN#slideshow/6043936172988936674
 
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