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Home >> Learning >> e-Book on Wedding Photography Table of Contents Wedding Photography e-Book - Equipment Considerations Digital Photography Most images used to illustrate this page were captured digitally by Jerry Tieng with a Nikon D1x d-slr
From reading the magazine one clearly obtains a sense that digital has matured and is where the pro market is headed in order to compete effectively with other photographers already converted to bits and bytes. All the comments and testimonials from those pros laud the digital process and talk about greater control, efficiency and cost savings. Digital has already made a significant dent in the fortunes of medium format and has caused a shakeup in the market so that certain brands have followed the times and made their products digital friendly while others appear to be in death throes. The used market used to be where Hasselblad users could seek some solace that their very pricey investment could still offer some handsome returns, but no longer as the used market appears to have crashed with most of the blame attributed to the digital revolution. It was somewhat surprising some years back when Contax introduced a brand new medium format entry in their 645 AF. While it is a very capable film camera, Contax ensured that the 645 would be a digital friendly system. Same goes for Mamiya’s auto focus 645 offering, which the company even revamped to make it even more digital friendly than the original offered only a few years ago. Hasselblad has the most digital friendly camera in the H1 and it was a result of a necessary retrenching of resources to follow the market trend towards digital.
Even Pentax has apparently seen the light and realized the shortcomings of their 645N that uses film inserts instead of full film backs, making it impossible to mate with digital backs. Rumour has it that Pentax will rework a new version of the 645N to be digital ready. My own brand Bronica, appears to be slowly dying as parent company Tamron appears to have no clue how to restructure the product line a la Hasselblad, or introduce new auto focus digital ready cameras a la Mamiya. Two camera lines, the 6x7 and 6x6, have been discontinued with only the manual focus 645 ETRSi still readily available, but for how long? I hope for something more to be offered, but I’m not betting a copper penny on it happening.
Checking out the used prices for the Bronica equipment really hits home to see how little it is worth. It is so low that it would be ridiculous for me to sell out because it probably would not even buy me one pro-level camera, such as the Nikon D2H. That’s selling a full kit of two cameras, four lenses, five film backs, prism and other accessories bought only in 1999 and 2000 for significant cost. Bronica gear never had great resale value before, but now it is really in the toilet especially since Tamron has killed the two camera lines. Bargain hunters could really clean up if they desired a solid performer.
The Hasselblad H1 would cost over CAN $20,000 just to build up a basic kit never mind the extraordinary cost of a top of the line digital back in the CAN $40,000 range. Even cheaper digital backs are still in the CAN $20,000 range. That is just an incredible sum of money to spend on medium format based digital technology and while the most successful digital wedding photographers could afford such costs, for us part timers, not within the realm of reality. Consider also that the most high profile and successful digital wedding photographers don’t even use medium format systems anymore, preferring to go with Nikon, Canon and Fuji 35mm based systems (Denis Reggie and Gary Fong for example). Interestingly, Mamiya has partnered with Creo/Leaf to market a 645 camera with a 6 MP digital back for under US $7,000. Mamiya clearly understands that there can a large market eager to try medium format digital, but do not have many tens of thousands to spend on 16 MP and higher backs. However, at US $7,000, that is not much less than the Canon 1Ds that offers nearly double the resolution in an integrated package. What Kind of Digital?
In the Nikon world, there is the D100 mid-level camera based on the film F80 that is a great camera to get serious into digital photography. Nearly parallel to the D100 is Nikon’s entry-level digital SLR, the D70 that offers enough improvements and enhancements over the D100 to the point that many D100 users are eagerly waiting to purchase one not as a backup or replacement, but to use right alongside the D100 as an equal. About the only thing that the D100 offers that some may miss for the D70 is a vertical grip, but if Nikon does the right thing and offers one for the D70, the D100 sales will likely stagnate (if it hasn’t already as the D70 is shipping and selling like hotcakes, as of this writing). On the heavier duty pro side, there is the still going D1X that is now quite long in the tooth in the digital world. The Nikon world eagerly anticipates the introduction of its replacement, but current users still seem happy to continue using this workhorse, especially since the high-performance upgrade was offered by Nikon to increase the buffer. The newest model, the D2H was also highly anticipated and is garnering much praise as a photographer’s tool that just disappears in the hands, being the most responsive and fastest focusing camera to date (March 2004) whether film or digital. The resolution is not high at 4 MP, but the D2H was meant for sports and news photographers, but that has not prevented it becoming a favorite of wedding photographers enjoying its speed and responsiveness. Reports of very good 20x30 inch prints from the D2H are offered by those photographers, but I reserve judgment until I can see the results for myself. That offers four current cameras from Nikon that can find a place in a wedding photographers kit. A perfect kit for me would be dual D2H bodies for the majority of the candids and action with a future D2X for formals when poster sized prints are desired. Canon was a bit slow to enter into the digital market after Nikon shocked the world back in 1999 with the original D1, but boy have they made up for it. The original 1D rocked the world with 4 MP of resolution at a blazing 8 fps. Speculation has it that Canon used dual 2 MP sensors aligned together with the image file stitched in-camera in order to achieve the 8 fps rate, but no matter, it was a spectacular success.
Canon also offers the 10D amateur-oriented camera that provides good build quality and features. The 10D has amazed many with its very clean high ISO noise characteristics and is a solid performer. Less solid and less of a performer, but offering the same image quality as the 10D is Canons’ entry-level Digital Rebel. There are enough limitations with the Digital Rebel that I would suggest it as backup or adjunct camera rather than as a full fledge workhorse that is used for most of a wedding shoot. Canon’s newest entry is the 1D Mk II that offers 8 MP and 8.5 fps, truly awesome specifications and it will be very intriguing to see how good the images are from this camera. I have little doubt that they will be excellent given Canon’ track record. It will be the ideal camera for many photographers wanting high resolution for enlargements and high performance. It will also be an expensive camera once it does hit the store shelves, but still not as expensive as the older but higher resolution 1Ds. You gotta like what Canon is doing to shake up the market and push all the other brands to produce and perform. Fuji has been a player in the digital SLR realm for almost as long as Nikon and Canon with the Nikon F60 based S1 Pro and now the Nikon F80 based S2 Pro. Fuji recently introduced the S3 Pro, which still uses the F80 as the base, but now offers a much superior ergonomic package that offers the same 6 MP resolution but with increased dynamic range. Some considered the older S2 Pro to have been the best of the 6 MP offerings of any brand thanks to the color fidelity that seemed to have been customized for pleasing skin tones and the high resolution offered by the Super CCD chip designed by Fuji. Both the S2 and S3 offer a 12 MP in-camera interpolation that Popular Photography magazine claimed to have given the S2 the equivalent resolution of a 9 MP camera, but with a 12 MP file size.
Fuji cameras are definitely worth considering, especially the S3 that does away with some awkward ergonomics and battery issues. In a good move, Fuji keeps the power requirements of the S3 with AA sized cells so that cost-effective rechargeable cells can be used rather than expensive proprietary batteries.
All of the cameras mentioned above from Nikon, Canon and Fuji can provide excellent image quality to the prospective digital wedding photographer. As Fuji is Nikon based, this means that two primary systems are available for choosing, with both systems offering comprehensive lens selection, flash units and accessories and a host of other features that make Nikon and Canon the choice of professionals the world over. There are other brands that are emerging (Pentax and Sigma currently, Minolta very soon), but none have the depth and breadth of offerings as Nikon and Canon. After this, I offer no further comment as to which one is superior to the other because that is a personal choice one must make based upon what one requires out of a system. Workflow After choosing a digital system, the next consideration is the digital workflow. It can be very similar to how film use to work, but usually, going digital does involve more work from the photographer. With film the photographers shoots a wedding, taking enough photos to cover his or her bases and having plenty of extras on tap for the clients to choose for enlargements or the album. Then the film is dropped off at a professional lab for developing and printing into proofs, usually at 4x6 size. The photographer edits the proofs to toss away the bad shots and packages them into a proof album for review. Client reviews, selects the choices for an album and/or enlargements, photographer places order and then delivers with final payment made at delivery.
The digital photographer takes just as many if not much more images thanks to the zero cost of doing so digitally (provided the photographer has enough memory cards, digital wallet and/or notebook computer for dumping files to). Most digital photographers understand the risk of the digital medium and do backups to CD or DVD as quickly as possible, often doing it while the wedding is progressing with an assistant doing the backups via a notebook. At the latest, the photographer should do the backups upon returning to the studio or home office and immediately backup the original files to CD or DVD. After backing up has been completed the photographer becomes the editor and begins the review process of all the files, tossing the bad shots immediately. Once the initial review has been completed, the real work begins. If the photographer shot with the RAW capture mode of the digital camera, a conversion process must be done to the RAW file into something that can be more easily edited such as JPEG, but more appropriately, TIFF format. All the camera brands that use RAW mode offer a free converter, but often times the quality and feature set are limited, leaving the digital photographer with little choice but to use third-party applications. For those already using Photoshop 7 or Photoshop CS, Adobe Camera Raw provides a one-stop shopping option of RAW conversion and immediate image editing in one application. ACR is good and its version 2.2 incarnation in Photoshop CS is even better. ACR provides RAW conversion for a large number of digital cameras and backs and Adobe has indicated that they will offer regular updates for newer cameras coming to market.
Another highly regarded RAW converter (perhaps even more than ACR) is Phase Capture One. Capture One provides a great workflow environment by incorporating a browser, editing window for a larger size image, and an editing tools panel to modify the file before conversion. The edits do not affect the original RAW file, only the converted TIFF or JPEG. Other third party RAW converters include Bibble, Qimage and BreezeBrowser, but they seemed to have been relegated to the back of the hall thanks to Adobe and Phase becoming involved in RAW conversion. While the third-party RAW converters can be very good, sometimes the software developers have to reverse engineer a RAW file because of the lack of support from a company. On these occasions the original company’s RAW converter may offer the best overall solution. Nikon is such a company that while it offers basic RAW conversion for free in its NikonView software, the more comprehensive RAW conversion is offered through the optional NikonCapture software. Nikon Capture is about US $100 or CAN $150 and is now at version 4.1. While many complain about this added cost option, few photographers seem to know that the lead engineer of NikonCapture participates in a Nikon Digital forum and will actually respond to questions posted by the predominantly professional user group. The engineer gains an understanding of what works and what does not work in real world usage by demanding pro users. Comments and suggestions are noted and each successive version has usually improved upon the previous version. It’s a great feedback process for both parties and noted Nikon expert Thom Hogan, considers NikonCapture to be the best overall converter for Nikon RAW files. I’ve not heard of any other software engineer from a major photographic company participating in an Internet forum and answering questions as well as obtaining feedback for future improvements to their RAW converter.
RAW format also offers some saving grace for minor mistakes made during the event. Correction of over and underexposure is handled much better with a RAW file than with a JPEG or TIFF that has already had processing done in-camera and risks losing much detail if you attempt to correct mistakes after the shot. You cannot treat RAW as a panacea for gross mistakes because it’s not a miracle format that will pull roses from a pile of poop, but for those times that you cannot be certain about exact white balance or wish to shoot a bit underexposed to preserve highlight detail, RAW can make the difference. Other photographers prefer to shoot in JPEG mode for the higher performance due to smaller file sizes than RAW mode, and shooting JPEG can be an effective solution so long as you are bang on with the exposure and white balance. Bang on exposure is best done with an incident meter instead of the reflected in-camera meter and bang on white balance is best done with a grey card reference or using an accessory such as the ExpoDisc. By obtaining as accurate a file as possible in-camera saves a lot of potential editing work in Photoshop. For proof type photos there is probably little more to do beyond getting the white balance and exposure correct. Run the files through a noise reduction application such as Noise Ninja and then sharpen it up and print off. Once the client has chosen the images for the album or enlargement is when you would do the major editing to ensure the image is as perfect as possible. I should note that obtaining correct white balance and exposure is from the perspective of obtaining a technically correct image file and for aesthetic reasons you may not want to go with a technically correct image because it may look too cold or too flat and you may prefer warmer tones or boosting the levels up a bit to open up some details. After RAW conversion or downloading of JPEG files, an image-editing program is the next step. Photoshop is still the king of the hill and will likely remain so for years to come and while I make much reference to it, there are other choices available if you prefer a different method or cheaper alternative.
An automation offered by Pixel Genius makes the sharpening process fairly straightforward. It offers three rounds of sharpening, the first to retrieve the lost sharpening due to the anti-aliasing filter. The second for regular creative sharpening and a third customized for how the final image file will be used, whether it be printed out or just posted to a web site. The idea being that each type of output requires a different type of sharpening with final print size playing a role. While Pixel Genius makes it pretty easy, you don’t necessarily have to spend money on an automation if you’re skilled with Photoshop and understand how to user layers and masks to isolate just the main subject areas for sharpening. Also be aware that the Pixel Genius method of sharpening makes liberal use of masks and layers and it increases the file sizes significantly. I’ve had 16-bit TIFF files grow from 35 MB to over 200 MB with just one round of sharpening. It’s a good idea to flatten the file once all edits have been applied. After the editing process, a decision has to be made about output. How are you going to output the proof images? Traditional 4x6 prints? In large sheets with multiple images per sheet? In a magazine booklet? Or just copied to a CD for the client to browse at home? All are valid choices and digital provides flexibility for how you wish to present the images. I personally lean towards the multiple images per large sheet because you can mix and match sizes and different images in a wide variety of presentations. 4x6 proofs is just so old school and so 20th Century that why would you want to follow the crowd when digital offers you so much more flexibility. Not that there is anything wrong with the tried and true 4x6 proof album, but then there wouldn’t have been any point to have switched to digital if you just end up doing the same thing as with film. One idea is one gleaned from big time pro Gary Fong, and that is to montage your photos, as I have done with some of mine in the sample below.
Film Versus Digital While there are other issues related to the relative benefits of one format versus another, for the working professional, much of the argument comes down to this, the almighty buck. How much of it will I have to spend and how much of it can I save are usually the things going through a photographer’s mind when trying to calculate whether some new fangled technology is worthwhile to invest in. I’m going to use prices (Canadian) available at a local pro lab in Vancouver for my examples. Currently, five rolls of Fuji NPH 400 can be bought with processing and printing included for less than $100, or about $20 per roll, taxes included. Assuming a 20-roll full day event, that works out to $400 in film costs. Other types of film such as NPS 160 or Kodak Portra BW are similar in cost, and NPZ 800 and Portra 800 are slightly higher, but within the estimates used here. 20 rolls times 36 exposures equals 720 proofs*, but let’s round down to 700 for the duds and bad shots you want to edit out. (*I actually get 37 exposures from the F100 cameras I use, but I still have to pay for that extra proof print) One full day of wedding photography requires a cost of $400 for film and some minor pocket change to cover the cost of dropping off and then picking up the processed negatives and proof prints. In the time that you wait, you can be working out the details for your next shoot, meeting new clients, cleaning the office, kicking the dog, waxing the body hair, basically, whatever the heck you want to do because it’s the pro lab that sweats the details of your photos to make them look good. With digital, from the time you finish the photo shoot to the time you have proofs ready for the client to view, you’re editing in front of a monitor. You may not have to spend $400 in film, processing and printing for 700 images, but you will have spent considerable time tied to your computer desk. But, what if the client wants prints? At the same pro lab, a single 4x6 proof from digital costs $0.60 after taxes for a PST exempt professional. Multiply that by 700 and what is the cost? $420, more than shooting film. Granted this is the pricing structure in Vancouver, Canada, and other regions may offer much more cost effective solutions than what we would have to pay. In fact, photo contributor Jerry Tieng has told me of incredibly low prices in the Philippines for proof prints from Fuji Frontier systems that make our digital prints exorbitantly high in cost. A photographer may choose not to print and just burn to a CD-R worth less than $1 per CD, or to just print with an inkjet unit, but that would also require costs in ink and paper. Economically, I’m not seeing the case for digital in my neck of the woods. Assuming that a digital photographer goes the cheap CD-R route (as the lowest cost alternative), the question to ask is what is your time worth? Is $400 worth your time spent editing, or is your time and opportunity cost worth more? I cannot answer this question for you since everyone has different priorities and schedules and different markets have different costs, but if you have a fairly flexible schedule then it may well be worth the $400 in film savings, but if you’re particularly busy, it may not. I think few photographers would charge less for their services just because they shoot digitally. A given full day shoot of 700 photos would still be charged the same amount as a film shoot would, but the digital photographer gets to pocket the $400 in film savings, but is it really a $400 savings, or is it chickenfeed compared to the number of hours you have to spend in post-production, because that is an opportunity cost. Obviously, enough wedding photographers have indicated that it is worth their while to take on the editing that many have switched over enthusiastically to digital. The two photographic contributors to this e-Book represent the two different approaches to wedding photography. Larry Rotta is still using film for his weddings for a few different reasons: 1. He feels no pressure in the local Vancouver market to offer digital because he has not heard of any of the major pros offering full digital-only coverage 2. He would prefer to spend the money on other items of need because his demands for a good D-SLR would most likely require a pair of expensive Canon 1D Mk II bodies 3. His schedule is quite demanding on top of family commitments and as such, does not have the time to edit the hundreds of photos he would take at a wedding Jerry Tieng started with some top notch Nikon film cameras before moving on to the Nikon D1x and now the Nikon D2H and D70 cameras. The last I heard from him, he was producing 500 or so 5x7 prints for a full day shoot and handing them over to the client in a nice wooden case. Given his investment in digital cameras, I doubt he has any desire to ever return to film. Many photographers recognize that digital is not much of a cost savings at all, but do appreciate the control and flexibility that it offers and on this point I have to agree. I may not see much merit in having to edit hundreds of image files, but once that editing is done the ease of which it is to create a web based gallery could not be more simple than a few button clicks using any number of software applications available. A simple action in Photoshop can resize image files to make them suitable for e-mail or viewing on a CD. Far simpler than having to scan whatever number of files is required to create a decently sized web gallery. I personally despise the scanning process and while Digital ICE is an effective tool for color film, far less so for B&W and that means a lot of cleanup work in Photoshop to clone or Heal brush away the dust spots. Film Advantages
Film Disadvantages
Digital Advantages
Digital Disadvantages
Photo Contributor Jerry Tieng's Comments about Digital Wedding Photography Advantages of digital
Relative cost I would have to say that all my clients have the false notion that since I'm shooting digital, I can shoot all I want since there's no film cost. We all know that the DLSR is more expensive, and there's a finite shutter life over which we have to amortize the cost of equipment with. I did the math, and I have to say the cost on a per image (including film and processing) basis is almost the same for both. Cost savings comes from managing the entire processing-to-proof-to-print-to-album cycle considering that I'm working alone without any assistants or messengers. Verdict, it's cheaper for me because of my unique situation and considering that I work with computers all day (web applications company) and has all the necessary infrastructure and bandwidth to support my digital workflow. On the other hand, for a really, really traditional photographer who doesn't use computers, I would have to say the initial capital and training investment would be substantial as compared to the already depreciated cost of his film equipment. Editing I do a lot of cropping, curves, channel mixing for the artsy-fartsy shots. I do cropping, sharpening, and selective blurring for portraits. I don't edit 'party' and 'group' shots. Number of images With my 2 camera setup, I shoot about 1200 images for a wedding (bride's house, church, on-location portraiture, reception). If it's a 2-man assignment, we usually end up with about 2000 images. Go back to film? No way, especially for commercial projects. but if I'm 80 and I have nothing better to do, I'd probably do it again just to prove that I can master darkroom alchemy in the same way i manipulate curves and mix color channels in PS. Next Chapter - Equipment Considerations (Film & Studio Lighting) |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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If
you read Rangefinder magazine, a sort of newsletter for WPPI members,
but available as a subscription to the public, you would think that
the whole professional market in the 
Why
has digital killed off medium format? Well, you could spend a large
sum of money to invest in a digital friendly 645 kit, but with the Canon
1Ds and Kodak DCS 14n offering high resolution cameras in 35mm compatible
cameras, it makes more financial sense to just buy a 35mm based digital
camera to add to your existing kit. 
With
that preamble out of the way, for those so inclined, what kind of digital
system should one purchase? At this time, I can only see three viable
systems to start with: Nikon, Canon and Fuji
The
really big achievement that got Canon to the front of the pack though
was the 1Ds that offered 11 MP of resolution in a professional quality
camera. This is the camera that got many medium format photographers
to reconsider their options for entering into the digital foray. It’s
not without problems though as the high-resolution sensor can reveal
limitations in certain lenses and chromatic aberrations are problematic
with wide-angle lenses. However, the full 35mm size frame offers enough
to counter the few negatives for many photographers.
The
whole Fuji S series being Nikon cameras in origin can use the majority
of Nikon lenses, but some restrictions apply to manual focus lenses
and the old S1 could not make use of AF-S or VR technology. The Fuji
S2 also had the ability to provide film-like flash quality with regular
Nikon flash units instead of having to use Nikon’s digital compatible
DX flashes. This unique feature of the S2 may have disappeared with
the new S3 as Fuji
It
is usually during the image-editing stage that sharpening is applied
to the image files. That there may be several rounds of sharpening required
has become more recognized due to the way capture devices work and process
an image file. Most D-SLRs use an anti-aliasing filter in front of the
capture chip to reduce artifacts such as moiré. Unfortunately, the filter,
depending on how strong it is, can also reduce the sharpness of the
image file. This requires an immediate first round of sharpening to
be applied to retrieve the lost sharpness back before meaningful edits
can be done. This first round of sharpening can be done during the RAW
conversion process, but most people would probably agree that no sharpening
should be applied until the file has reached the image editor.
