There are a couple of other considerations why MF is popular in wedding
photos
Lots of weddings are shot in poor light - both during the ceremony and the
candids, there is only so much the portable flash can do. MF film, because
of its larger image gathering area, performs better in the 'lower boundary'.
Think LPM - if a film has say 200lpm resolution in its optimal exposure
range (call it Zone VI) - and lets assume its color film so it has a 'minus
range' down to Zone III, in Zone III its resolution will be probably down to
about 50lpm. Now 1 mm on a 35mm image, is 4% of the whole image (24mm high)
so the total vertical resolution ends up being say 1200 linepairs - blow
that up to an 8x10 and you are down to 120dpi!!! Whereas on the 6x7 the
SAME IMAGE is captured with 3000 linepairs - which at 8x10 is still 300dpi!
Net result is that you get much better image quality, tonality, shadow
detail etc. in the 6x7.
Second - you can't change film backs on a 35mm. On a 6x7, you can go from
Provia 100 for the 3 shot candid up-close smooch at the table, switch backs,
and be shooting iso400 print film for the Whole Room shot and dancing. This
IS a place digital can make a difference in the '35mm slr format'.
Third, the 6 megapixel resolution is an interpolated resolution. The real
resolution is still 3 or so megapixels. Interpolated resolution aint the
same as the real thing
Yet another thing to consider is image perspective. a 35mm SLR type, you
are shooting 'eye to eye'. So for folks sitting,
you are inducing parallax unless you kneel. For folks standing, you
potentially over-emphasize facial detail. Shooting with an MF from the
waist, changes both of these in a way that tends to be flattering for candid
shots.
Another part is the $1500. If I spend $1500, I want to feel I got my
money's worth. Which means I want to be hiring someone that lets me feel
like they are doing something that Uncle Harry with his Canon Rebel X cannot
do. So if you show up with something that looks like a Rebel X - say a
D-30, there is a value perception.
That said, at a recent corporate event my wife and I attended, they had a
'get a shot with your sweetie' booth. And the guy there was using a D1
hooked up to a laptop with an external monitor for instant image review. It
made a big difference, he reshot quite a few images where a couples hand
wasn't quite right or the flash shadow was a bit unflattering etc. And the
resultant images were prefectly fine for a wedding album.
So I would suggest that a digital camera like the D-30 or the D1x would be
fine for the 'studio shots' and the posed shots.
As for commercial product shots - I work with a graphic artist that does
layouts for Costco catalogs. ALL of those images are shot digitally.
Lighting can be controlled very carefully, and digital has much greater
'grey scale' resolution (ie how many 'zones' it captures info in) than film
does. And the ability to go straight from the camera into the catalog saves
huge amounts in scanning costs. Which lets Costco save on the total cost of
the catalog.
Since the catalog work can be set up to be as close as possible and lit as
needed, the D1x or D-30 works great in that environment. The main reason
for going to 4x5 digital back is that the Tilt/shift/focus-depth controls
are very useful in closeup product shots (I do art portfolio shots, and I
much prefer the 4x5 to the 35mm. I don't need to be as 'perfectly aligned'
with the 4x5 since I can compensate by changing the angle of the lens or
film-plane independently).
----- Original Message -----
From: <RogerMillerPhoto@aol.com>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 9:32 AM
Subject: Re: filmscanners: film vs. digital cameras - wedding/commercial
photography
> Formal wedding shots (in your studio or posed shots at the alter) have to
be done with medium format film because the customer will frequently want an
11x14 enlargement or bigger. Candid shots at the reception can be done with
35mm film because the largest print requested is likely to be 8x10 (or
8x12). Other than some highend digital studio cameras, digital cameras
can't compete with film for quality. A local wedding/portrait photographer
in my area just bought a digital studio camera that he'll use for senior
portraits (maximum print size typically requested by custormers is 8x10).
Everthing else he does with film. Most wedding/portrait photographers keep
their negatives for a minimub of several years in case the customer needs a
reprint. With digital, storing the files is too expensive and time
consuming. If you really want a digital camera and are trying to justify
based on your using it for wedding photography, then at least explain the
limitations to your custom!
> er!
> s ahead of time so they aren't d
> isappointed afterwards. Digital has no advantage over film that I can see
for wedding photography, and that includes speed, since film can be
processed in one hour for quick proofs. And, remember that you need one or
two backups for everthing in case of equipment failure and film cameras are
cheaper than digital ones. Also, film processing, printing, and negative
retouching can be done better and more economically than you're likely to be
able to do if you do the digital work yourself.
>
> I read that the average US wedding cutomer pays $1500 for photography. My
own fee is $800 plus film and processing and the customer can order as many
reprints (8x10 or smaller) as desired at my cost. For that, I cover the
wedding and up to 4 hours at the reception, and I do studio formals before
or after the wedding. I work cheap.
>
> Commercial photographers generally charge by the job, and not by the hour.
Their fee is based on the use of the photography and, for example, might be
set at as much as 2 percent of the advertising budget. You may want to
check with some commercial photographers in your area for guidance. And I
know that there's at least one book on the market listing typical fees for
various uses. Make sure you charge enough for the work you do. For every
hour of shooting, you'll have many hours of support work. And you'll
probably have $50,000 to $100,000 of equipment to pay for and maintain, and
if any of it is digital, you have to depreciate it very rapidly as it
becomes obsolete so fast.
>
> In a message dated Thu, 16 Aug 2001 12:55:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Robert Meier <robert_meier_photo@yahoo.com> writes:
>
> > I have been talking with a few wedding and commercial photographers who
> > expressed their intention to go digital. Cameras mentioned were Fuji S1
> > and Nikon D1x both with 6 Mpixel. Now these same photographers, as all
> > others, say MF is absolutely necessary for the big enlargments. This
> > seems to be a contradiction as the digital cameras mentioned only
> > produce approx. a 6M*12bit=9Mbyte file compared to about
> > (2*4000)^2*36bit=274Mbytes for a 4000dpi scan or approx 1000Mbytes
> > assuming film has an 'equivalent' of about 8000dpi.
> > Assuming you want a 24x20 print @300dpi you need
> > 24*20*300*300*8bit/channel*3channels=124Mbytes of data. The digital
> > camera gives you only 6M*8bit/channel=6Mbytes. This is about 124/6=20,
> > i.e. 19 out of 20 pixels have to be interpolated. That sounds quite
> > unresonable to me. Does anybody have any experience with that and
> > throughs their MF scannera away to go digital?
> >
> > Also do you have any idea what the going hourly rate for wedding
> > photographer and commercial photographers is?
> >
> > Robert
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
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> >
>
>
