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
>
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