Wedding photogs: do you...

Arpe · 10-13-2009, 05:28 PM

shoot jpeg or raw? I'm curious really. I understand that sports shooters generally do jpeg, so it's a quick crop and levels or whatever then away. And I can see the advantages for card space, though that's probably not really a problem with the price of it these days.

And roughly how many pics would you do at a wedding (that is how many shutter actuations)? I'm guessing the longer you've done it, the less that number would be, the higher the keeper ratio.

Thanks.

*Wheatfield* · 10-13-2009, 05:57 PM

Generally I shoot around 350 shots if I'm doing the entire wedding. The last one I shot was almost 500 shots, but I was there for the dance as well and I tend to overshoot that because of issues with dim viewfinders because the rooms are usually somewhat dark during the dance and getting bad framing and poor focus because of it.
I shoot everything in DNG format.

*graphicgr8s* · 10-13-2009, 06:16 PM

I shoot raw.

ll_coffee_lP · 10-13-2009, 06:35 PM

RAW only.

Actual actuations depend on the length of time I'm on location. Usually several hundred shots taken.

c[_]

*Ash* · 10-13-2009, 06:43 PM

RAW only - I do know many who shoot JPEG because they manually WB and want results fast, but I prefer to take the time to get it all right in PP.

Arpe · 10-14-2009, 01:00 AM

Raw seems favourite here!

And numbers in the 350-700 mark? I thought it would be more, not sure why, seems plenty!

opfor · 10-14-2009, 03:33 AM

RAW.
The last one we did we had two trainee photogs (our two youngest sons who are doing media in school and college and wanted to have a go to see what it was like) and we had really crappy indoor light with serious flash restrictions. So with four cameras going and us telling the two trainees to take as many as they liked we topped out at well over 1000 total with about 200 really usable shots. That was covering the rehearsal, bride prep, ceremony, reception, and after reception party. Out of the 200, 50 went in a formal album and about 70 in an informal one.
Usually I would say that for simple weddings I have gotten away with 200-400 total shots, depending on the light and general conditions, to get at least 100 usable. Usually 20 to 30 in a formal album and about 50 in an informal one. Depends on what the B&G want.
Back in the days of film, it would have been about 2-4 rolls of 24/36 exp to get 50 usable. Digital gives you the freedom to try things you wouldn't do with film, because you wouldn't risk using up film on something you can now try to save in PP if it goes a little wrong.
My preference has always been smaller weddings as the stress level is usually lower and there tend to be fewer problems.
That's what has worked for me, your results may vary...

Pentaxiac · 10-14-2009, 08:13 AM

My first wedding I shot close to 500 pics and decided on RAW for its versatility in post production. I would've shot a lot more but I wasn't allowed to take pics during bride prep or the ceremony and there was no garter or bouquet toss to cover due to audience consideration.

And of those 500, 140 were handed on CD that my client was most impressed about.

Arpe · 10-14-2009, 05:16 PM

Originally Posted by opfor

RAW.
... and we had really crappy indoor light with serious flash restrictions.

Bummer! What were the restrictions?

Originally Posted by Pentaxiac

...I wasn't allowed to take pics during bride prep or the ceremony and there was no garter or bouquet toss to cover due to audience consideration.

Wow that's a bit different.

Arpe · 10-14-2009, 05:19 PM

My thoughts were that if I did one I'd use raw, due to inexperience, a bit of insurance if you like. Then I thought the old hands would use jpg as they probably nail more of their shots straight off and don't even want to bother to do the conversion for the client.

Class A · 10-14-2009, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by Arpe

Then I thought the old hands would use jpg as they probably nail more of their shots straight off and don't even want to bother to do the conversion for the client.

You might underestimate the time spend in PP for a wedding. A RAW-JPEG conversion will be the quickest task in that phase.

There will be a lot of cropping, level adjusting, retouching, etc. to do if you want the wedding shots to be at a professional level.

opfor · 10-14-2009, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by Arpe

Bummer! What were the restrictions?

No photos at all during the actual ceremony, no flash at all inside the church for staged shots. The vicar didn't like photographers and absolutely detested people shooting video. Luckily we don't do video.

Arpe · 10-15-2009, 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by Class A

You might underestimate the time spend in PP for a wedding. A RAW-JPEG conversion will be the quickest task in that phase.

There will be a lot of cropping, level adjusting, retouching, etc. to do if you want the wedding shots to be at a professional level.

Yeah but I thought as they get heaps more experience there might be quite a few they do nothing, or near nothing, to.

Originally Posted by opfor

No photos at all during the actual ceremony, no flash at all inside the church for staged shots. The vicar didn't like photographers and absolutely detested people shooting video. Luckily we don't do video.

Poor couple!! I would've got a different vicar.

Pentaxiac · 10-15-2009, 07:08 AM

Originally Posted by Arpe

Wow that's a bit different.

It was a small wedding with only about 50 guest who were already married or taken. The bride thought it was pointless to do a garter or bouquet toss.

*WMBP* · 10-15-2009, 07:48 AM

Originally Posted by Arpe

shoot jpeg or raw? I'm curious really. I understand that sports shooters generally do jpeg, so it's a quick crop and levels or whatever then away. And I can see the advantages for card space, though that's probably not really a problem with the price of it these days.

And roughly how many pics would you do at a wedding (that is how many shutter actuations)? I'm guessing the longer you've done it, the less that number would be, the higher the keeper ratio.

My goal is usually to deliver approximately 150-200 photos to the bride and groom. The number of shots that I actually take varies but lately it's around 500, maybe a little more. Note that some of those shots are exposure tests, and all of the formal photos (which might involve 20+ poses) are taken more than once so I can increase chances of getting everybody's eyes open. The number of shots that I take does seem to be going down, but slower than I would like. More shots taken means more shots to review and that means time. And I already spend more time in post than I do shooting the wedding.

I shoot raw always, for everything. I shoot PEF because the files are smaller. I convert to DNG on my computer. Doing the conversion on my computer produces DNG files that are smaller than the ones that the camera generates. I usually start the wedding with a couple of 8 GB cards loaded into my two main bodies, and I have a ton of additional cards (usually about 30 GB extra!) with me so I'm not too worried about the size of the files.

Will