A Wedding Puzzle...

I spoke recently with another person in the wedding business...in this case a celebrant. We compared cases and discussed what happens with wedding photography.

She mentioned that she was surprised recently to discover how much one of her bridal couples were to be charged for their photos. I assured her that the number she mentioned was not exceptional - one of our shop customers who also does weddings charges even more. In the case of our client and also, I suspect, in the case of the other photographers, the results are so beautiful as to largely justify the cost.

I was also encouraging to her in respect of the delivery times that were promised - well in line with efficient industry practise. All good.

What did surprise me as much as it did her was hearing that there might some reluctance on the part of the photographer to work with other people in the industry. I had never heard of this before. Perhaps I misunderstood...surely each person in a chain of service for a bridal couple  is their own operator and contractor. Unless there were personal problems surely professionalism would prevail.

Anyone heard of this idea before?

I did reassure my friend that she was one of the 5 essential people at a wedding - the bride, the groom, the two adult witnesses, and the celebrant. And that she was the licensed state official for the period of the event. All the rest of us are just peripheral to this, no matter what our advertising might say...

Listen Up Dummies!

Those photographers who wish to listen to their clients...and listen in stereo...will be pleased to see the new microphones and recorder that have come into the store.

The Røde microphones are made in Australia. Here. Where you live. Buy one and the money stays in the country. ANZAC, meat pies, kangaroos, beer. Wave the flag and go all tearey-eyed. Now that we have gotten that out of our systems, the microphones are good quality and good value for money. The one you see mounted on the Cullmann Copter tabletop tripod is stereo and intended generally for the top of a DSLR - a wedding show or a school concert would be perfect for this one. it is not heavy, despite the size. It is adaptable to most DSLR's directly or you can go the super-professional route by connecting it to....

The Tascam DR-60D Linear PCM recorder. The device records sound onto SDHC cards - in stereo normally or in up to four separate channels. Input connectors for regular small jacks as may be found on the cameras are on the left hand side of the box. There are also the big plug and cannon plug inputs there as well - you can feed it from a variety of microphones.

On the right hand side is the card slot as well as headphone, line, and USB output. Joy of joys - the battery compartment in the back is accessible without dismantling the rig and it only takes 4 AA batteries!

Note that there is a camera attachment on the top and a tripod attachment on the bottom - you can bundle the lot up and then run, gun, or sit on a tripod just as the occasion presents. Please note the little bars on the sides of the front fascia. I was initially afraid that they were just an attempt at fake rack handles to make for cosmetics but I've decided that they are for attaching straps to let you hang it off your shoulder. Cool.

Peak display on the front, Three sets of channels coming in. Easy start and finish buttons. Retire the dear old Nagra field recorder and give your Revox A77 to the Sally Ann. This one looks like a winner.

Please note: The purple tripod is completely professional. It's just a different profession...

A Modest Business Proposal

I was greeted at my doorstep today by the cat meowing loudly. He was covered in feathers and behind him on the mat was a freshly killed dove. I did the right thing - I closed the front door, exited by the side entrance, and left it for my daughter to discover when she goes to work. 

When I pulled into our parking lot at work there was a medium-sized hawk sitting on one of the old iron frames - under him was a freshly killed pigeon, opened like a boiled egg. I had interrupted breakfast...

Professional photographers in the wedding and fashion game will recognise the scenario instantly. We've all been working away at whatever assignment is to hand and all of a sudden someone swoops on us. If we are lucky it is only an art director or director of photography - I always keep a silver crucifix handy and they vanish shrieking. Sometimes the interloper is an amateur unsure of whether they should stand in front of you with their iPad after you have organised the wedding group. I find that if you put a Metz 60 CT on full power on the seat of their trousers and hit the open flash button that it does all that needs to be done.

Unfortunately sometimes the predator is a competitor looking to get the images that you set up so that they can peddle them to other people. If you are going to be careful in post-production and they are not, they can have your images out there before you do, albeit in shoddy form.

How do you stop this? If it is a closed studio shoot, have Security grasp them and eject them. Wipe their card before tossing their camera onto the road in front of them. If it is outside in a public venue have them chased away by teenagers - the teenagers will do this for a modest fee and the opportunity to injure someone. You needn't set limits on this as they are under age and will be dealt with by a children's court.

If the piracy is taking place in a church, temple, or other place of worship, you must respect the sacred nature of the situation and refrain from any untoward reaction. I find it is best to be pleasant and encourage the other photographer to take as many pictures as they like. Indeed, give him the best spot and lend him a speedlight if his is not working. While he is occupied ring up Paul of the Grey Company and ask him to send Asgoth the Abominable to lurk outside the church door. I should wait a little after the offender exits the building before going out. And watch where you are putting your feet - blood ruins shoes.

Close Encounters of The Fun Kind - Stroboframe

I frequently buy items from our shop upon speculation - I do not know exactly how I will use them but I add them to the armamentarium on the off-chance that they will be just what I need. Here is a tale of one such device.

Stroboframe make brackets and flash holders for film and digital cameras - have done for years. Wedding photographers who used flash in the film era used them to drop the shadow from the flash down behind the subject. The simple geometry of the thing meant that faces looked clean and attractive and even quite small spaces could be utilised for set shots.

In a studio setting, the various flip mechanisms that Stroboframe make let people turn their cameras from landscape to portrait orientation without losing framing. A lot less shifting of tripods.

I had occasion yesterday to discover just how useful one of the larger Stroboframe brackets could be when I covered a model car exhibition. Think of these model cars in terms of close-up rather than macro subjects but stretch your imagination further to encompass your own work - and see if the brackets might be just as useful.

The bracket mounts my Nikon D300 with an 18-200 lens. The wide range of the lens is very useful when dealing with subjects that might be as small as your thumb up to full interiors or landscapes. In the case of the model car show I chiefly wanted clear illustration for my blog - "Here All Week" at hrhoa.wordpress.com. Thus meant accurate colours and adequate depth of field on the small cars - I needed f:22 if I could get it.

No problem with the Nikon flash system - the SB 700 flash has more than enough power for this task. The fact that I could mount it on the cross-bar of the Stroboframe in a TTL extension cord meant that there was absolutely no calculation or adjustment needed for the 170+ illustrations - I just selected a low ISO, a high f stop, and 1/160 of a second. Point, frame, and shoot...

The first wonderful thing about the Stroboframe is that if you need to do a vertical shot you just release the small red lever at the bottom and rotate the camera 90º. The weight of the camera steadies it in the new position and the flash angle does not change.

The second wonderful thing is the top flash bar also swivels down so that it will drop the light - and the troublesome shadow - even if the subject is tiny and close up.

The third wonderful thing is this same rotation can continue upwards for bounce flash and it is a damn sight easier than pushing the rubber button and swivelling the head. See the effect of a light bounce up on the Bonneville Salt Flat model shots.

The forth wonderful thing about this particular bracket is the peculiar rubber-covered handle on the front - it is very convenient as a carrying and support point for the whole rig - it is well balanced.

BEST NEWS - We've been having a Stroboframe sale these past weeks and we will continue it for a little while longer. 50% off is not to be sneezed at, particularly if you are a regular Camera Electronic bargain hunter.

Brilliant Ideas For Brilliant Minds - Shoot Photography Corses

We are very fortunate here at the shop  - we have good neighbours. In particular to the North - Shoot Photography Workshops. They can also be good to you, if you will go see them.

The best way to do this is to look at your own experience and see if there is some part of photography you wan to improve. Are you confident with your new digital camera...or do you want o learn the professional way to operate it? Are you puzzled by the studio light systems that are seen in all the best shots? Have you ever hankered after the excitement of photojournalism...or wedding photography work? Well, SHoot have the answer in the next few months.

There are five good courses on offer right now. You are far better reading about their details on the Shoot Photography website, or through the on-line shop section of our own Camera Electronic website.    

Here are a few tasters:

1. If you'd like to start out well in your digital photography, there is no better person to put you right than Simon Cowling. He is the principal at Shoot and has aided countless photographers to understand what is happening with their new cameras. A course with him means that you start getting results straight away.

2. Happy with the way it is going? Like to learn more? Like to find out some of the operational and aesthetic tricks that turn ordinary situations and sights into award-winning images? Dale Neill is the chap for you, and the Shoot course on Advanced DSLR Photography is just perfect. Expect to enjoy yourself greatly.

3. Studio lighting. Wow. Total control of your own images. Anthony Wilson will take you through the basic ideas of lighting and show you how the equipment does it - and how you can see what you want to acheive. Don't be afraid of the dark - you can do something about it. Introduction To Studio Lighting.

4. Want to get shot at? And shoot back? In the safest way? Ask Mohammed Morsi when you attend his course on Photojournalism. It is not all bullets and bayonet mounts, though - Mohammed will be helping you to understand journalist's ethics, human management, and marketing. You'll be shown how to make images that reproduce and sell.

5. Weddings are a vast professional topic and the Ultimate Wedding Photography Course reflects this - it takes 4 days to get all the information and try out the ideas. Bila Bakony will be explaining the aesthetics and mechanics and showing you how to manage time and people for this most challenging career. Look closer at his prospectus on the Shoot website. PS: Don't worry about managing the flower girls - no-one ever has...

The Shoot experience is a good one - I've attended several of the events run under their aegis and have profited by it. Actual money profit, as their instruction in one computer program cut my post-process time by 3/4 and that means more money in hand. These courses don't cost - they pay!

Uncle Dick