Wedding Photographers comments invited...

[Antipofish]

Hi,

I have a Nikon D700 at the moment, but have recently become interested in video on DSLR's and have been considering swapping out to the Canon 5DmkII. My photographic interests are currently quite varied. I enjoy shooting landscapes and nature, but also like doing some fast work, in particular at airshows (Eastbourne has one of the best in the country and its still free !!). Of course I am now starting to use it for aquarium images too.

However, it has long been a dream of mine to get into the world of wedding photography. Im not ready yet, and realise that its not just a case of taking as many images as you can in the hope of getting some good ones (like some of the £500 Ebay wedding "pro's" seem to think), but nevertheless it is something I would love to do.

That being said, I love the fact that my D700, coupled with appropriate glass, is so versatile. It has amazing low light handling and also, with the MBD10 battery grip, pretty darn good fps rates too. It strikes me that the one let down of the Canon 5DmkII is its very slow 3.9fps.

This has led me to consider the 7D, which reputedly has a better AF system than the 5DmkII as well as 8fps. The big downside is that it is cropped sensor (although vs the D700 it partially makes up for this with 18MP instead of Nikon's 12.1MP, but obviously cannot match the 21MP of the 5DmkII, and this is presumably why the fps is so much slower).

I would really welcome your comments and observations. Is FULL FRAME really essential to be able to make decent wedding images when it comes to enlargements ? Or can you get away with it with a 7D because of the higher pixel density ?

I would love to know what you are using, thanks.

 

[Stu Worrall]

Ill chip in 🙂

I use 2 x 5D mkii's at weddings. The main reason for choosing the full frame (FF) sensor is the uber small and nice depth of field (DOF) you can get with fast glass over cropped sensors plus the low noise performance at high ISO's. Yes you can still get a nice DOF with a crop but its much easier with a FF sensor. The 7D does have good low light performance and the AF is miles ahead of the 5D but IMO for my use its not enough to warrant a change (I do fine with the 5d focussing now although the edge points could be miles better). Hopefully the 5d mkiii will have better AF, ISO performance, dynamic range and not too many more megapixels!

To be honest I could live without the 21 Mpixels as most of the time its not needed. It does help with cropping now and again but most of the time its a PITA due to the large files sizes! At the moment I'm running at about 40-50Gb per wedding which has to be backed up. Granted I could delete the raw files that I don't use but I have a bit of belt and braces in mind at the moment so i keep them.

You also don't need high FPS for weddings as people don't tend to move around like Usain Bolt! Confetti throwing is about the only time I leave the shutter depressed to rattle off shots and the 3.9 FPS does just fine for this. For sports, high FPS is needed, for weddings, it just isn't.

If I wasn't already committed to the Canon system before I started doing weddings then I'd probably be running around with 2 x D700's now as they are excellent cameras. The D800 is getting a lot of negative press with wedding togs at the moment, mainly due to the high file sizes that people will have to deal with and the fact you can't drop it down with something like sRAW. Maybe Nikon will listen to them and add it via firmware later.

This has led me to consider the 7D, which reputedly has a better AF system than the 5DmkII as well as 8fps. The big downside is that it is cropped sensor (although vs the D700 it partially makes up for this with 18MP instead of Nikon's 12.1MP, but obviously cannot match the 21MP of the 5DmkII, and this is presumably why the fps is so much slower).

I would really welcome your comments and observations. Is FULL FRAME really essential to be able to make decent wedding images when it comes to enlargements ? Or can you get away with it with a 7D because of the higher pixel density ?

For the above. For me Full Frame IS essential for the type of images I want to produce at a wedding and its not the extra mega pixels that its has as its more about the DOF and low light performance. For this reason I'd happily use the 5D mkii OR the D700 and the 12Mp on the Nikon would be fine as it will blow up no problem.

a 1DX or D4 would be nicer though 🙂

PS, if you are going down the wedding route then try and second with an existing wedding photographer to get experience and remember you'll need two of everything when you do your own so you may have to rent to get the 2x body, 2x flash and a selection of fast glass to cover most focal lengths. (plus insurance, loads of memory cards, batteries etc etc) 🙂

Hope you don't mind me adding some pics as I rarely put any on here 🙂

 

[Antipofish]

Thanks so much for that in depth reply Stu, and no apologies for posting your images required, I could look at that quality of photography ANY time ! Probably my favourite one of the above is the little girl looking backwards down the aisle with the DOF result you have achieved... enough to see whats going on , but also out of focus enough to concentrate on the subject. And its a real moment catcher. Nice touch. Its the sort of thing I hope to achieve eventually.

You have ratified my thoughts on the D800. Just need to decide whether to stay with the D700 or change to Canon now. It was the video function I wanted the Canon for tbh. Damn Nikon for not bringing it out on the D700 lol. It annoys me that you can get it on lower end models and not this one. But hey ho, thats the way product development goes.

If any other wedding pros would like to comment, even if its to say the same thing, or to offer a counter opinion, I would welcome your posts...🙂