Cutting Edge of Professional Digital Wedding Photography

The vast majority of amateur photographers photographs suffer from background color imbalance when flash is used on a near subject. A professional photographer should provide most if not all images to you with the background color imbalance corrected. You may move pointer over image to view the digitally mastered version.

Here is what we mean when we speak about staying on the cutting edge of wedding photography and what this means we can do for YOU:

Every b&w image is dodged, contrast/tone is tweaked and burned-in as necessary to produce high quality b&w photographs. In order to properly cover your Wedding Day in color and b&w, an additional photographer is essential to shoot your black & white. If you are interested in only a small percentage of your package being black & white, then we would recommend selecting black & white from your color photographs for conversion. Afraid conversion won't produce "true" black & white photographs? Many custom labs use a high resolution DeVere enlarger for custom printing digital files on traditional black & white photographic papers.

NOTE: Ironically, among digital photographers color photography is more challenging than black & white. This is why you will often see a lot of black & white photography samples on photographer websites. Many digital photographers have even made it their standard practice to convert images to black & white when those images were shot in mixed lighting conditions. But what if you want those images in color? (View Gallery 16 to see one of the ways we handle mixed lighting). Since black & white can always be created later from color images, it is probably more important to view the color work of prospective wedding photographers than viewing black & white samples before making a decision about your photographer. (Digital amateur photographers do not color correct select areas of their images and neither do professional film photographers).

Memory Lane: Cherry in our photo lab February 1987. Printing engagement portraits inside wine goblets and other simple effects were very popular in the mid '80s.

Pros & Cons: Shooting Entirely Digital vs. Shooting Entirely Film

It has been said that one advantage of digital over film is that the photographer doesn't have to take the time to change film. But the digital photographer still has to change the storage media as it becomes filled with images. High resolution RAW files eat up battery power and storage space very quickly. (Though an entire wedding can be stored on one card, many photographers use several cards to be safe). Professional film cameras often have film inserts or film backs which makes changing to a new roll of film or a different roll of film possible in seconds - no longer than it takes a digital photographer to change batteries or digital storage media. Photographers who have switched entirely to digital sometimes like to point out that they can check each shot to make sure it is good before they move on to the next shot. But do you want you and your guests to have to wait after every shot for the digital photographer to tell you whether or not the shot has to be retaken? And....especially when shooting fleeting candid moments in the journalistic style, the shot cannot be retaken anyway.

Some digital cameras have a lag time between pushing the shutter button and the time it takes for the camera to actually take the shot. However, our digital cameras have virtually no lag time. Also, by the time the film has advanced to the next frame on most medium format film cameras, we can have additional shots taken with our digital cameras.

Photographers who shoot strictly digital like to point out that they don't have to send film to a lab. But storage media which holds digital files can also become corrupted and experience glitches just like computers. We live in an imperfect world. Anything can go wrong....digital photography is no exception.

Most photographers who talk against medium format film wedding photography are those who have never owned a medium format film camera or have never even shot a wedding with one. Usually these photographers will emphasize how blemishes etc., can be more easily retouched with digital photography. But most photographers only provide "basic tweaking" of photo files if they even provide that without charging extra. Then retouching? Yes, studios and photo labs charge for facial retouching and other corrective work because it is a time-consuming task. If there are hundreds of images from a wedding day which need this retouching, that is a lot of extra time for a photographer to spend working on files. If there are only a handful of images which need facial retouching, film photographs can be scanned and the retouch work performed. Also a talented photographer, shooting film or digital, shoots to hide or minimize anything that might otherwise need to be retouched anyway! (Besides, it wouldn't be fair or ethical for a photographer to charge you for a lot of retouching when no effort was made to shoot from angles to avoid the retouching).

Memory Lane: John in our photo lab circa 1995 with Durst AC707 Autocolor enlarger. On other side of room was a Beseler variable contrast enlarger (Aristo cold light head installed) for printing b&w. John doesn't miss processing test strips, mixing RA-4, b&w, C-41 & E-6 chemicals. The E-6 was used for processing 3-D wedding photography slides. Full-frame 35mm 3-D slides of weddings are beautiful!

Which is faster? To take another quick shot of a group with a film camera or for a digital photographer to stand in front of the group staring at the back of the camera and zooming in on the picture to see if everyone's eyes are open and have good expressions? I know from being both an avid film and avid digital shooter that it is faster just to take another shot with the camera. And that 2nd shot might just be a whole lot better than the first!

Some strictly digital photographers say they like being able to see lighting problems and composition problems after taking the image. They then look at the shot on the digital camera and can retake it. However, an experienced photographer knows what he or she is doing to start with. As photographers, we know how to "paint with light". Knowing how to paint with light means light and composition are the very least of our worries - it comes to us second nature. We don't have to think twice to get that.

Digital photographers also like to point out that they can provide you with special effects not available with film photography. Well, if ALL your photographs are going to be special effects, I would agree to go with digital photography. But the fact is you probably only want a handful of special effects. To create these for a film photography wedding, a film photographer simply scans the negatives and apply the special effects to the images which you select! No problem.

Memory Lane: Cherry in our photo lab circa 1995 with Jobo rotary processor. Cherry sure does like digital a lot better than processing films and custom wall portraits the old way!

Traditionally, medium format film wedding photography was THE CHOICE of your true professional wedding photographer. 35mm film was acceptably used for photojournalistic style photography. Usually black & white. But still used by less experienced and "economy" wedding photographers who were willing to sacrifice the image quality of medium format for a cheaper 35mm film camera. While medium format negative print film was the best choice for the best quality wedding photographs, some medium format film photographers chose transparency or slide film. NOT the appropriate film for wedding photography! While the color saturation was rich and might be appreciated by some people, the contrast and narrow exposure latitude resulted in inferior photographs. Also color correction due to shooting in mixed lighting conditions was more difficult with slide film. (Even if using daylight or tungsten balanced slide film with color correction filters, using color meter to measure light temperature, consistently shooting with the same film emulsion batch AND even going as far as using supplementary chemicals in the E-6 processing for slight incremental color adjustment control - mixed lighting, using one on-camera flash & various flesh tones often makes the best color balance, perfect exposure, contrast & tone difficult to achieve). Ironically, this is happening again today in digital on-location wedding photography. Digital image (JPEG) capture is very similar to shooting with slide film. Highlight capture is the single biggest problem in digital photography today with shooting in mixed lighting the next biggest problem.

But unlike the old days when unacceptably shooting weddings with slide film, photographers have post-production processes which can be performed in the digital lab to produce digital negatives from which photographic prints which rival NEGATIVE film-quality photographs can be printed. Producing medium format NEGATIVE film-quality photographs has traditionally been the goal of serious and dedicated wedding photographers for years. To do this digitally, requires a camera of approximately 13± megapixels and post-production CUSTOM processing of RAW camera files. Additionally, we can enhance the images in ways NOT possible with photoshop. Wedding Photographics does this to help insure you of the highest quality digital wedding photography available today. Furthermore, when it comes to digital black & white photography, the best black & white photographic prints are also possible, again, only through CUSTOM processing in the digital darkroom rather than using in-camera settings.

TIP for Digital Amateur Photographers & Some Pros: Considering the highlight capture problems of all digital cameras today, it may seem an exaggeration when I refer to processing my digital files so that they produce photographs which "rival photographs made from NEGATIVE film". As I indicated earlier, I rely largely on out of camera post-production custom processing on my computer using human judgment. Most photographers will not argue for a second that this is the best way to attain the best black & white - from either digital or film is custom shooting and custom printing. But to get around the current highlight capture problems of digital, we can take 3 shots of any serious "problem scenes" in wedding photography by bracketing our exposures at standard and +1, -2 stops exposure for details in the highlights and details in the shadows. We do this knowing later I can combine the best tones from each file into a single HDR photograph (High Dynamic Range image) in Photoshop CS3 using File -> Automate -> Merge to HDR. See High Dynamic Range Images below. With our Canon 5D digital cameras, we can set auto-bracketing to get 3 shots in one second at the pre-set exposures. (For digital wedding photographers - staying on the "cutting edge" must include being well-versed in the use of Photoshop, the latest releases and Photoshop plug-ins).

"Staying On The Cutting Edge of Professional Wedding Imaging"
	Click black & white photo on left to view 12.8 megapixel Black & White Photo. (3.60MB Download on web page). Technically, and in all fairness, megapixel count is not the only contributing factor to image quality. Dynamic range, lens quality and many other factors contribute to the technical quality of a digitally captured image. I simply emphasize the megapixel count as a convention, i.e., cameras with a 12.8 megapixel count do have a better dynamic range and accommodate more professional SLR lenses etc, than cameras of smaller megapixel counts. Most people appreciate this convention.
In the studio we use a chroma-key green backdrop. Using photoshop tools and plug-in, we are able to easily and in seconds place the subject(s) in hundreds of outdoor locations or provide hundreds of studio backgrounds. Our customers do not have to worry about inclement weather, sweating on hot or humid days or getting the wedding gown dirty to get great outdoor portraits. (For fellow photographers: Generally, green screens require less light than blue screens to be properly illuminated. I also chose a green screen for the superior detail in the green color channel digital cameras retain).
We optionally provide video coverage of Ceremony and optional video coverage of Reception.

While some wedding photographers only shoot parts of the Wedding Day in RAW or shoot the entire Wedding Day in high JPEG, Wedding Photographics shoots your entire Wedding Day in RAW to help insure you of the highest quality digital photography possible. Some photographers don't shoot RAW being simply satisfied with on-camera manual flash photography or no flash for consistent proper exposures shooting high JPEGs. However, proper exposures aren't the only consideration for the very best photographs. In the RAW workflow, we can achieve the best color and more to bring out the subtle nuances that make for great images. Also, for journalistic wedding photography, shooting fast or needing to be ready at all times to shoot doesn't allow time to change camera settings in ever changing light conditions and shooting situations. Shooting RAW allows me to concentrate more on shooting style, capturing fleeting candid moments etc., knowing later I can quickly and easily process the images to technical perfection for the bride in the RAW workflow!

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Thank you for everything. I have been so happy with your work and your personalities! I will recommend you to anyone who needs a photographer.
-Deana, Chattanooga TN