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Post by nikonbob on Feb 26, 2011 15:02:38 GMT -5
PeterW
Oddly enough Leica produced the DMR, digital back, for their R8 and R9 film SLRs. It was an expensive, to the customer, and fairly short lived accessory. I agree that there is little likelihood of anyone else repeating the effort. That is too bad seems a waste when you could recycle bodies.
Bob
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Feb 27, 2011 0:11:12 GMT -5
The product (& I use that term loosely) was touted by a company called imagek, which morphed into SiliconFilm Ltd before spluttering out completely in the early 2000s.
I don't think anyone outside the company was ever able to get up close and personal with any of the "prototypes", making everyone suspicious that they were more mock-up than prototype. In other words, vapuorware looking for venture capital.
12 years on, the concept is probably more technically viable but less marketable. Yes, like most here I'd love to "digitize' my favourite 35mm, the Nikon F3, but the resulting camera, whilst rugged and wonderfully tactile to use, would be easily outperformed by a humble eos 550D.
Furthermore, there wouldn't be any user interaction between the photographer and the 'film' (I'm sure this is why a digital back makes much more sense to most folks here). Essentially, the only advantage over traditional film would be processing time/cost.
Which brings me to a slightly related point. I watched a weekend-pro whilst attending a wedding last weekend. Wow, did he put in the work. Moreover, his 'day job' employer was coincidentally attending the wedding too. He told me that the photographer was doing two weddings that weekend, and customarily spent all his evening hours in post-production on the computer.
My observation? I can't imagine many wedding photographers in the film era putting through as many shots as this guy did. He worked solidly from 4PM to 10PM.
And the post-production possibilities offered by PS and its ilk, means a lot of time at the 'puter. I appreciate that most members here would rather sit than stand, but as one who sometimes spends 12 hours a day working at a screen, that ain't all beer and skittles either.
Overall, I wonder if the digital era has resulted in an increasing time/return ratio for the average wedding photographer. That is, they are spending more time for the same money or, even if they are getting more money due to reduced processing costs, they are actually spending more time on a job due to the 'convenience' of digital.
Just a thought, and apologies for hijacking the topic!
MT.
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Post by nikonbob on Feb 27, 2011 8:19:01 GMT -5
MT
That is a good memory you have and now that you mentioned the names that is what I had wanted to remember.
I agree too that a digi back is the way to go.
I have a feeling that wedding photographers, aside from those few at the top serving wealthy client's, are making less and doing more to earn it. There is more competition now that everyone with a digital camera thinks they are a pro photog and will likely drastically under cut the price of doing a wedding just to get a job. I don't think this applies to weddings only but lots of other photo genre too. Add to that the fact that a lot of work was farmed out in the past to others for developing and printing and that can now be done wholly by the photographer you have a greatly increased amount of time spent in post. Yea, I think you are bang on again.
The one thing digital has given to more photographers than was the case in the past is the ability to have total control from image capture through pp to the final usage.
I have always had a problem with photographers doing this sort of thing as a side job and I realize you have to start somewhere. The problem I have with that sort of thing is that there are people who depend on photography as their single source of income to make a living and feed a family. Side jobbing would seem to under cut these photographers ability to do so. It may also speak to the fact that today there are fewer and fewer jobs that can allow one to raise a family on a single source income. Just a thought and really far OT I am afraid.
Bob
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Feb 27, 2011 9:56:39 GMT -5
Michael, Your experience of the part-time-pro wedding photographer makes me rather sad, quite apart from the fact that he was doing a full-time pro out of a job.
I can’t help thinking that he suffers from the malaise that afflicts many amateurs who get a modern digital camera. They become mentally lazy because the camera takes care of all the technical side. It focuses for them, decides the exposure for them, and takes care of the light balance and light colour temperature for them.
So, with the technical side of photography taken care of, what is there for the aspiring pro photographer to learn?
The answer is technique: the technique of looking for a picture, anticipating that a picture is about to present itself, getting into a position to frame it and compose it properly, watching for expressions and gestures, all the things that made the great news photographers and photojournalists great. These are the things the amateur-pro never learns
Your part-time pro spent, you say, about six hours at the wedding, constantly shooting pictures. How many hundred pictures did he take, for Goodness’ sake? No wonder he spent hours at his computer sorting them out.
That’s not a professional’s work. That’s a paid amateur’s saturation technique.
Contrast him with the older type of wedding photographer using film, traditionally in a Rolleiflex. He would shoot maybe three or four rolls of film covering the ceremony and reception. He knew that from those 36 or 48 pictures he had twenty good ones from which the bride, groom and relatives could choose the ones they wanted to be mounted or put in a wedding album.
A greater contrast is the even older type of photographer working with his 5x4 inch or 9x12cm plate camera and carrying perhaps twenty plates in total. Every shot had to count.
The total time spent by these older pros on a wedding: ceremony, reception and darkroom, was probably six hours or less.
Bob:
I agree totally with your feelings about pro photographers being pushed aside by amateurs who will undercut them on price just to get a few extra bucks on top of their normal work. With today’s digital cameras most of these can turn out passable, but not outstanding, work. Trouble is, most of the public buy on price, not on quality.
When Valerie and I started full time freelancing back in the 1960s it was probably harder for amateurs to break into the pro market, particularly the magazine market, but it helped a lot that I was already an established and reasonably successful journalist with two Business Press writer of the year awards.
We never sent stuff in on spec, we worked only to commissions though we often proposed ideas for features. We also did a lot of PR work for mainland European truck makers who already knew me and who were slowly establishing a foothold in the UK. People like Volvo, Scania, Mercedes, Fiat and MAN. They commissioned a lot of PR shots of “working” pictures of trucks which their UK agents had sold into UK haulage fleets.
We also did a lot of work at trade and industrial exhibitions, and it helped that we had NUJ Press Cards which gained us access on Press Days reserved for working journalists before the public were allowed in and got in the way.
We had little or no competition from correspondence-course-taught amateurs who were only too willing to undercut pros in other fields.
But, sadly, we saw a lot of good pros, people who sold their work to the public: weddings, portraits etc, who had to give up and look for other work because of undercutting by amateurs, even before the digital age. It must be a lot worse now.
PeterW
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2011 10:44:37 GMT -5
I shot some weddings in my younger days but gave it up rather quickly. It was a hard way to make any money. There were instances where the newlyweds broke up before the proofs returned from the lab. Then there were those who tried to get some of the photos free by nitpicking their composition or whatever. I got smart enough to get enough to cover lab fees in advance but I got sick of brides' mothers.
The best customers were couples from the local Hispanic community. They always ordered lots of extra prints and paid in cash.
With today's digital equipment, I don't know how any full time wedding photographers make a living.
W.
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Feb 27, 2011 13:42:06 GMT -5
I have to defend the poor photographer somewhat. I did see him self-edit before tripping the shutter on at least one occasion!
Otherwise, the comments re the part-time versus full-time professional are apposite. from the other angle, I saw an article on a very talented landscape and travel photographer who had been eeking out a living on weddings. A very talented and wedding photographer told him to stop doing what he thought he had to (in order to survive as a photographer) and do what he wanted, and follow where his talent/interest really lay. He did, and the result was success. He now has an international client base.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Feb 27, 2011 14:39:07 GMT -5
For any photography you need a certain amount of photographic nous. Wedding photography is relatively easy, as long as you have nous and the ability to organise people properly. The best photographers do it without the people realising they are being organised. I've done quite a few wedding videos (a whole different ballgame) and this has let me watch, in close up, several different wedding photographers.
Some had too much attention to detail. There was one occasion, which I have on video, when the photographer and his assistant went up five times between them to do such as pull a shirt sleeve down slightly so both cuffs showed the same amount. The photos ended up technically good, but hardly spontaneous.
Then there was another who was very relaxed - actually too relaxed. Most of the photos had the bride's mother's face half-hidden by her hat, or at least deep in shade.
The best at the time, and I think the best results were produced by a bloke who made everyone laugh most of the time. Having the photographs done, rather than being a chore, was an interesting experience.
The best photos technically were those at the wedding in Tokyo. It wasn't cheap, but the attention to detail was second to none. The Japanese like being told exactly what to do, so that style worked well there.
Most of the professional photographers have been lovely. The one exception was the first I have mentioned above. He can only be described as a pain in the ass. The Japanese photographer was super.
I have done the sill photos as the only 'photographer' there: but only on two occasions. One was my stepson's wedding last summer and the other was one where I was actually doing the video, but found while I was there that they had not booked a photographer, for reasons of cost. This was probably the last real session I did on film.
If anyone asks me if I will take the wedding photos, I decline. I tell them to get a 'proper photographer'.
Michael, topics should be hijacked. It is the only way to travel.
Dave.
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Feb 27, 2011 15:05:12 GMT -5
A "Pro" at work. A Professional at work is more than just a shutter snapper. He is a phsychologist, a manual labourer, an artist, an electrician, a coordinator, a person of unending patience and gentle good humour and good taste, a gentleman and a diplomat. This photo was taken by me of just such an individual contracted to photograph my older son's family of eight as a group and as individuals. He worked! My how he worked! I did not take any pictures of his arrangements or using his lighting set ups or, indeed of his subjects. My flash was never turned on though badly needed. I kept well out of his way as he was at work. I was a curious bystander hoping to learn something new. I took three poor photos that day all of which included him and one decent one of his lovely wife (with flash) with her permission. This is his fourth annual photo session of Paul's family. He is good. He more than earned his fees and our respect. Mickey
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Feb 27, 2011 19:57:42 GMT -5
Mickey,
Good to hear of a true professional like that. Whatever his fee, he's worth it.
If things carry on the way they are going in the UK there soon won't be any real professionals doing weddding work apart from society weddings.
Two established pro portrait and wedding photogs near us closed down this year.
Ordinary people will soon be in the hands of the part-time weekend-amateur-pro photographers turning out uninspired work at cut-price rates. I just hope these guys are keeping proper accounts and sending the Inland Revenue a self-employed tax return each year.
If they don't, then one day the Inland Revenue is going to find out and they will be sent an inflated demand for past tax against which they will have to appeal backed by properly kept accounts. They will also be fined £100 for each year they failed to submit a self-employed tax return.
I heard last year from a friend about another portrait and wedding pro who had been in business for years in a London suburburn High Street but who just wasn't making enough money to pay local council business tax, let alone live.
He owned the freehold of his shop and the flat above where he and his wife lived, so he closed down, put the premises on the market where it sold quite quickly to an investment company and is now rented by a cut-price clothes shop chain.
He and his wife moved to a much cheaper house further out of London. With the money left over they bought a new car and a trailer caravan.
Now they spend quite a lot of time touring round the south of England where he takes landscapes and pictures of "old world" England such as thatched cottages and picturesque villages. He takes out things like offending telephone lines and television aerials with Photoshop.
He licenses the publication of these pictures to a couple of firms, one in the south of the UK and one in the Midlands, that produce calendars, greetings cards and jigsaw puzzles. He retains the copyright and licences a two-year exclusive use in those three fields. He's careful to send pictures that don't clash or aren't very similar to each firm.
His overheads are a fraction of what they were, just public liability insurance, the upkeep of the car and the trailer caravan and any repairs to the camera and computer. Demand for his work is increasing and for the first time in four years he's free of financial worries.
He dosn't fear competition from part-time amateur-pros. He was told by one firm that they try, but though the stuff they send in on spec is technically good they just don't know how to compose an appealing picture because they haven't learned their trade.
PeterW
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Feb 28, 2011 2:49:12 GMT -5
PeterW,
It is good to hear of someone who is adaptable enough to turn defeat into a great success. He must be a happy man in his new life.
Mickey
By the way, my son's photographer used digital equipment.
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Feb 28, 2011 5:09:23 GMT -5
I'm never sure about learning composition. I think one just has an eye for it or one doesn't. Yes, you can improve technique and technical ability but I do think compositional ability is innate, or at least learned when very young. I can illustrate the point through music. Family friends Dink and Eve. Dink can't read music, he plays by ear. Even reads music well and had formal teaching, which Dink never had. The result? Eve sounds somewhat mechanical as she plays whereas Dink's playing flows.
Interestingly there was a lady at my stepson's wedding who had a point-and-shoot digital camera. She didn't understand the technical side of photography and had no idea about such as photoshop. What she did know was composition - but she didn't know she knew it. After all, all she did was pick up a camera and take a photograph.
Another wedding we went to last year had a professional in attendance. What his firm have started to do is a package that means they take the photographs and just send out a disc of them as jpegs. The clients can the do what they want with them. I suspect most just view them on the television.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 28, 2011 13:59:09 GMT -5
Dave:
You make a good point. I think we have physically looked at our wedding photos from 1967 maybe a half dozen times and that was only to show our daughters and granddaughters.
Wayne
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Post by barbarian on Mar 5, 2011 10:28:47 GMT -5
I remember the digital film project. It did indeed look like a 35mm cassette, with a sensor attached. One of the problems was that it had to be individually made for each sort of camera.
I suppose the vast majority of people would rather have a new digital camera than retrofit an old film camera.
To me, the thought of digital photography with my old Contax II or Topcon RE is a wonderful dream. But for now, that's all it is.
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