I have read the FAQ/Sticky regarding guests with cameras. I am what you would consider an "enthusiast" - i.e. not a professional photographer but really enjoy taking pictures for my enjoyment and to give to others.
I'm going to a wedding Saturday and am considering taking my camera. How do you pros feel about a guest taking pictures during a wedding?
Thanks in advance for your input.

=\

meh. guests are fine. they add to a picture.

ppl who bring amounts of gear, i talk to and shoot the ish with.
and if those ppl with the amounts of gear get in the way and hinder me from completing my job for my clients, i politely ask them to relocate for a bit then they can come back if they like.

i read a post about a week back where the uncle bob told the main togger that he was getting in his shot. . now that's a different story.

Most will say leave the camera at home.

I've been there and love having my camera in my hands way too much to have been able to resist.

So if you MUST bring your camera... Go. Shoot. Stay out of the way! Be behind the photog. Shoot your friends and others that the 'tog isn't being paid to shoot. DO NOT SHOOT over his shoulder or his setups. That causes eyes to be all over the place and he needs them on him. Capture the stuff that people wouldn't do in front of the pro.

stay out of the way
dont steal shots
and my personal gripe with uncle bobs....dont come up to me and try to impress me with the gear you brought! Im sure its really nice but I really dont care!

^^ What Phyl said. But only if you must. Usually, you're just going to end up annoying the photographer and other guests, who already have to deal with the professional taking pictures of them. There is such a thing as picture overload for people.

(reposting instead of linking 'cause I'm having a harder time finding this now)

I notice that my feelings about this have been changing over time, probably as a result of reading post upon post of horror or near-horror stories about this kind of thing... so I don't claim that this is my FINAL position on the matter.

Here's the problem:

Let's pretend you're Joe Guest Who can't take a photo worth the cost of the digital bits being used by it. You take your Panasonic Lumisoux-G893Z P2 to the wedding and snap some shots. You delete the ones that are blurry, heads chopped off, or where the bride and groom are out of focus in the background while some homeless lady is in focus in the foreground . The hired pro gives you a couple of looks and points you to the bar a couple of times, and hints you should be hitting on the bridesmaids instead of photographing their a$$es

Anyway... you get home, you posts your pictures, 22 of them, 1 of which doesn't totally suck. You go to sleep. Nobody ever asks you for the Full size files, RAW files, nobody asks anything in fact, except "did you work off the booze yet?"

Now let's pretend you're Joe "Pro Photographer" Guest. You show up with your 5DMk2 135 L and a 35 L just to show that you don't need no stinkin' zooms. You waste half of the time you really should be wasting hitting on the bridesmaids while your wife's not looking taking well composed artistic shots of the event. The pro photographer takes the mother of the bride aside to make sure you're not getting paid. He stops shooting the formals and refuses to continue until you leave the church (the other people with the Point and shoot can stay). He makes faces at you all throughout the evening, takes photos of you to post on photography forums to make fun of you, refers to you as Bob and right after the cutting of the cake, rips the fong dong off your 580EX2 tosses it to the floor and squashes it like it was a glass at a jewish wedding.

You drive home glad that the pro didn't wrap your 5D2's strap around your neck and toss you into the koi pond where you would either drown or be electrocuted because oh yeah you were wearing a 240volt Battery pack for your flash, in your front pocket. your PP suffers.

You get home and your iphone goes off. WTF?!?! It's like 2am. It's the Groom "Hey Joe, we just did it three times in a row... I'm dying here man she's insatiable... hey pal, did you upload any of your shots on Facebook yet?

And it's downhill from there. You can't just post out of camera shots. You're a professional photographer. Anything YOU send out will be scrutinized like crazy. So now you have to post-process the photos, remove blemishes, do some selective color and fancy white vignettes.

By the time you're done... you've accomplished the following:

- Some teenager out of college is banging the bridesmaid you could have had a quicky with ... and you're in bed next to Gertrude. Your PP is definitelly not happy.

- You have a contract on your head placed on 99Contracts.com by the official photographer

- You've spent 5 hours post-processing images for free

- You're looking forward to the divorce, hopefully it will happen soon, before people start asking you for free prints. After all you have a printer right there, what could a print possibly cost you... a penny? I'll take 6 11x17's Joe please, on coated archival paper... you're a peach!

and just when you thought it was over you get this text from the bride:

"Hey Joe, my husband's on the lounge-chair recuperating... dunno what it is but he seems really dead today. Anyway... my high school best friend's daughter's boyfriend is a professional wedding photographer, oh and he works at the Gap and pizza hut too!, anyway... he said that if you could give him the RAW files he could do some photoshop magic on them for me. Would I need to buy a DVD for you or can you just email them to him? Thanks sweetie!"

So the moral of the story is the following:

Either

1. Don't bring the gear

or

2. When you get home from the wedding, before you do anything else update your facebook status to "Memory card with the wedding photos from tonight is corrupted. Better buy Sandisk next time"

oh yeah...

and don't keep a 240v battery pack next to your PP

^ You've been thinking about this one haven't you? I say leave the gear at home and enjoy the wedding. Do you wear a helmet and shoulder pads to a football game? Let the pro do his job and you do what lisy says with the bridesmaids.

ROFLMAO best stuff I've read on FM in quite a while.

It really does come down to this idea of "be careful of what you wish for, you just might get it." I mean, you take these great wedding shots nobody asked you for. Okay. But what do you do with them? What were they really for?

I love shooting weddings. So much so, that I shoot 30+ a year and it is my primary source of income. When I attend a wedding, my Nikon Coolpix comes in my front pocket. That is it. I am convienced that almost no full-timers bring out their gear when they are guests. Either out of respect to the pro, or to finally get to be on the other side of things. If you'll really have more fun with the camera, bring it. If you are going to be toiling to take "great" shots and somehow stay out of the way, bring the Coolpix.

Bring it, but make sure to stay out of the way and not pull bridesmaids or groomsmen off to the side for a "quick" shot of your friends. But I am guessing you wouldn't do that if you are good enough to ask us here, enjoy the wedding.

lisy78 wrote:
(reposting instead of linking 'cause I'm having a harder time finding this now)

I notice that my feelings about this have been changing over time, probably as a result of reading post upon post of horror or near-horror stories about this kind of thing... so I don't claim that this is my FINAL position on the matter.

Here's the problem:

Let's pretend you're Joe Guest Who can't take a photo worth the cost of the digital bits being used by it. You take your Panasonic Lumisoux-G893Z P2 to the wedding and snap some shots. You delete the ones that are blurry, heads chopped off, or where the bride and groom are out of focus in the background while some homeless lady is in focus in the foreground . The hired pro gives you a couple of looks and points you to the bar a couple of times, and hints you should be hitting on the bridesmaids instead of photographing their a$$es

Anyway... you get home, you posts your pictures, 22 of them, 1 of which doesn't totally suck. You go to sleep. Nobody ever asks you for the Full size files, RAW files, nobody asks anything in fact, except "did you work off the booze yet?"

Now let's pretend you're Joe "Pro Photographer" Guest. You show up with your 5DMk2 135 L and a 35 L just to show that you don't need no stinkin' zooms. You waste half of the time you really should be wasting hitting on the bridesmaids while your wife's not looking taking well composed artistic shots of the event. The pro photographer takes the mother of the bride aside to make sure you're not getting paid. He stops shooting the formals and refuses to continue until you leave the church (the other people with the Point and shoot can stay). He makes faces at you all throughout the evening, takes photos of you to post on photography forums to make fun of you, refers to you as Bob and right after the cutting of the cake, rips the fong dong off your 580EX2 tosses it to the floor and squashes it like it was a glass at a jewish wedding.

You drive home glad that the pro didn't wrap your 5D2's strap around your neck and toss you into the koi pond where you would either drown or be electrocuted because oh yeah you were wearing a 240volt Battery pack for your flash, in your front pocket. your PP suffers.

You get home and your iphone goes off. WTF?!?! It's like 2am. It's the Groom "Hey Joe, we just did it three times in a row... I'm dying here man she's insatiable... hey pal, did you upload any of your shots on Facebook yet?

And it's downhill from there. You can't just post out of camera shots. You're a professional photographer. Anything YOU send out will be scrutinized like crazy. So now you have to post-process the photos, remove blemishes, do some selective color and fancy white vignettes.

By the time you're done... you've accomplished the following:

- Some teenager out of college is banging the bridesmaid you could have had a quicky with ... and you're in bed next to Gertrude. Your PP is definitelly not happy.

- You have a contract on your head placed on 99Contracts.com by the official photographer

- You've spent 5 hours post-processing images for free

- You're looking forward to the divorce, hopefully it will happen soon, before people start asking you for free prints. After all you have a printer right there, what could a print possibly cost you... a penny? I'll take 6 11x17's Joe please, on coated archival paper... you're a peach!

and just when you thought it was over you get this text from the bride:

"Hey Joe, my husband's on the lounge-chair recuperating... dunno what it is but he seems really dead today. Anyway... my high school best friend's daughter's boyfriend is a professional wedding photographer, oh and he works at the Gap and pizza hut too!, anyway... he said that if you could give him the RAW files he could do some photoshop magic on them for me. Would I need to buy a DVD for you or can you just email them to him? Thanks sweetie!"

So the moral of the story is the following:

Either

1. Don't bring the gear

or

2. When you get home from the wedding, before you do anything else update your facebook status to "Memory card with the wedding photos from tonight is corrupted. Better buy Sandisk next time"

oh yeah...

and don't keep a 240v battery pack next to your PP

This is one of the funniest things I have EVER read on FM!!! I was giggling the whole way through! Bravo!

I kept reading "PP" as "post-processing," each time with a brief moment of confusion following.

Too bad you can't recommend posts on this forum, that one is classic

I'm an "enthusiast" as well - in general the only camera I bring to a wedding is my LX-3. I'm at a wedding to party, so why bring the gear?

I did bring the SLR, strobe, prime and 2.8 zoom to a close friend's wedding once when I knew they went low-budget on everything, and didn't even spend $1,000 on the photographer. Their "pro" rented a D200 and 18-200 to shoot inside a church. She didn't even know how to hold a camera properly. So I was glad I brought it in that case, but in general I'd rather be at the bar for all the reasons mentioned above

nOt liSy... you need to hang up the camera, put pen to paper and become a writer!

That's one of the funniest posts I've EVER read!

***not that your a bad photographer... your quite good in fact***

Ungripped. Single small(ish) prime lens. Single on-camera flash. Don't be a jerk. No problem.

Leave it at home. Do you take a stick to a Hockey game? Do you wear shoulder pads to a football game?

Ok really who's been able to bang a bridesmaid while on the job?

patrick Eilers wrote:
nOt liSy... you need to hang up the camera, put pen to paper and become a writer!

That's one of the funniest posts I've EVER read!

***not that your a bad photographer... your quite good in fact***

Thanks for the compliment

Always have been somewhat of a jester... not that you haven't had a chance to see that in live action hu? Oooooooo Soooooole Mio......

Peter Bui wrote:
Ok really who's been able to bang a bridesmaid while on the job?

well... aside from the fact that my piece was obviously comedy... I was suggesting that it's a guest who would be ahem... engracing himself with a bridesmaid rather than uncle-bobbing the wedding. And while I can't claim firsthand experience (not with actual you know... ahem... banging ... I'm not that easy... what can I say ) that does happen

This guest pictured below, followed me around all evening, constantly snapping pics. I tried to be nice and reason with her, telling her that she was distracting my clients, thereby upsetting me. She smiled sweetly, and basically told me to "stfu camera boy....I'm an artist, you're a hack". She even came over, looked at my gear and sniffed; "Canon huh? What, you can't afford the good stuff?". She then proceeded to snap another shot, check the histogram and proclaim loudly, "damn....I'm good!". Then she turned around, gave me a wink and told me to "always expose to the right".

I went home and cried all night, knowing that she probably sold a hundred or more prints to the B&G and the rest of the wedding party while I had to make do with the 600+ crappy shots I had.