p.1 #1 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
Ok, so my cousin got married on New Year's eve. She hired one of her friends who shoots dual Fuji X100. I was at the event and I noticed that she was manual focusing everything.
Lo and behold, she gets her pics back, and myself being a photographer, she asked for my opinion on what she posted on facebook. I noticed that 30-40% of the images missed focus slightly. She delivered 270+ shots, which is very low compared to what I deliver to my clients. I'm assuming there were many throwaways. Now, I'm in a dilemma, I didn't tell my cousin that, many shots missed focus: including some important ones like father daughter dance, grandma's reaction to vows, first kiss. And this woman shot shallow DOF for virtually everything.
She seemed reasonably satisfied. But I'm cautious that once blown to print size, the focus issue is going to be bigger.
So my rant is this: to the old and the new users of manual focus. Perfect your craft or don't do it to a paying customer. This photographer clearly did not know how to manual focus in a wedding environment.
Look, I love to manual focus, but that's for MY enjoyment. When it's weddings, my 24-70 and 70-200 comes out. I think about creativity not technique. That should not be my worry in a 12 hour day.
I'm seeing way too many wedding photographers out there thinking they are the *hit because they manual focus - no, it's your paid for images that are *hit once you miss focus. Rant over...
p.1 #3 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
LeeSimms wrote:
It's just a wedding. At least your suspicions about technique were confirmed and you'll never do that on your own.
Is there another side to the coin of dual x100 coverage? Any stand out parts to the coverage?
Pictures were colorful. She clearly knows how to edit images. The portraits for the most part were nice. You can tell she studied poses and is a decent photographer.
p.1 #5 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
> The portraits for the most part were nice. You can tell she studied poses and is a decent photographer.
I'm of the mind that wedding photojournalism is on the decline. It will never die of course, but I think more clients desire nice & simple look-at-the-camera images than ones of grandma crying. Shooting one focal length gives everything a unified look that wedding style blogs (and therefore brides) gravitate towards.
FWIW, if you shoot that way, you're more comfortable with one or two small bodies & primes. End of the day doesn't feel so bad.
MF on an x100 might be self defeating, but don't mess with 'her art'.
p.1 #7 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
LeeSimms wrote:
I'm of the mind that wedding photojournalism is on the decline.
I've mentioned this before, but I think most clients just want simple, flattering images of themselves.
The past couples of years the industry has obsessed over Fearless™ images, but I almost never see my friends or clients actually do anything with these photos. The ones that show up on FB are almost always the camera aware grip-and-grins.
p.1 #9 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
We're in album season (Jan-Mar is our annual album sale) and it's painful to see so many choice moments picked over in the album for another look-at-the-camera image.
My daughter designs our books and she's always in shock. "Dad, look at this!" We'll compare the bride's picks to our own selects for the blog. At times, it can seem like a different wedding.
We have some distinct changes in our coverage this season to suit. Adapt or die.
p.1 #11 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
"She hired one of her friends "
You could have stopped there............
Gordon
p.s. I shot a pair of rangefinders for a couple of years. It's not that hard to manual focus for weddings.And I still revert to manusl focus at some point at every wedding I shoot, even with AF cameras.
p.1 #15 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
InSanE wrote:
How many images did rockstar wedding photographers deliver in MF era?
I don't know about rockstar wedding photographers back in the day, but I normally shot 10-15 rolls of film, 75% 15 frames per roll (6x4.5) and 25% 10 frames per roll (6x7).
A big wedding album had 50 prints.
I can't imagine shooting a wedding MF with modern AF capabilities.
Feb 22, 2017 at 04:15 PM
glort Offline • • • • [X]
p.1 #16 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
Some of are still around who Always shot MF because there was NO AF and when it did come in, it was so shit that you wouldn't use it in anything but bright daylight in constrasty situations anyway.
And that was only 35. Never had an AF MF camera.
I have never heard of MF being regarded as trendy before. In fact, I thought it was something lambasted like anything these days that requires the photographer to do it and the camera doesn't do it perfectly under impossible situations.
Even with my new toys I still find situations where it's better for me to focus myself and with the help of the camera beeping and showing an indicator when it agrees with me, it's easier still. I always use AF but when it has trouble, I'm able to do what it can't and it's not hard. Even as a dinosaur, I don't know why anyone would bother to manual focus when they can use AF as good as it is these days.
What we going to see next, a lever or know on the camera to advance to the next lot of pixels like winding the film? I never did that either. Back in " The day" all my cameras had motor drives on them, even the MF's. One of my Bronicas with the built in Drive had no way to advance it manually actually.
I never fail to be amazed what people in this game will do to look cool or trendy even when it is detrimental to the efficient and best creation of images and how things keep going in circles.
p.1 #17 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
Had an intern once who shot manual focus + manual exposure with her cutting edge mirrorless. She had previously shot with my camera in another wedding (A D810) set on aperture priority mode, auto-ISO and autofocus. Keeper ratio was 89% for that wedding and she evidently had an eye for composition.
With her mirrorless manual escapade the keeper ratio was 8%. I had 33 deliverable files out of about 400 frames shot over the course of 10 hours (!).
If you can't be fast AND consistent then you shouldn't shoot manual anything, because you'll be missing shots and therefore not serving your clients to the best of your and your gear's abilities.
p.1 #19 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
LeeSimms wrote:
Then there's the x100 focal length. I could see (almost) a whole wedding at 50mm (normal view) but isn't the x100 a 35mm (equiv)?
Portraits?
Exactly, that was my thought. X100 is 23mm on APSC, so 35mm eqiuv FOV. I don't see that being a terribly good tool for the job, but that is why I asked about the converter lenses. :/
