p.2 #1 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
mb126 wrote:
How the hell is this person in business?
The X100t is an awesome camera and I own one, but I have never used it at a wedding because there are tons of better options.
It 'aint the camera. No reason an X100 can't make great wedding images. It's whether the photographer has a good reason and the skill to shoot with manual focus. Manual is learned and takes practice. DO those two things and you're golden. Stop practicing and it all goes to shit. Us oldies don't shoot manual focus because it's a gift. We learned and we practiced. You had to or do something else. So now we have an instinctive skill many younger photographers don't so when we turn to MF we're fucking legends... But if you'd shoot 200K frames manual focus you would be too.
p.2 #2 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
Keep in mind us old timers did manual focus with either a split image or microprism focusing screen. Standard screens in digital cameras normally aren't designed for MF.
p.2 #3 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
I'm not sure why you feel compelled to point this out when she is happy with what she got.
dmacmillan wrote:
Keep in mind us old timers did manual focus with either a split image or microprism focusing screen. Standard screens in digital cameras normally aren't designed for MF.
X100 has focus peaking!
glort wrote:
I have never heard of MF being regarded as trendy before.
Anything old is now 'retro' and 'vintage' now and is therefore 'cool'
p.2 #7 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
When selecting a second shooter I ask for a DVD with all the pictures they shot from their last wedding. I can then see how competent they are technically and how good at posing and how good and catching key moments that last only seconds and how good they are with strangers at an event. I recommend that friends do the same when choosing a photographer and to not decide based on the cherry picked images on a website that represent only a few images from each wedding.
In my view the whole PJ fad was an excuse for photographers who did not know how to compose or to pose or knew how to use flash. They used "available light" and would state that flash was not natural. Of course if you can see the flash then the photographer screwed up.
I like the quote from W. Eugene Smith "Available light is any damn light that is available!" And for the pro wedding photographer that includes flash.
I had to cancel on a wedding after a death in my family but I agreed to do the couple's wedding album for them. Big mistake. The photographer they used did not have a single properly exposed image and had she use Program Mode the results would have been far better. It took me three times as long to do the album as I had to work with images that were often over exposed by two full stops.
p.2 #9 · Rant - Manual focus and wedding photography
elkhornsun wrote:
In my view the whole PJ fad was an excuse for photographers who did not know how to compose or to pose or knew how to use flash. They used "available light" and would state that flash was not natural. Of course if you can see the flash then the photographer screwed up.
I agree that everyone was trying to call themselves "wedding photojournalist" for a while, but I'm not sure it was a fad. It's my entire brand - I actually worked as a newspaper photographer for years. There's no better training than real on-deadline photojournalism assignments. You're thrown into every situation you can imagine, and have to come back with photos or there's no paper the next day. Real PJs have their technical sh*t together because they have to.
Nothing makes me cringe more than the term "natural light photographer." That's code for: I don't understand my equipment but I'm a photographer anyway.
But if you'd shoot 200K frames manual focus you would be too.