Wedding Photography and EOS 10/300D

[donsfan]

I am a relatively experienced SLR photographer who wants to move into wedding photography as a business. Can anyone tell me if the above cameras are suitable for this work and which one i should go for. i am leaning towards Canon as i have a 100 Elan SLR and 24-80 and 100-300 zoom lenses. Will these be sufficient for the job ?
Many thanks in advance for your help
Paul Stevenson

[rdenney]

donsfan wrote:
I am a relatively experienced SLR photographer who wants to move into wedding photography as a business. Can anyone tell me if the above cameras are suitable for this work and which one i should go for. i am leaning towards Canon as i have a 100 Elan SLR and 24-80 and 100-300 zoom lenses. Will these be sufficient for the job ?
Many thanks in advance for your help
Paul Stevenson

Personally, I wouldn't use anything less than the 10D for weddings. Bring your Elan as a backup. In commercial situations, cameras get whacked, and they still have to work. The 10D is made to be tougher than the 300D.

Whether your lenses are adequate is another matter, and it entirely depends on your style and expectations. If you adopt the photojournalistic style where you would prefer not to be noticed by the subjects when taking pictures, then a faster lens is a better lens and the 24-80 might be a bit slow. If you regularly use focal lengths wider than about 35-40 on that lens with your Elan, then it won't be wide enough for you on a 10D or Rebel.

For the sort of traditional wedding work I have done, a normal lens was usually sufficient, with the occasional need for a slightly wider lens and the even more occasional need for a longer lens (except for bridal protraits, which I usually shoot at a different time and place and with a different camera). The 24-80 would cover all my needs, though I would add a couple of special-effects lenses, including a very wide fisheye and a long portrait lens. I own a Russian 16mm Zenitar full-frame fisheye and a 135mm Canon soft-focus lens for those effects shots and would bring them to a wedding, though I have not done a wedding with the 10D (I still use medium format for weddings on the rare occasions I submit to arm-twisting and do one).

Image quality is important, because parents of the happy couple often want large prints. The largest print you'll be able to sell with a clear conscience, in my opinion, is 11x14, and only on rare occasions would this not be sufficient. But the image better look good at that print size, which means using outstanding lenses. Remember that the 10D is a small-format camera with a 15x23 sensor. That 11x14 with even slight cropping is a 20X enlargement, so lens faults will get enlarge twenty times, too. Any lens that doesn't make a good 16x20 on your Elan is suspect. I'm not familiar with the 24-80 lens you are using, but I have a cheapie 35-80, and I would never use it for commercial work--it just isn't good enough. The 24-70 f/2.8L would really attract my attention, and you can put the 24-80 on your Elan as a backup.

As far as the difference between Canon and Nikon, I prefer the handling and internal software of the Canon over the Nikon (I have a 10D and my wife owns a D100, so I've compared them side-by-side). In terms of image quality, they are slightly different but of equal quality for most things. The Canon is more flexible in general use, and performs better in low light.

Rick "who had a whole bag of lenses and still replaced many of them upon buying a 10D" Denney

[Malaxos1]

I have done a number of weddings and shot them ditally. i WAS USING A 4MP Olympus E10 and got great results. So far no problems or complaints from clients. As a matter of fact my number 1 advertisement is word of mouth, so I must be doing something right. There are quite a few books on shooting digital weddings, I reccomend getting a few, check your local library as that is where I have found the ones I have read. It seems more and more photographers are doing this. anyway I have two weddings comming up and these will be the first that I have used the D Rebel for. I do feel pretty confident using this camera but I wouldn't get one and use it right off the bat. The camera does not have a spot meter which I used to rely heavely on, therefore I needed to re think how I plan on metering. Also I agree that glass is important, while the D Rebel's 18-55mm is OK, it is not a pro lens. The first thing I did when getting the camera is purchase another lens. One day i may move up to the 10D for stirdiness sake but this camera is sufficiant for me as I have never owened a camera with custom settings anyway. Alos I went to a pro lab a few weeks ago and they showed me a full length poster taken with a 6mp digital camera and challenged me to find something wrong with it. I couldn't, I do believe that you can get some nice prints with either of these cameras as I have gotten larger than 8x10s out of the 4mp E10. If you have any questions you can email me at djmalaxos@hotmail.com

Dean