Impressed with 40d - Wedding Shots

[therosefairy]

So I shot a wedding yesterday, it was the first time using my new 40 d for a wedding. So far I am very impressed with it. The colors seem more vibrant, it held up great in a dim lit church, it was pretty quiet, I am just so impressed with it so far. I even did less pp due to the colors just naturally being nice. Here are a couple sample images from the church to somewhat judge it by.

[pman67]

Nice shots! I know what you mean about the colors, I got the XSI in April (which has the same Digic III in it) and I feel the same way about it. The colors really pop on it too!

[PullTheTrigger]

Make print outs will be the judge

[auroraskye]

Clarity and exposure look pretty good. WB seems a little off thou :P I am dying for a 40D now.. I want one soooooo bad. I mean, my goal is to do the best with what I have, but I am itching for it. The ISO is killing me. Haha.

[BARBIE]

what lense did you use I just got a 40d and im going to shoot a wedding soon.:lol:

[LVPhotos]

Welcome to the 40d club! I truly believe that until the new 5d (or whatever) comes out, the 40d is the best wedding camera that Canon makes. We're picking a second one up in a week or two.

Nice shots, too!

[JMHPhotography]

Welcome to the 40d club! I truly believe that until the new 5d (or whatever) comes out, the 40d is the best wedding camera that Canon makes. We're picking a second one up in a week or two.

Nice shots, too!

I have to respectfully disagree...

I'm sorry but to be perfectly honest, I see nothing from the examples (while very nice photos) that would indicate that it's better in color rendering than the 5D, 30D, or even 20D for that matter.

[cdifoto]

The best wedding camera is the one you're comfortable using.

[JMHPhotography]

The best wedding camera is the one you're comfortable using.

I couldn't agree more.

[reefergal]

nice shots, I like them both.

[cchooks]

Hey RoseFairy,
Did you defuse the flash in any way for your shots? I just bought 2 40Ds with the 580EX II's and find them so harsh and flat. I have gone to the demb jumbo and large and love the results but still have to study each venue to find the right settings for each.

[JMHPhotography]

Hey RoseFairy,
Did you defuse the flash in any way for your shots? I just bought 2 40Ds with the 580EX II's and find them so harsh and flat. I have gone to the demb jumbo and large and love the results but still have to study each venue to find the right settings for each.

If your flash is on the top of your camera, and bounced up, even the demb jumbo is going to give you flat light. In fact, you could bounce your flash off of a 36" reflector held over your head by an assistant and it's going to give you flat light. Obviously it won't be as harsh... but it's still non-directional light. If you want directional lighting, that doesn't look like it's flash... you have to bounce off over your shoulder to the sides to a nice big wall. If you don't have a wall, have someone hold a big reflector off to the side and bounce off of it.

David Ziser on kelbytraining.com has a great series of lessons and tutorials on this topic. Go there and sign up for free, and take a peek at lesson's 2 and 3. To get ALL of the lessons of his class you have to pay... but those two lessons are free samples... and WELL worth the free sign up.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about from my image library(this was 100% on camera flash bounced off of the wall to my left):
http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4194/img0518kb3.jpg

[ded007]

^ That shot is a GREAT example of how to bounce flash. You can clearly see that the light is directional frame left to frame right across her face. But the reflection in her eyes shows the light from the flash "moving" the other direction.

[elader]

Welcome to the 40d club! I truly believe that until the new 5d (or whatever) comes out, the 40d is the best wedding camera that Canon makes. We're picking a second one up in a week or two.

Nice shots, too!


DO you own a 1DmkIII or a IDSMKIII or a 5D to make that judgement? My 5D, while pokey, makes nicer pictures than my 40D (or the 20D it replaced). That being said, the 40D is solid, amazingly quick, and in almost every other way, better to me than the 5D/

[rsmedley]

Nice pics. I say the color temperature is definitely off in the second one but spot on in the first one. I especially like the first one but that's probably because I'm partial to closeups. Thanks for sharing.

[therosefairy]

Thanks everyone for your comments. To answer some questions:

PulltheTrigger: I did make prints of these and they came out nice pertaining to color and everything, just like I see on my screen. Although I do have everything calibrated, but I found with this camera I needed to make less adjustments on color vibrance or lighting.

Barbie: For this wedding I used I believe the 28-200. When I first started my business I didn't have a lot of major funds to use, so I bought what was within my price range and yet a somewhat versatile lens. So far I really like this lens, no major complaints about it.

CChooks: For this wedding I actually used my 480 ex flash. I have a 580 but I had to have it repaired a little bit ago as its sensor burnt out. I didn't want to take a chance and used my 480, it was not diffused for these shots. I normally do use a diffuser for most shots though.

LVPhotos: I completely agree, for a lower price camera I think this one is great. I upgraded from a 20d and to me there is a huge difference. I looked at the 30d's but at the time it didn't seem like a huge difference from what I already had. I'm glad I waited to get the 40d. I'm sure that the mark series cameras are nicer, but those are not in my budget. And I could have got the 5d, but I think that camera could have more features too for me it wasn't worth getting that one, and when the new 5d comes out (whenever that may be) I'm sure that one wont be in my budget either.

Forkball: thanks for the input, I personally still believe that the 40d is better than my 20d in regards to color (among other things). I guess a true way to tell would be to do the side by side comparison of both cameras, but I know based upon my own shots that the 40d is better. I never owned a 5d, so I'm not going to say its better than that one because I do not know. By the way, that is a nice photo of the little girl, and a good example of bouncing light.

Thanks for everyones remarks!

[JMHPhotography]

Forkball: thanks for the input, I personally still believe that the 40d is better than my 20d in regards to color (among other things). I guess a true way to tell would be to do the side by side comparison of both cameras, but I know based upon my own shots that the 40d is better. I never owned a 5d, so I'm not going to say its better than that one because I do not know. By the way, that is a nice photo of the little girl, and a good example of bouncing light.

Thanks for everyones remarks!

I guess you mean the default color reproduced by the camera in JPEG mode. In which case I can't really disagree since I have no basis for comparison.

I shoot primarily in RAW, and I have all three of my cameras calibrated with the calibration tab in ACR and Lightroom(used a X-Rite color checker to build a color profile). I also use a 100% color managed workflow including using custom white balances whenever I can, and using a whibal reference for click balancing when I can't custom white balance. This keeps my colors uniform and exact on all of my bodies which is pretty important when doing wedding work. I use all of my cameras for weddings and it would look bad if I had some photos with one tone and some with another tone. People would notice that, especially when I do a shot and then follow up with the telephoto for a closeup of the same scene or subject. Anyway, as long as you're happy with the 40D, who am I to argue?

[elysium]

I know its two different range of cameras but I would like to compare the noise handling between the 40D and 5D. Really tempted by a 40D now.