First weddingshoot was not a great experience :(

2x 6D body + 24-70 2.8 VC + 70-200 2.8L II & Yongnuo YN-600

First we started with the hairdresser, nice start, the children where playing around and some fun shots and details of the bride and her sister....
but we planned 8-9h (the bride also said this to the hairdresser), but it took 1h45!

As a result no time for the brideshoot, the most important part... I studied some nice poses from Cliff Mautner on a chair with 85 1.2L but nothing!
The house was in disorder, had to move toys around to take some pics of the dress...

Then the groom came, some shots at the door.
We left for the locationshoot (3 nice locations), her brother in law would bring the kids, but they where not ready yet!
Meanwhile we where on the second location and we called them, they would come, but no one to see... we called again and they where on the 3rd location allready!

Then we left to the beach, I had some great shots prepared, but the sea was too far and time was running out allready, so only some quick shots on the stairs of a big hotel and next to a piano. I saw enough allready, I had my planning on my telephone and in my pocket, but nothing to plan, I just went with the flow!

I don't know what it was, but I charged all battery's and everythings seemed to go empty, I didn't even flash much, I think a problem with this flash (before no problems).
I think i will order a batterypack, don't like the hassle with the full/empty AA's and some don't work suddenly. On Ebay I saw a Godox batterypack to fill with 8AA's, but I will see to buy one without AA's, if you have any recommendations ?

I took about 3000 pics and some movies in the cityhall/church and party (I know too much, but to be sure I had enough seen the delays before)
So I will have enough shots and some nice ones, but I really didn't like the fact that it was too stressy, rushing due to the problems, I was sweating like hell.

I like to have time for composing, lens selection, like modelshoots with a nice model on a nice location, no stress, time to make the pictures you want.
The hardcore weddingphotographers over here probaly also experienced unexpected problems.

It was my first and probably my last wedding...

If you took 3000, and only have a 10% keeper rate, you will have more than enough in the way of deliverable product. Good luck in going through those, the first round is simply to get rid of any blurry shots, or grossly underexposed. If a picture is underexposed, but sharp enough, it is not a loss, bring up the exposure and then convert to a higher contrast black and white.

Weddings take a high level of commitment, there is so much involved!

CanonYouCan wrote in post #17766634
I like to have time for composing, lens selection, like modelshoots with a nice model on a nice location, no stress, time to make the pictures you want.
The hardcore weddingphotographers over here probaly also experienced unexpected problems.

To be honest what you described isn't far off what is normal for weddings. Everything never always goes to plan. Time pressure is part and parcel of the job, as is messy locations, poor light, drunk and uncooperative people.

The secret to wedding photography is that the photography part should be the easy part. Organisation, people skills, the ability to react to constantly changing circumstances is what wedding photography is really about. If you have to think about what and how you shoot so much you are always going to struggle.

How does one get 3000 shots at a wedding? I did one a few weeks ago for a friend. They didn't want the before-the-ceremony stuff. I had a little over 400 shots on the day with 319 keepers. They were extremely happy with the result. I didn't put the camera on burst mode at any time.

I had a quiet chuckle when I read your comment First and last wedding ............Lucky it wasnt in days of film like my first wedding was where I had a faulty/stuck aperture blade and everything got horribly underexposed to the point that the film shot on the faulty camera was useless.....even the big City lab we used couldnt get anything from the rolls even with all the experience they had fixing problems like mine which I might add happened regularly to photographers in those days before Digital And its an even bigger problem when the faulty camera's film was 70-80% of the whole wedding! .......Like you I vowed never to do another wedding again but I did... and I made sure I always shot equal amounts with both main and backup cameras from that day on .... although eventually I got out of wedding photography it was that bad an experience......


Clipper

memoriesoftomorrow wrote in post #17766662
To be honest what you described isn't far off what is normal for weddings. Everything never always goes to plan. Time pressure is part and parcel of the job, as is messy locations, poor light, drunk and uncooperative people.

The secret to wedding photography is that the photography part should be the easy part. Organisation, people skills, the ability to react to constantly changing circumstances is what wedding photography is really about. If you have to think about what and how you shoot so much you are always going to struggle.

No kidding. I've had ONE wedding actually follow the itinerary, and for that, I give the nod to the DJ, he kept everything nicely on schedule. All other weddings, the schedule/itinerary seems to have been a mere suggestion, but it always works out. It's our job to make sure of that.

As far as battery packs. The pack allows the flash to recharge quicker. If you are shooting on HSS, 1/2, 1:1 or shooting burst you will notice a recharge difference.
If you are expecting a battery pack to replace your internal batteries, it won't. You still use the internal batteries as the primary charge, the battery pack just assists. I believe this to be the case on all flashes, but someone correct me if i am wrong.

Perhaps your batteries are getting old (need conditioned on a good battery charger) or you should invest in the Eneloop pro batteries.

This is something great about the Nikon sb800. You can add on a 5th battery for quicker recharge. Yes, i know that you are using a Canon, but it was a great idea for Nikon to do that and i hope to see it on Canon or yongnuo some day.

Goodness! This is normal. I shot 1500+ and delivered 540 or thereabouts images. Only reason it was that low was because I was in HS burst and a lot were duplicates. My 4the gig was a classic example : Messy house, blustery wind, and a terrible downpour at end of service. Luckily my wet weather plan was put into action. After wedding breakfast, the weather put the couple off going to the pier for the intimate session. Looking at some shots it was not what I would have liked, but it was a freebie for a friend. We all have one or two like that, but keep your chin up. You'll have done many more that have gone relatively smoothly in a few years. Good luck.

Preparation, preparation, preparation. Spares, spares, spares. I spend a significant amount of time with each couple helping them plan the day, but still things often don't go quite right as some people just don't value that sort of thing. You get what you get, in the end.

I use the 8xAA PixelHK battery packs with eneloop batteries and Maha chargers - C9000 for break in and general use, 801D for 8 cell charging.

I've shot weddings since I was 17yrs old and now I'm 57. No wedding is the same. Some years I did two or three and others I did a couple dozen or more.

Weddings are just chaos. End of. Nothing runs to time, nobody listens, nobody knows their name strangely enough on the day and when you've got it just right they'll all be extremely inebriated.

MUA's and hairdressers seem to think the world stops for them.

Welcome to the world of wedding photography or perhaps more 'welcome to photography hell ....' The main point is, did you get paid?

Having read your previous posts in preparation for the wedding it strikes me that you tried to make the wedding fit your plan, instead of letting it happen and going along for the ride. Not that you shouldn't plan but you cant be a slave to that plan and you have to appreciate that while important photos are only part of the day and at some point you have to understand that you must be flexible.

3000 is too many. You need to figure out how to cover the day, tell the story, but not shoot so much that it becomes a distraction.

A photographer who doesn't provide input to the day plan is really going to have a much more difficult job to do.

Have all the respects for wedding photographers because that's someone I'd never want to do.


Shot one(force to since it was family) and it went well but everything about them jist puts me off. Can't stand weddings at all let alone shooting one.

Ouch. Sorry your first wasn't so great.

Forgive the sexism in the following euphemism: Wedding photography really separates the men from the boys. Its just not the fun, relaxing day of going out and snapping what you want, when you want, and getting to go back until that sun sets just the way you want it. You scouted out location near the wedding for a beautiful sunset photo of the couple overlooking the venue? Well when the clouds roll in, how are you going to improvise? Ouch, time to whip something else together. Oh yeah, the limo just ran out of gas and we have no cell signal so we're going to have to walk back down the hill to get back to the reception in time so instead of having 45 minutes, you now have 5... etc. etc.

I have to ask: did you second shoot or assist a pro with lighting before doing this wedding? I jumped into weddings this year. Most have been as a second shooter, with a few as the lead. The first was for a relative. I think being OCD and paranoid was one of my biggest strengths going into it--I only accepted the wedding because I had six months to prepare. Six long months that flew by in the end. I've felt your frustration with how things don't go according to plan, and how shooting under time constraints flusters your creativity. Going around with pros as a second shooter and assistant really, REALLY took a lot of this away, even though I still feel some of it today. Maybe its a good thing. Gear is necessary, but my biggest strength going into my first solo wedding wasn't the $8,000 of stuff I brought with me, it was the experience from half dozen gigs I had second shot before I got there.

I can't criticize your number of shots because I feel like I still shoot too much: 1,700-2,000 sometimes, but the number is on a downhill trend as my confidence goes up. I think its natural to feel like you're not doing your job if you're not shooting, but again its an experience thing--I just get to a point where I know the stuff I'm mindlessly blasting away at isn't going to be one of the 300 or so keepers I really want for the day.

On flash and batteries. If you're shooting full power, even a brand new, fully charged battery won't last long. Often its best to use two flashes on a mount instead of a single, so that way both can be fired at 1/2 power instead of 1 at full power. There are several advantages to this: 1. The recycle time between shots is faster 2. You don't have to change batteries as much 3. You're less likely o overheat and bust the flash.

Two flashes on a mount is probably not common. If you need more power to overpower the sun, get a strobe with a battery pack, if you're not trying to beat the sun increase your ISO.

For reference, after 120 odd weddings I shot 1700 photos at a 10 hour wedding, 550 keepers. That was the first wedding I've done in a while, that will probably come down to 1500 next time, for a 1/3 keeper rate.