Agreed. Here are two, wait three cardinal wedding rules I have learned, which apply regardless of what you use (I use Portra 400NC 6x7cm and 6cm sq. BTW, so I am not trying to insinuate anything about digital):
1. ALWAYS use fill flash outdoors. Always have a flash on the camera and have it fire for every shot, unless you are shooting INDOORS, where you can get very nice tungsten-lit shots at 1/30 @ F/2.8 with 400 film.
2. ALWAYS take multiple coverage of important group shots: the bigger the group, the more shots you take. It is veritably impossible to open someone's eyes analog-optically; you'll have to pay a master painter a lot of money. Digitally it is still a PITA, and it's a real bummer having a laser-printed RA-4 included in amongst 39 other analog-optically printed 8x10s in an album. That print will stick out like a sore thumb.
3. Always take people's pictures in the shade, or at the very least with their backs to the sun. Direct sunlight makes for harsh shadows and "raccoon eyes", even with fill flash. Again, you can make direct-sun pictures work, but not without pain and anguish, ESPECIALLY if you don't like spending 10-hour days without anything to show for it because you can't get the damned filter pack right because it pin-balls around so much from print to print (Don't ask me where I got that last example from)
Digital lets you "get away" with that stuff much more easily, but you have to remeber that any time you don't observe these two rules, we'll call them commandments, you will have to pay money, period.
I really can't say from what I see if it is hopeless or not. I have found that it is a good idea to scan all negatives from a wedding because it will give you a good color reference without having to pound through 20 sheets of paper (unless you have a video analyser), and it allows for digital retouching (which would be impossibly/prohibitively expensive to do analog optically) as well as easier communication with the wedding when you need to show them prints (just don't send full res files :rolleyes: ).
Matt, could you please email me the scans you have? I am not a paid subscriber here, and as such can only view two very small thumbnails. . .
kab38 ATcase DOT edu
I forgot to add - something very iomportant with Weddings - you cant justify taking too long over each shot after the day - infact a lot of the digital advantage is completely academic because you can not justify the time - otherwise you quickly discover you are infact working for less than the national minimum wage!
Matt, I'm now getting a handle on where you are in photography.
The last print scan you have shown is really quite good, in fact nothing basically wrong with it at all. There is one minor issue though, I seem to see on my (un-calibrated) monitor a very slight magenta cast. When I look at the footpath stones I see a warmth I usually don't associate with them. Perhaps the background sandstone around the door may give a clue as to whether or not there is a very slight cast. The bright dresses may be influencing the colour of the stones, but I'm not totally convinced.
1 unit of magenta can, and normally does have an influence, when a print is virtually spot on regarding colour and density.
I'm not sure about your darkroom technique, but my method is to contact print every roll or sheet of film. With a colour contact sheet, you will see pretty much the same as a B&W contact sheet, except you don't really have the possibility of lowering the contrast for the contact to see shadow detail.
Once armed with a set of contact sheets, and you have correct colour, you will be amazed at how quickly you are able to print.
You will not need a colour analyser, although they can be quite handy for spot readings of the bride's forehead for when you switch from external pictures to internal with either mixed lighting or total flash pictures.
About the best and cheapest accessory in the colour darkroom is the Ilford enlarging meter, you can of course have quite expensive ones but it will do the job perfectly for change of enlargement factors.
With a change of enlargement the technique I use is simple. First I assume I have a correctly exposed print, but wish to enlarge and crop, either a smidgin, or enormously. I turn all lights off, pull the neg carrier half out, switch the enlarger on, then null the meter under the white light, except it isn't white as you leave the filtration in place. Replace the neg carrier, move the head and neg up for the new enlargement (or reduction) do a rough focus by eye. Then pull the neg carrier half out, place the Ilford meter underneath and switch the enlarger on again. One simply turns the aperture ring until the meter is nulled, bingo, the paper is once again getting exactly the same amount of light. Put the carrier back in, fine focus, then print away.
I used to rotary process all of my colour paper, but I purchased a Durst Printo when RA4 appeared, this unit or ones like it, are quite brilliant. Combined with a B&W RC Rowi paper dryer, I can have a dry to dry RA4 test print in my hot little hand in about 3 1/2 minutes, (the wash is brief and that is being polite).
Providing you are not going to do a zillion weddings, or like shoots, doing the whole lot yourself is quite doable, quite easy, and, most of all, quite satisfying.
If you are looking for a colour analyser, think about the Jobo Colorstar units, they are the only ones I know of that measure all three colour channels at once.
I have the original Colorstar 1000 it will do virtually anything you require, once you have shown it correct colour
Mick.
A friend of mine paid £1700 for wedding photography and received a lovely Queensbury album with the most dredful inkjets, all with varying colour balance and some with lines down them like the ink was running out! It really was shocking (and the actual photographs we crap too)
Outrageous - even if the photographer is a digital photographer, there is no excuse for inkjet prints when it is so easy to upload your digital files somewhere and have them printed on real photo paper - I feel really sorry for your friend In my opinion, he/she paid a premium price and was totally ripped off. Such a shame as these photos will probably be some of the most personally important photos he/she has. You friend should seriously consider some kind of lawsuit.
Matt:
Pardon me while I try to revive some experience that may be a little stale, from lack of use....
When I was doing a lot of colour printing, one of the techniques I learned to rely upon was to pay lots of attention to the shadows.
If you look closely at parts of the scene that are on the border between full illumination and shadow, you are most likely to be able to detect a need to change your colour filtration.
As the scene transitions between light and dark, the colour casts reveal themselves.
You have to be careful to not be fooled by reflections (green light reflected from grassy areas is an example) but generally, this technique really helps.
You have uploaded three scans. Of the first two (the two versions of the same scene), I am cognizant of the fact that there are too many variables involved (e.g. monitor calibration) but I really don't see cyan issues. The first image (which I take to be a scan from a print), seems too blue to me. The second image (which I take to be the negative scan) seems mainly too green to me.
As an experiment, I copied both images into my digital image processing software, and experimented with adjusting the colour balances.
The green image I could adjust to something close to neutral, but the blue image suffered too much from the adjustment tools.
The third image is close, but a blue/magenta cast appears in the shadows.
Here is a question - what light source are you using to examine your test prints? Is it tungsten?
Matt
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