Shooting a wedding with Olympus OM10 and OM20

ted_smith · Apr 8, 2018

For 30 years, I've owned an Olympus OM10 and the 50mm Zuiko lens. It was my only camera for 15 of those 30 years, so I am quite accomplished with it. I also own a Nikon F5 and Hasselblad 501CM.

However, I only have one lens (50mm 1.8 prime) for the Nikon F5, and I still struggle with focussing with the Hasselblad.

I've recently acquired an OM20, a second 50mm Zuiko, and three additional OM lenses which are pretty decent according to my parallel thread, one being the Tokina AT-X 28mm-85mm f3.5 (https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/wanted-some-wisdom-for-these-old-om-mount-lenses.158837/) which I've not officially tested with loaded film yet (they do fire though, no sticking, no scratches etc) .

I am due to photograph the wedding of a family relative soon...no money involved. To cut a long story short, instead of paying several hundred for Nikon lenses to accompany my sole 50mm Nikkor, I am thinking of shooting most of the day, except the formals, with my Olympus OM10 and OM20 rig and my now new array of OM lenses, and using the Hasselblad for the staged formals.

However, it seems I might be the only person in the world who is, or has ever, contemplated this...at least within the time that we routinely write about everything we do on the Internet. I've searched Google considerably and not found a single entry describing a wedding shoot shot with OM cameras. Not to say nobody has done done it, but I can't find anything on blogs and the like to describe a photographers use of them for such an event.

In my experience of using them, I can't see any major reason why not, but I am thinking maybe I haven't considered something. The vintage lenses are considered to be excellent contenders and combined with quality film like Kodak Portra 400 or Fuji Pro 400H, I'm confident I could do a good job like this. I don't want to lay out hundreds for lenses that I only need for very occasional wedding work, especially when they are weddings of friends or family that I am doing as a gift and not for money. But equally I don't want to fail!

What do you guys think? Am I mad?

Sirius Glass · Apr 8, 2018

A recommendation for focusing a Hasselblad [and other cameras]: Move the focus quickly in and out of focus, near and far. That way you will find the focus point you want much faster.

pentaxuser · Apr 8, 2018

ted_smith said:
However, it seems I might be the only person in the world who is, or has ever, contemplated this...
In my experience of using them, I can't see any major reason why not, but I am thinking maybe I haven't considered something.
What do you guys think? Am I mad?

There was a recent programme on BBC 4 called photographers at the BBC and I noted that at least 3 of the well known ones had used Olympus. I can't see any reason why not either. In answer to your last question: No

pentaxuser

MattKing · Apr 8, 2018

My very first wedding was shot with an OM-1.
After that, I shot a fair number of weddings. For quite a while I took my OM-1 with me as a backup when I shot weddings with a Mamiya C330.
Until I acquired a C220.
135 film is a lot better now, so I can certainly see using it for weddings.
And if I was using 135 film, I would be using OM bodies.
Just be sure to check out your lenses and cameras fully ahead of time, and be sure to become completely familiar with them before the wedding date.
The photographer is a lot more important than the camera or lens.

jim10219 · Apr 8, 2018

Use whatever you’re most comfortable with. The biggest problem with wedding photography is having technical issues and missing important shots. Weddings are not the time to test out new gear, so I’d stick with what you know.

Now, I would say to never shoot a wedding with only a film camera. Two main reasons for this: One is cost. At the average wedding these days you’ll be expected to take several hundred, if not thousand photos. That’s not only a lot of film, but a lot of processing, editing, development. Digital makes that much easier, cheaper, and quicker. Reason number two is you can check the back of a digital camera to make sure you got the shot you needed, and aren’t experiencing unknown technical difficulties, like film not spooling properly, a sudden light leak, a jam, or any number of other issues.

Still, film lends a certain continuity and timelessness to a photo. It’s an aesthetic connection to the weddings of their parents and grandparents. So film is also great for weddings! It’s just risky to gamble everything on film. My recommendation is to shoot everything with a digital, and also shoot all of the important shots on film, plus a few others just for fun. So in the end, maybe 10% of your photos would be on film.

Theo Sulphate · Apr 8, 2018

Maybe not for the wedding, but later, consider an inexpensive prism for your Hasselblad. I have a very inexpensive RM-2 (HC 3/70) 90-degree prism viewfinder that gives a 4x magnification of the entire screen plus it has an eyepiece-diopter adjustment.

Hasselblad prisms, even metered ones, are a bargain today and greatly help in focusing.

Fritzthecat · Apr 9, 2018

The last wedding I shot(many years ago) I used my OM-1 for all the candids, and my Kowa Super 66's for all the formal poses. Fast emulsion for walking around, hand held, with and without a flash. The Kowas were on tripods with slow emulsion. Don't ask what films I used, it's been far too many years since. It was my sisters wedding, I handed her a beautiful album and a couple 16x20's as her gift.
Just a bit of extra info, bring an assistant, even if you think you don't need help you do. I had my wife along, she was invaluable in neatening up clothing and getting folks lined up for posing (not to mention fetching me drinks al evening).

tezzasmall · Apr 9, 2018

I really don't understand the thought that digital is foolproof and is quicker than film.

I have done weddings on both formats.

Yes, with digital you can look at the back of a camera as and when, to double check pictures, but even then files have been known to corrupt and then of course there is all the processing of the expected hundreds of pictures - even if every twenty are very similar.

And as for the lack of looking at the back of the camera when shooting film, to me anyway, is not a negative point. I find with film, one is a lot more careful with composition and one shoots a lot less.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages and I would always say to use what you are most familiar with. So for the OP I would recommend using their Olympus FILM camera or two. Take the pictures and hand the films over to a decent lab and save yourself a lot of after time.

Prints made using film at a wedding have always been received happily by the bride and groom with never a question like, 'Are these from a digital or a film camera?' ever entering the conversation. If you can provide good pictures, the B + G will not care a hoot how you took them..

Terry S

pentaxuser · Apr 9, 2018

Fritzthecat said:
Just a bit of extra info, bring an assistant, even if you think you don't need help you do. I had my wife along, she was invaluable in neatening up clothing and getting folks lined up for posing (not to mention fetching me drinks al evening).

My wife performed a similar role for me as well. She was great at fetching drinks. By the end of the evening my shots were terrible and I didn't get paid for them but I made it up in fees as the main comedian/song and dance man

pentaxuser

mgb74 · Apr 9, 2018

As MattKing noted, many weddings shot with 35mm film cameras. My wedding was shot with 35mm and Kodachrome 64. It was by a National Geographic photographer who was a friend of my wife's family and he used what he was comfortable (and accomplished) with. I think that same rule applies to you.

I don't shoot weddings, but I would think one of the biggest issues is lighting, as well as proper exposure with flash. Do you have that covered? The zoom lenses you mentioned in the other thread are probably not a constant aperture, so that might complicate matters a bit.

You do have to set expectations with the couple getting married (and perhaps their parents as well) as to what they will get in terms of proofs from which to choose. And whether they'll get negatives, prints, and/or digital files.

Fritzthecat · Apr 9, 2018

pentaxuser said:
My wife performed a similar role for me as well. She was great at fetching drinks. By the end of the evening my shots were terrible and I didn't get paid for them but I made it up in fees as the main comedian/song and dance man

pentaxuser

Yeah, the wedding started in the early afternoon, got all the good stuff done before the reception, by the end of the evening I was very shit-faced. Fortunately, I had put the cameras away long before.

pentaxuser · Apr 9, 2018

Fritzthecat said:
Yeah, the wedding started in the early afternoon, got all the good stuff done before the reception, by the end of the evening I was very shit-faced. Fortunately, I had put the cameras away long before.

That's my kind of photographic scheduling

pentaxuser

Martin Rickards · Apr 9, 2018

I used to do some B&W printing for a wedding photographer who used Ilford XP 35mm film (a Mamiya 645 for colour shots). I hated that brown mask, which gave very long exposures, but everything came out well on Ilfospeed grade 2.

faberryman · Apr 9, 2018

Is there some reason you think your Olympus OM10/20 are incapable of taking wedding photos? What other kinds of photographs are they incapable of taking?

Fritzthecat · Apr 9, 2018

pentaxuser said:
That's my kind of photographic scheduling

pentaxuser

It was my kid sister, I was obligated....to get wasted.

Sirius Glass · Apr 9, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Maybe not for the wedding, but later, consider an inexpensive prism for your Hasselblad. I have a very inexpensive RM-2 (HC 3/70) 90-degree prism viewfinder that gives a 4x magnification of the entire screen plus it has an eyepiece-diopter adjustment.

Hasselblad prisms, even metered ones, are a bargain today and greatly help in focusing.

Big +1

I have always use a prism, PME, for my Hasselblad. I would not go without it, except with the SWC which is another story. Put a prism on an SWC and walk around looking through it and you will see its amazing capabilites.

Sirius Glass · Apr 9, 2018

I learned that one can either photograph a wedding, or other event, or attend it, but one cannot do both.

jim10219 · Apr 9, 2018

tezzasmall said:
I really don't understand the thought that digital is foolproof and is quicker than film.

I have done weddings on both formats.

Yes, with digital you can look at the back of a camera as and when, to double check pictures, but even then files have been known to corrupt and then of course there is all the processing of the expected hundreds of pictures - even if every twenty are very similar.

And as for the lack of looking at the back of the camera when shooting film, to me anyway, is not a negative point. I find with film, one is a lot more careful with composition and one shoots a lot less.

Both have their advantages and disadvantages and I would always say to use what you are most familiar with. So for the OP I would recommend using their Olympus FILM camera or two. Take the pictures and hand the films over to a decent lab and save yourself a lot of after time.

Prints made using film at a wedding have always been received happily by the bride and groom with never a question like, 'Are these from a digital or a film camera?' ever entering the conversation. If you can provide good pictures, the B + G will not care a hoot how you took them..

Terry S

I wouldn't call digital fool proof. But in 20 years of owning a digital camera, I've lost maybe 5 shots to corruption. I can't even begin to count how many film shots I've lost to one kind of problem or another. In any case, you still need to take precautions with digital. Take along multiple memory cards and switch them out occasionally. That way even if you lose an entire memory card, you still have some shots to show for your efforts. And that's why I still encouraged the idea of bringing a film camera along and shooting important shots with both cameras. That way if you do have a problem with one, you have the backup you can rely on.

Your mental approach to how you shoot shouldn't be dictated by the camera. Just because you're holding a digital camera is no excuse to not carefully consider composition and other details before snapping a photo.

I know a lot of you have shot many weddings in the past and have a lot of experience with that and may have solely relied on film cameras back then. But times are different now. Brides and wedding parties have different expectations now than they once did. They now want immediate digital photos to post online to show their wedding to all of their friends and family who couldn't attend. They now what digital photo albums with pictures of everyone who attended, not just the important moments. They also often want videos of the ceremony, first dance, cake cutting, and many other moments. And you can't really do video with a traditional still film camera. Weddings have gotten crazy in the age of social media.

The idea to bring an assistant along is a must. You need someone to wrangle all of the guests for the posed shots, find out who's who, and who needs to be in what photo. Also, you need someone to assist with wardrobe details, posing, and lights while you're behind the camera to make sure you don't slow down the entire event. And it's also really helpful to have someone shoot the video while you record the stills, or have someone operate the backup camera for you, so you're not having to constantly switch back and forth between the two.

And Sirius Glass is right. When you photograph a wedding, even as a friend, you're not really able to attend the wedding. It's just too much work and the expectations are just too high. There's a reason why wedding photographers charge thousands of dollars for a two to three hour event, and it's not because they like to take advantage of newlyweds. It's because it's thousands of dollars worth of work involved.

ted_smith · Apr 9, 2018

Whilst I'm not a wedding photographer, I have done several for family and friends. This will be my 4th. So I'm not especially experienced but I'm not entirely new to it either. I didn't go into loads of detail about the scenario because that's not what I'm asking about. It was specifically the fact that there is very little (none?) on the Internet about shooting a wedding with these cameras. I asked the question because of that....there were hundreds of thousands of these cameras made and it struck me as odd that nobody has documented their use of these cameras in a wedding scenario despite the reduction in film photography in general. That's why I asked....was I missing something obvious? I thought that even though its 2018 surely at least someone would have written a blog entry or something to document a wedding shoot conducted with these cameras, but apparently not, at least not that I could find (if I do this shoot with them, I guess I will, so I might the first!). I also figured someone here would regail stories of how they used them, which several of you have. To me, there is no reason not to use them other than the lack of auto-focus, but then the same can be said for Hasselblad (at least 501CM as I own). The way I saw (see) it is that I've used the OM10 on and off for over 20 years and feel comfortable with it. Now that I have two of them and an OM20 and lenses to boot, I figured that I could the entire rig.

As for assistants....its a family wedding so my wife will be there (who has helped me with previous wedding events), and this time, I intend to get my kids involved in the fun. I've been teaching them the basics of using the OM10's and the 50mm Zuiko's, so they can run around shooting two or three rolls each of the guests. We all know how well adults react to little kids...better than other grown ups! So I reckon this might be a good idea. The only snag is they are aged 6 and 9 respectively! So they are a bit young, but they seem to have grasped the correct way to hold and support the camera, how to focus and how to shoot. They started to glaze over a bit when I started with f stops and DOF so I'm holding that back for later!

jim10219 · Apr 9, 2018

Well then, to answer your question as to why no one talks about using them for wedding photography, I'd have to say that it's likely because the wedding photography world has lots of serious pros and quite a bit more amateurs posing as pros. Some of those amateurs can be quite good. Some won't be. But most bridal magazines run periodic articles on how to choose a wedding photographer, and right up there with ask to see examples of their work is ask them what kind of gear they use. Generally speaking Nikon and Canon are the big names everyone is familiar with. Those names say "professional" to people outside the camera world, and assure them (though perhaps it shouldn't) that they're not hiring a amateur who is posing as an experienced pro. The idea being, that at least if they've spent a ton of money on gear, then they probably know how to use it and have generated enough experience through work to pay for it all. The odd thing is, those bridal magazines will talk all day about Canon or Nikon, but neglect brands like Mamiya, Rollei, Leica, Contax or any of the other top brands photographers are well familiar with. They also neglect the fact that brands like Pentax, Minolta, and Olympus (common brands many consumers may know) also made some top notch gear. So what happens is most wedding photographers probably don't advertise that they use any kind of camera, other than a Nikon or Canon, so they don't run off would be customers that read too many bridal magazines looking for shortcuts to "finding the perfect wedding photographer for less".

MattKing · Apr 9, 2018

Ted:
When it comes to most types of photography - including weddings - there really is no over-riding functional difference between any of the manual focus 35mm SLRS of the era of your OM-10/20. If you are familiar with the operation of your camera, and it is in good working order, the choice of camera hardly matters.
Some cameras might offer a feature or two that could set them a little bit apart - motor drives and TTl flash come to mind - but basically there just isn't anything special about any 35mm manual focus SLR of that era that would make them inherently better or worse for wedding photography.
Some cameras are more durable of course, so if you were doing volume work that might matter.
Lens choice matters a bit, but just about every popular manual focus SLR from the mid-1970s on offered a large selection of high quality possibilities, limited mostly by the size of your wallet, and even the lower cost lenses were quite usable.
Ergonomics and handling matter the most for weddings. And those factors are very personal to the photographer.
Prior to the internet, if I has seen a magazine article that focused on the suitability of a particular common 35mm SLR for wedding work, I would have just turned the page, because I would have known that the article was either not well thought out or, more likely, a thinly disguised paid advertisement.
Now that the internet is here, if I were to encounter a blog (or something similar) that discusses photographing a wedding using a 35mm film SLR, I would literally ignore which camera the writer was using. If someone mistakenly asked me to write such a blog, I probably wouldn't identify the camera I was using.

ic-racer · Apr 9, 2018

I don't see how wedding photography with an Olympus 35mm SLR would be any different than any other 35mm SLR. From what I recall the OM-mount Olympus lenses are state of the art manual focus lenses with modern coating and mechanisms.

pentaxuser · Apr 9, 2018

Ted, my "take" is that by and large, Photrio has given a wholehearted endorsement to using the Olympus cameras. What have you decided to do after calling on our help?

"Make a splash" by taking along a 5x4 Speed Graphic with the 100W flash-bulb and when people ask why you haven't taken any pictures with it, say you're saving it for the Robinson v LaMotta fight that night at the Garden

pentaxiuser

wiltw · Apr 9, 2018

The only issue I could see with shooting a wedding with an OM-10 or OM-20 is that often -- particularly during wedding coverage -- the photographer wants to CONTROL the shutter speed and the f/stop, and the amateur-oriented features of the OM-nn bodies may not permit that without certain accessories. For example, I know you need a special adapter to take the OM-10 out of automagic mode in order to fully control what shutter speed and the f/stop are used.

MattKing · Apr 9, 2018

wiltw said:
The only issue I could see with shooting a wedding with an OM-10 or OM-20 is that often -- particularly during wedding coverage -- the photographer wants to CONTROL the shutter speed and the f/stop, and the amateur-oriented features of the OM-nn bodies may not permit that without certain accessories. For example, I know you need a special adapter to take the OM-10 out of automagic mode in order to fully control what shutter speed and the f/stop are used.

The OM-20 (aka OM-G) includes a built in metered manual option, along with aperture preferred automatic exposure. It also interfaces well with the Olympus T series flashes. I really like my OM-G - it is a nice, lighter weight complement to my single digit OM bodies.

Shooting a wedding with Olympus OM10 and OM20

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Shooting a wedding with Olympus OM10 and OM20

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