Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Download link: Episode 8
Fun and exciting point:
- How much do we want an iPhone 4?
- Going from Av to shooting manual.
- Raw or Jpeg?
- How do you handle finances in the off-season?
- How do you market yourself to higher end weddings without having shot them previously.
Question #1 (a question we asked ourselves): How much do you want the new iPhone?
Dave: I want one badly – I’m obsessed with amazing technology, and when I saw video calling I thought it was awesome. And the hi-def video, in-phone editing – amazing.
Taylor: I saw the Cannon 7D vs. video iPhone comparison video – and the 7D won in my opinion. Actually, that’s debatable. The iPhone is different, but at the same time, with some good editing you could make some great stuff.
Question #2: As a DSLR beginner, how do I go from Av to shooting manual (especially indoor shots and portrait shots since I’m having difficulty)?
Dave: Easiest solution – get a faster lens, even if it’s a cheap ($400 – 50 mm, 1.4) prime. It does a beautiful job, it’s fast and you can use it in those situations.
Taylor: One thing I remember doing when in that position was snapping a few random frames on AV mode, and usually one in five would be the exposure I was looking for, and then I would go to the setting that shot was at and shoot with that. If you’re shooting the same conditions, it works.
Dave: The way I approach it is that you want to minimize your ISO and you want to pick up your ambient exposure – like if you’re shooting portraits, you want your background to be exposed and not just black and then you’re not relying on flash so much.
Taylor: Exactly, it looks more natural.
Dave: So get a low-ish aperture, minimize your ISO (1600 or 800 ISO), lock in your manual settings (say 60 F2 or 1.8 or whatever), then let your flash do the metering itself. So bounce your flash into a wall next to you or behind you – not the ceiling, go for a wall because you’re getting horizontal light – and if you can do that, you can control the exposure.
Question #3: Raw or Jpeg?
Taylor: I shot Jpeg for the longest time, and the only reason I recently switched to raw is because I have someone else processing my photos for me, and I’ve found that colours and stuff when you’re shooting jpeg doesn’t come back as nice. So I’ve switched to raw and everything’s been fine, and I haven’t had any issues.
Dave: As I mentioned last week, I just finished a Jerry Ghionis workshop, and he’s all about getting it in-camera and not doing any posts – so Photoshopping in-camera and being really peticular about your lighting, getting posing and everything just right. Then whatever you shoot it’s already done and you can upload it straight to your preview gallery, and you don’t need to edit it. So ideally, we should be shooting in high-colour jpeg I would say because that’s what matters to clients at the end of the day.
Taylor: The raw’s just kind of a safety net if you blow out the exposure.
Dave: That said, we shoot in raw because we want that extra 2% margin – to save a shot that would’ve been lost otherwise, and if you shoot raw you can save them.
Taylor: If you’re shooting in-studio and have complete control over the lighting it’s definitely a jpeg situation, but if you’re shooting a wedding, it’s just nice to have that background unit – just in case. I’ve also found that whenever I shoot photos for anything other than an outsource project, I like the colours off the jpeg better. So whenever I import it in and it gives me that jpeg preview, I like that and it’s pretty much exactly how I’m going to edit that photo. So if it kicks it in raw, and I have to edit back to jpeg, it’s kind of a redundant step.
Dave: I’ve noticed that, too. I think light rim automatically tries to correct lens separations and do a bunch of other stuff, while I think jpeg creates the best Nikon or Cannon can do.
Taylor: I just have a really good understanding of white balance [looks good when] during the day – actually I pretty much stay in the shade all day – and usually that gives me exact perfect colours that I’m looking for.
Question #4: How do you handle finances in the off-season?
Dave: This is a good question – I think we’re all notoriously bad at this as photographers. I think the first thing is getting studio management software so you can forecast “when” in terms of payments and stuff. You just plug them in, it gives you a graph, and you can see it coming months away if you have an off-month and you can plan for it.
Taylor: Through the winter is usually the time when I have the most money because I’m booking weddings, and last January I booked about 16 weddings in 30 days. I kind of fly by the seat of my pants, I guess – so you probably shouldn’t listen to me about financial advice.
Dave: No, but you put money away for savings and you plan for your future.
Taylor: Oh yeah.
Dave: And I think that’s just one of the important things about running a business or running a household. When payments come in, you get excited about how much money you’re getting in, but you want to make sure you’re putting aside 10 or 15%.
Taylor: I started when I was 15, and I just started paying myself first – like investments and whatnot. And I’ve just kept putting $150 into it every month since I was 15 or 16 up until whenever I retire, so that’s kind of my retirement plan as long as I keep upping that value every now and then.
Question #5: How do you market yourself to higher-end weddings without having shot them previously?
Taylor: I think that everyone should be – if you’re trying to push your brand – showing elegant, luxury images if possible. You can shoot them at “regular” weddings – it’s just about selecting your shots carefully for your website.
Dave: I’d say as your shooting, be conscious of what shots your taking. For Charlotte and I, from the very start we set out thinking if the bride has a designer gown and had to go cheaper for the other things, then shoot the gown, shoot the label, make it obvious, light it beautifully and post those images. It’s really about showing the most beautiful outlets of each wedding.
Taylor: It’s also kind of a building process. I feel like every wedding that I get booked for is a little better than the last one that comes in detail – so the ones I’m shooting now will help me to book more elegant and expensive stuff in the future.
Dave: And what we do with our workshops, we tell people to bring nice cases, bring nice dresses, bring nice shows, bring beautiful models and shoot that sort of stuff during workshops. And I know that’s a grey area because some photographers may think that’s a grey area because those aren’t real shoots, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s self-marketing and any other company in the world would do that, too.
Taylor: It’s definitely a grey area. The way I view it is that if you’re setting up the shots, those are your images. But if it’s a massive shoot-out, and someone’s posing a model in front of 300 photographers, that’s probably something you don’t want on your website. As for details, I have no issues with that.
