Which wedding camera delivers best images?

[DonGoings]

Steve:

Our main lens for shooting is the 28-135 and the 20D. The second camera is a 10D and 28-135 that my wife shoots with. We get sharp pictures that are perfect out of the camera, unless we forget to do something like change color setting when we are out of the church. I have a 28-70L in my bag that I don't use and although there is a slight difference in sharpness it is not enough to notice with out extreme enlargement. As far as settings for the camera I tend to use low contrast, normal sharpness and normal color saturation. I also use a Wallace disc to set my custom white balance, which will put it dead on.

Don Goings

[Jamie_Roberts]

We use 1D2 and 1Ds2s and if anything, they're even less processed out of the camera than the 10D / 20D series.

We shoot RAW almost all of the time. Getting proof-worthy JPEGs from the camera really depend on the quality of light, in my experience--it's direction, diffusion and color. Point and shoots process saturation into the shots and take a lot of light variance "away" in the result; they usually don't have the optics (though some do) to do justice to subtleties of light--and in truth, a lot of people don't want to process further anyway.

So--to take an extreme case--I can barely stand the look of JPEGs from a G6--but the RAW files are great [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Just me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

With the 10D / 20D (both are great cameras) I'd pay close attention to your lighting for best results wherever possible, though bumping up the saturation (and especially sharpness--because sharpness affects perception of contrast) will help you get that "point and shoot" look right out of the camera if you don't want to process so much yourself.

You're still going to have to set white and black and gray points for a decent shot, and probably fix color balance. Remember, you're probably only proofing 500 - 600 shots per wedding; you can do this remarkably quickly with stuff like auto levels (good enough for 80% of proofing if you're shooting JPEG to begin with [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img])

[DougAxford]

I second the answers on cusom paramaters. Take the time to make extrensive tests with the full range of contrast and saturation especially. Believe it or not, we found that the settings used for children's portraits needed to be different for adult portraits. Same is true for different venues at a wedding. Outside of the church is far different from inside the house. I'm not just talking white balance, but changing paramtaters will make a big difference.

I think all decent cameras will give you good images when set-up and used correctly. Weddings are probably the toughest for digital compared to film. Trying to get detail in a white gown that has fluorescing agents added to make them look brighter AND get detail in a black tux in the same image in conditions that are constantly changing is massively difficult for digital. That's why so many have gone to RAW and they spend the time post processing. As stated in an earlier post, RAW gives greater flexibility, but you've got another set of adjustments to get right. Don't bypass setting the camera correctly, thinking that you can do it all in RAW conversions.

A quick example - I rented a Nikon 2 years when we needed a 4th camera. I spent hours trying to tweak it to be similar to my Canons for image quality. I could never get an image as good. A month ago I saw some great wedding images at a lab - fantastic color! I asked what camera it was shot on - the same Nikon I thought was garbage!! Goes to show.....

Doug

[Charles_Matter]

I am working to do both. If you want to be able to just send your camfiles to a lab and get pretty much predictable results out of the camera..you're stuck with understanding and maximizing your camera mfg's conversion algorithms. If you want the most creative control possible with your files..you need to shoot (and archive) RAW. There are solid economic and creative reasons for both workflows...depending onthe situation. It's totally great that newer highend DSLR's allow both at the same time. I guess the ugly question popping up is "how RAW is each mfg's Raw..anyay??", at this point.

[SteveWhittaker]

Kevin

Since posting my original question the LAB advised me to shoot RAW with embedded jpeg file.
They then take the jpeg file untouched by my computer and process and colour correct for me.

The result is very, very acceptable, colours look good.
I see no reason now to change from this format, unless as you say, one needs a RAW file for further manipulation.

Thanks for the comment, once more.

Best Regards

Steve

[Jamie_Roberts]

Steve--just a bit confused by your last post...

Are you sending the lab the JPEGs? Then why shoot RAW at all? As a safety valve (in case you miss an exposure or something?)

Just curious. I always shoot RAW because I believe I can create a better JPEG than the camera can [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] One exception is when I'm low on memory and want to just keep shooting--and even with access to 20GB of CF cards or so, it's been known to happen.

[SteveWhittaker]

Jamie

Yes, shooting in RAW is only for safety. You never know.

Steve