coolgirl Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Recently photography has become a hobby of mine and am just a beginner wanting to start out. My first event is on March 24th, I emailed the bride and told her i am a beginner starting out so she knows. Its a vow renewal ! Me and a second student photographer are gong to be there. Because this is my first time, and going to be renting out an camera I really want to get something thats non-complicated. DSLR and SLR are camera's that I actually have to sit down and learn, are there any other digital camera I can use besides those ? That can take professional pictures ? That takes good quality pictures. There is also a point and shoot camera. Any advice would do because I have to get the camera by this week. If there are links out there can you please paste them on here for first time shooters ? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godless_Heathen Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 You can take acceptable photos with any camera, down to the cheapest point and shoot, but professional results are another matter. DSLRs have two major advantages over point-and-shoots: larger sensors and better lenses. A large sensor means better low light performance. Point and shoot cameras will give you great results in bright sunlight, but as you boost the amplification (known for historical reasons as ISO) with one, you'll get more and more noise, and with moving subjects (i.e. people) you can't just use a longer exposure to avoid boosting ISO. Point and shoot cameras have a fixed lenses, and these lenses are almost never as sharp as a good-quality DSLR lens, particularly if the camera has a wide zoom range (10:1 is pretty common). Since it sounds like you have little experience with photography at this point, it doesn't really matter. What you really need is lots of practice, and you need to learn basic concepts like how exposure works (a combination of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO). That's really more important than what equipment you're using at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kangaroo303 Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 I am also young and into photography, and have shot several wedding jobs for pay. I did not shoot one wedding until I had a mid-level DSLR and I did not charge for a wedding until I had the full professional lens line. If you want something thats almost close to what a beginner photographer would shoot, you can only shoot a wedding with 2 non-dslrs (Canon G12 or Nikon P7100) and both of these cameras cost close to 800 us dollars or more. that is the minimum for average quality photos, but even most dslr's are not good enough. If you shoot with your camera on automatic, generally you cannot shoot wedding. Here is my minimum setup for what you would need to shoot a wedding: Nikon D5100 or Canon t3i 35-70mm 2.8 lens 70-200mm 2.8 lens External flash this total kit would cost around 2800 dollars used, it may sound expensive, but it is around what I started with and I am 21 years old today so you could imagine how long ago that was (not very long ago). If you do not want to sit down and to study how wedding-quality cameras work, then the pictures will be the same as any person at the event with a camera. Id say take your time to learn or you will be dissapointed with the quality of the pictures... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kangaroo303 Posted March 10, 2012 Share Posted March 10, 2012 Forgotten to say, now I shoot with this kit: Nikon D3s 12-24mm 24-70mm 70-200mm all lenses nikon several SB-800 and 900 flashes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Godless_Heathen Posted March 11, 2012 Share Posted March 11, 2012 If you do not want to sit down and to study how wedding-quality cameras work, then the pictures will be the same as any person at the event with a camera. Id say take your time to learn or you will be dissapointed with the quality of the pictures... I strongly agree with this. Photography is a skill, and the technical aspects (exposure, depth of field, and the like) are the least difficult aspects of doing it well. If you're in too much of a hurry to learn the basics, any success you may have will be accidental. Photography is largely about light. Exposure figures into this, but understanding light is also important for understanding things like flash. Kangaroo mentions an external flash, which is vital if there isn't enough ambient light. Not so much because a camera's built-in flash is weak, but because an external flash will have a bounce head which lets you reflect the light off of appropriate surfaces. Direct flash produces terrible images because of the angle, but also because flash falls off dramatically with distance, so you want to direct the flash so the overall light path to your subjects is about the same. Otherwise subjects in the foreground are overexposed and subjects in the background are underexposed. Any really serious wedding photographer will have as much money invested in lighting as his camera and lenses. For posed shots, they'll have multiple remote flashes and reflective umbrellas to act as diffusers. Honestly, wedding are not where I'd start. Too many variables interfere with learning. It's better to get the basics down with stationary subjects under well controlled conditions, so you can experiment and understand how each decision you make affects the photograph. At last in this day of digital photography, you can get immediate feedback about what you're doing, no need to wait for film development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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