Best Camera for Weddings? Help!

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Hera AKA Beth

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Beth
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Hello all. I am new to the site and need some help. I really want to get into wedding photography but dont know which camera to buy. I am using a Fuji FinePix S6500fd at the moment for all my other photos but I dont think this is professional enough. Its great for everything else but I cant change the lens for zoom purposes. My budget is £500.

Any Feedback is greatly appreciated:)
 
I do the odd Wedding here and there, Canon 1d Mk111, Canon 40d and Kit lens, + Nifty 50 + 70-200 2.8 + 2 x 580ex11 flashguns + st-e2 trigger, a shed load of bottle, much memory and a little knowledge......good luck !
 
You won't get a kit suitable to do weddings for £500. To do weddings without running into problems you will need a backup for every element of your kit.

You will need at least 2 good bodies, each coverage from wide to telephoto in quality fast (f2.8) zooms (plus some level of backup in lenses too) and a couple of dedicated flash guns.

Add an extra 0 to the end of your £500 (i.e £5000) and you stand a chance of getting the kit needed to do weddings.
 
Thanks for the reply, any comments on Olympus "E420" 10m pixel twin lens digital SLR camera? May be able to get one from a friend.
 
SimonTALM said:
You won't get a kit suitable to do weddings for £500. To do weddings without running into problems you will need a backup for every element of your kit.

You will need at least 2 good bodies, each coverage from wide to telephoto in quality fast (f2.8) zooms (plus some level of backup in lenses too) and a couple of dedicated flash guns.

Add an extra 0 to the end of your £500 (i.e £5000) and you stand a chance of getting the kit needed to do weddings.
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Wow! Thats a lot of money ouch. But a good investment no doubt. Thanks for your quick respose though.I might have to put this on ice for a while then :(
 
Sorry Beth but I agree with Simon....I've just totted up what I'd want before attempting a pro wedding shoot and it would be £3000 + even when bought secondhand. You only get one chance at a wedding and £500 doesn't come close to buying it.

Bob
 
I know a wedding photographer that swears by the fuji s pro range
 
dcash29 said:
I know a wedding photographer that swears by the fuji s pro range
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I must admit, I have heard a lot about the Fuji S5pro and a lot of wedding photographers use this camera. Need the kit to with it too, suppose thats where the money is?

Thanks for your comment, really appreciate it:)
 
You'll get an S5 Pro for your £500 (new) but you still need another one, plus at least £1-2000 worth of lenses and some flash guns and a load of memory cards and, and, and....
 
You will also need insurance.

Equipment insurance is not absolutely necessary but you might as well get it as it is usually packaged with the real insurance that you should have.

Indemnity insurance is nice to have and is much higher on the list than equipment insurance. Get sick on the day or you lose your memory cards etc etc and you may be facing a bill for a staged wedding and photographer to get the images you lost.

Third party liability insurance is an absolute must. Someone trips over your camera bag and you suddenly have a serious financial liability on your hands.

Budget approx. £300 to £600 per annum depending on the amount of equipment you have.

Sorry for this but there wont be a lot of change out of your £500 to get equipment.
 
Crazy money but investment needed. I did 2 weddings for friends using my Fuji Finepix
S6500 and the pictures were fantastic! Outdoors and inside, they turned out better than another friend of mine who had a professional photographer charging £2000 for her wedding. I do a lot of editing too for artistic finishes but the originals were pretty hot. All with my little camera and me behind it. Had lots of people asking for my service but I was not in any position at the time to do it regularly. My photography tutor did my wedding photos and my my were they poo! Not happy even though he had all the kit and caboodle. Thanks all for your comments though.
 
JHC.......not again.............:thumbsdown:
 
Hera AKA Beth said:
Crazy money but investment needed. I did 2 weddings for friends using my Fuji Finepix
S6500 and the pictures were fantastic! Outdoors and inside, they turned out better than another friend of mine who had a professional photographer charging £2000 for her wedding. I do a lot of editing too for artistic finishes but the originals were pretty hot. All with my little camera and me behind it. Had lots of people asking for my service but I was not in any position at the time to do it regularly. My photography tutor did my wedding photos and my my were they poo! Not happy even though he had all the kit and caboodle. Thanks all for your comments though.
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sounds like you can take a mean photo then:thinking:. Any chance of some posts? :thumbs: Would be nice to see some of your images to start, so we can all see. If you don't mind us c&c. Good luck also:thumbs:
 
I`m not entering Bannsville.............:lol:

A proper "pro" lens will cost more tha your budget, that is why "pro" wedding togs "cost" more than your average Joe Bloggs with a P&S, nothing wrong with a P&S, but decent cameras witha decent tog behind will do a better job.

Mind you, having witnessed some of the "local experts" wedding shots,i`m gonna sell all my gear and get a P&S...........:lol:

Where is Papa....................:woot:
 
I'll just sound the same note of caution everyone else has - you need two of everything - belt and braces is the name of the game. You can get away with it for ages, but sooner or later a piece of gear WILL let you down on the day, and if people are paying they'll take it for granted you can cope with the situation. Ultimately you're playing a game of chance with someone else's big day if you dive in there ill-equipped. Take a responsible approach from the outset.;)
 
You need to do some hard thinking.

Is this a business plan or just a hobby?

If you are as good as you say you are then you have the potential to make a nice living (or at least a second income) by shooting weddings.

However, if you don't get the kit and insurance you need then you can lose several thousand pounds in a single day.

If this is the start of a business then make a proper plan which will include a sensible budget for all the equipment that you will need as well as the insurances, business cards, sample albums etc etc. Assuming that you get the work then the capital outlay of the equipment will be repaid rapidly and can be offset against your profits for tax purposes anyway.
 
As others have said you would need 2 of everything, and even if you stick to the lower end of fast glass you would need alot more than £500.

2 x S/H Bodies @ £500 each
2 x 18-50 f/2.8 @ £300 each
2 x 70-200 f/2.8 @ £500 each (ok you only really need 1 as if it broke you would still get through, but id have something else just incase)
2 x flashguns @ £200 Each
5 x 4gb memory card @ £15 each
2 spare batteries @ £40 each

Then insurance, accessories etc etc etc

I make that a touch over £3000.

If you are serious about it then you will probably need a much more powerful computer / post processing software than you may currently have just using a p&s.

Theres alot to think about, its not a quick £500 spend then charge £2000 for a wedding.
 
Beth's final post in this thread (before she edited it) leads me to believe that she's may well not visit here again.

Bob
 
Canon Bob said:
Beth's final post in this thread (before she edited it) leads me to believe that she's may well not visit here again.

Bob
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Agreed .... Thought it might have been deleted before she changed it ... :D


Anyway .... I'm sure fracster is not that small ... :lol:
 
what was it, i didnt get an email.

I can appreciate she may feel disheartened, but ffs ask a silly question etc etc.

Its like saying, what boat should i buy to sail round the world, ive got a budget of £200
 
Well I'll be more helpful than you lot were anyway

£500 is more than enough m8

It's clear by your comment in post #12 that you're fantastic with even a basic camera, and I for one look forward to your Seminar programme rolling out

Last time I was in a supermarket I'm sure they were selling cameras with this stuff called 'film' in them for under a tenner - so even if you went to town and shot 5 camera's worth :eek: per Wedding you could still do 10 Weddings for your £500

Good luck, keep us posted

:thumbs:

DD
 
I love your sincere side Dave. :lol:
 
CT said:
I love your sincere side Dave. :lol:
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:lol:

kinda makes me wana be a wedding tog...

i do have a 1ds so thats gotta make me good at wedding pic:shrug:


md:lol:
 
I feel like I'm missing out not knowing what was originally said in post 17 :D
 
GoLotus said:
I feel like I'm missing out not knowing what was originally said in post 17 :D
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I guess it's better left confined to the few people who were online for those 6 minutes or so in the early hours.

It's enough to say that Beth wasn't totally enamoured with Fracsters directness/implications.

Bob
 
It's enough to say that Beth wasn't totally enamoured with Fracsters directness/implications.
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Well Beth needs to take all the postings into account as well as Fracsters and not be to touchy.

As far as the amount of cash needed to be a good wedding photographer Fracsters needs to think again.

Dave
 
Why are some people on here so rude to new people?

I understand if you have posted on here for a while you might get fed up with the same questions being asked etc but wouldn't just be easier just to not post in a thread insted of being rude to some one.
 
purplepaul said:
Why are some people on here so rude to new people?

I understand if you have posted on here for a while you might get fed up with the same questions being asked etc but wouldn't just be easier just to not post in a thread insted of being rude to some one.
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It had nothing to do with the same questions being asked or being a new person.

Beth decided to edit her last post in this thread so you wil never know what she said. Needless to say, it was not very nice.
 
purplepaul said:
Why are some people on here so rude to new people?

I understand if you have posted on here for a while you might get fed up with the same questions being asked etc but wouldn't just be easier just to not post in a thread insted of being rude to some one.
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If people used the search function then they might not need to ask the same questions over and over again - advice was asked for and given.
 
purplepaul said:
Why are some people on here so rude to new people?

I understand if you have posted on here for a while you might get fed up with the same questions being asked etc but wouldn't just be easier just to not post in a thread insted of being rude to some one.
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Standing back from this one I look at it like this....

Enthusiastic new posters need a well thought out mixture of encouragement and reality.....the big put down is no better than condescending praise.
The other side is also true.....turn up saying you can beat the pro's with a P&S is perhaps not the best introducion and puts you up there to be shot down.

Life is full of similar situations and it's no different here.

Bob
 
Hi

Beth already had a back up camera. All she needed to do was to go out and buy a Fuji S5 and a 28-200mm lens and then call into a local studio and ask if she could assist on some weddings to gain the experience.

I covered my first wedding 30 years ago, at one point my business was doing 150 a year and now. Once when I too thought equipment = a good photographer I used to turn up a Hasselblad ELX, an CM body, a 50mm, a 80mm and a 150mm. I had three Metz CT4s and then two Nikons as well.

These days I use one boby and one zoom and I would outshoot anyone here who spent the wedding changing lenses and working out which memory card went into which camera :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

Hey only joking guys and gals - not about the equipment but about my bad attitude - its the photographs that count not the equipment cus thats what the punters look at afterwards not your shiny F2.8 500mm :lol:

stew
 
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