what would you think... *UPDATED - I AM FUMING!

Harvey_nikon

Harvey_nikon

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Hi all,

Our good friends got married yesterday, my wife was a bridesmaid and I was an usher. They got married in church and it wasn't dull at all in there and the vicar was great regarding photography and flashes.

However, the photography team they used was a man with his 2 sons. The one son kind of annoyed me to start with purely because he picked up a brochure off the side and when I looked at him he simply said: "I am checking white balance but you probably don't know what that is!" and then wondered off with his video camera.

This was despite seeing me with my D60 just 5 mins ago so I turned around and said that of course I knew what it was but wouldn't he be better of with a solid white card and not one covered in black writing and pictures.

Then during the ceremony, the one lad was walking around with a D200 and was taking shots using the built in flash, although his dad had an off camera flash. And the son who the video camera decided to move it and its tripod half way through the vows. He did this several times throughout the ceremony usually half way through things.

There equipment purely consisted of 1 video camera, 2 D200's, one off camera flash that looked about 10 years old and I am guessing due to the size of the lenses they were both using fast aperture ones.

Come the official pics the dad and sons kept moving into other peoples shots to stop them taking any, I even tried taking one of my wife on her own off under some trees looking out over the cliff and one of the sons 'wandered' in front of her.

We arrived at the venue where the meal and more photos are taken and me and the other 3 ushers got everyone together for them. They took maybe 20 photos all handheld (at least he didn't do it in direct sunshine) and then disappeared. The line up commenced and I was giving out drinks, the older photographer helped himself to several drinks and disappeared again. They took no photos of the venue, cake, line up, sat in the bar putting images onto a laptop during the meal and then left without saying anything.

Is it just me that thinks that they were highly unprofessional? Perhaps its that i've spent too long reading the excellent posts that you guys post and my expectations are too high but I am really worried they may be disappointed with the end result.

Is there a website anywhere that lists photographers/companies that have reviews of them?
 
Harvey_nikon said:
I even tried taking one of my wife on her own off under some trees looking out over the cliff and one of the sons 'wandered' in front of her.
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I guess you could have politely told him to move, to be honest that would have pi$sed me off too, and i would have asked him to move or moved him myself, if everything your saying is accurate, they don't sound to professional at all, although i guess you can't knock there equipment just because it's not the latest, maybe wait and see the result's and then judge, hopefully your friends will have some nice shots to keep :)
 
I always though the art of wedding photography was being unobtrusive unless you had to be! There will always be some set shots, i had a similar incident at a wedding recently i wanted to capture the B&G just after their vows but the photographer hogged the whole space in front so no one could take a shot!
 
Rob.Richards said:
I always though the art of wedding photography was being unobtrusive unless you had to be! There will always be some set shots, i had a similar incident at a wedding recently i wanted to capture the B&G just after their vows but the photographer hogged the whole space in front so no one could take a shot!
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I'm no wedding photographer, but wouldn't he have been in trouble with the couple if he hadn't got that shot you were after? After all, he is probably being paid a significant sum of money to capture all the important moments of the wedding... :shrug:
 
TG. said:
I guess you could have politely told him to move, to be honest that would have pi$sed me off too, and i would have asked him to move or moved him myself, if everything your saying is accurate, they don't sound to professional at all, although i guess you can't knock there equipment just because it's not the latest, maybe wait and see the result's and then judge, hopefully your friends will have some nice shots to keep :)
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I wasn't knocking the D200's as they are more than capable cameras and the old off camera flash was doing the job.

My issue was more with technique, the one lad was rapid firing his on board flash, moving the video camera half way through the vows etc.

I got over 300 photos, mostly of the second venue and night do though which was tough as I only had the D60 and kit lens, no off camera flash so I had to ramp ISO right up or just plain use the auto mode and on board flash.

Photo Plod said:
I'm no wedding photographer, but wouldn't he have been in trouble with the couple if he hadn't got that shot you were after? After all, he is probably being paid a significant sum of money to capture all the important moments of the wedding...
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My general experience of wedding togs is they take the set shots and either move aside while others quickly get their snaps or they allow others to take them along side themselves. They don't normally try and disrupt everyone else.
 
There used to be a tog near me who always took a scruffly dressed assistant with him, this assistant stood in front of the groups untill the official tog was ready, then he'd move just long enough for the tog to shoot a few pics then back in front to stop anybody else getting nice shots, this sounds a bit like a varition of it to me. Bit cheeky to try and stop you taking family photos though, I'd have taken his pic then shouted "your in my shot mate, don't get in mine and I won't get in yours".
 
To be honest I have no problem with the other family members taking pics but I do ask that they don't try to take them at the same time as me, I'll always let them take any set up ones after me. Depending on numbers, I do sometimes tell them this so everyone relaxes and stops trying to get sharp elbows.

The reason for wanting some clear space is simple. If the couple or group have five cameras pointing at them they will end up looking all over the place! Two cameras and some will look at one while others look at the second. You can see the obvious problem here, does not look good in the album. That's one reason why some wedding togs will simply dominate the shooting position. Rule 1, there is only one shooting position and the official tog is it!
 
I was married on the 18th of July... I used a local company and only have praise for the way the chap conducted himself with my guests...

As i'm a canon user... and he used canon I knew his kit and it was tip top... 2 No EOS5's MkII one with the 24-70mm L and the other with the 70-200mm L f2.8IS.

Some people on the day said that he was a bit rude and told people what to do rather than asked... I heard words like selfish and balshy used to decsribe him... Exactly how i'd told him he prob would need to be with my family and guests and he said he had no issues with that!

Seeing the results I'm glad he was... We had 140 guests... and many jovial and do whatever characters... he somehow managed to get them to all look at the camera and achieve the most fantastic results... so I am glad he was like that and put our rabble in their place... His attention to detail was fantastic.. shoeing people out the background of shots that would have not looked as good with some random taking a photo in the scene...

The end results are amazing though and I think to achieve an amazing result you need to be like that... I've been to a few weddings before ours this year... and the photographers where more polite... they took the same sort of pics our tog did... but looking at them and looking at ours I'm glad ... and I think his attitude was just ideal...

What I think is funny is how so many people at weddings need to moan about the togs etc.. getting the pics done is a nightmare... but it needs done... half the trouble is the guests dont co operate... if tey did it would take half the time and be allot less painless... I take my hat off to any wedding tog... it must be a nightmare!

My advice is wait and see the results then judge!
 
OK, well after 7 months of waiting and issues they couple have had their wedding album 1 week and I've been over to see it tonight.

Nice album, photos are standard wedding posed shots. 2 photos had major editing, one to remove a man from a door way by painting black over him was fine, the second involved removing a horrid metal barrier by cloning trees over them. I've had to do the same, we didn't have a choice at the church, except the pro has simply copied one small area of trees and copied it over and over again :( On the whole, not bad.

We were then treated to the video, the DVD has a long and short version. Only watched the short version as the dvd controls were broken :D

It was very grainy throughout, not what I would expect from hi-def professional cameras. Random panning and zooming for no apparent reasons, for 30 seconds during the vows, the grooms head was completely out of focus, and he was the only person in shot. It got even worse outside, it was completely over exposed. Parts of the brides skin were completely blown, it was terrible. I feel sorry for them, but I am so god damn mad at these idiots and the fact they are still working!!

This is the 4th copy they have had of the DVD, it was delivered first edited with no music, then it was completely unedited with music, third time was unedited with no music and this, the fourth time is edited in to 2 versions with music only over the short version and not the long version. The short version just has Take That's Greatest Day song on loop, even over the vows.

I really am fuming, I just want to hit them, hard! :(
 
nice to have an update Harvey - sounds like the long wait (6 months seems very long?) hasn't soothed your mind.
 
Not good, is it? Any idea how much they charged for all this 'expertise?'
 
Harvey_nikon said:
I really am fuming, I just want to hit them, hard! :(
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I hope you aren't viewing these feelings with the couple, they may be perfectly happy with the results, if you go steaming in it might be you they end up having a go at.

At the end of the day it's done, the wedding pics are OK,if you go trying to cause trouble it can only lead to problems, maybe even the photographers ending up suing you for deformation of character.

Think very carefully before you do anything
 
Harvey_nikon said:
OK, well after 7 months of waiting and issues they couple have had their wedding album 1 week and I've been over to see it tonight...
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It took the wedding photographers SEVEN MONTHS to come up with the Album? What the hell were they playing at? That's rediculous. No wonder you're livid! :bang:

Let's just hope the wedding couple were happy though.

Si
 
you seem to be taking your usher duties far too seriously :)
 
Spiritflier said:
It took the wedding photographers SEVEN MONTHS to come up with the Album? What the hell were they playing at? That's rediculous. No wonder you're livid! :bang:

Let's just hope the wedding couple were happy though.

Si
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Doesn't that depend on the circumstance - if you have an album that takes 3 months to deliver and the couple take 4 months to pick their shots then 7 months is kind of good. I've a couple who still haven't decided from 2007.

You need a bit more before being livid about that one :)
 
boyfalldown said:
Doesn't that depend on the circumstance - if you have an album that takes 3 months to deliver and the couple take 4 months to pick their shots then 7 months is kind of good. I've a couple who still haven't decided from 2007.

You need a bit more before being livid about that one :)
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Hi Hugh,

I understand what you mean about clients taking an age to decide but the longest it's ever taken me to supply an album was 10 weeks... Half of that was down to the bride and groom being unable to decide what they wanted in it and the other half came down to problems with the actual supply... The album 'got lost' twice and the third time there were printing errors.

Si
 
dont worry about it, there are pants `pro` togs everywhere, my brother in law paid out £1200 for wedding photos by a pro tog from truro (Duchy!!) and then asked me afterwards if i could do some magic with photoshop cos they were that bad lol

And for the record they WERE that BAD!

So in my opinion dont matter what eqiupment you have or how many years experience you got, it dont count for nothing if you cant provide the goods.
 
DekHog said:
Not good, is it? Any idea how much they charged for all this 'expertise?'
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Not sure, they paid the photographer for both as he said that his package comes with a video. It was his sons that shot the video but the bride was saying he seems totally useless at dealing with them.

wack61 said:
I hope you aren't viewing these feelings with the couple, they may be perfectly happy with the results, if you go steaming in it might be you they end up having a go at.

At the end of the day it's done, the wedding pics are OK,if you go trying to cause trouble it can only lead to problems, maybe even the photographers ending up suing you for deformation of character.

Think very carefully before you do anything
Click to expand...

No, I haven't said anything to the couple however, they are clearly not happy with it either. We are meeting them again soon at a family do and her dad is going to be there, he used to do videos for a living so I can't imagine he'll be too happy, and he can be very vocal :D

KIPAX said:
you seem to be taking your usher duties far too seriously :)
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Lol :D

awp said:
I doubt they'll have a licence to use that!
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Nope, but what can you do about it?

boyfalldown said:
Doesn't that depend on the circumstance - if you have an album that takes 3 months to deliver and the couple take 4 months to pick their shots then 7 months is kind of good. I've a couple who still haven't decided from 2007.

You need a bit more before being livid about that one :)
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The couple were given a deadline of 1 week to pick the photos so they were all done by mid sept.

It's just the general attitude of these people that annoys me, a wedding should be a great day with great memories and it was a good day, but the hassle they are having is taking some of the shine off those memories. Of all the things you can take photos of, this really is a one time shoot and they should be going out of their way to make it amazing!
 
TBH I'd rant too.
Their behaviour can be forgiven if prints/video are great. They both sound to be unacceptable in quality and timescale.
The nice thing about photos is, many can be rescued by a little PS magic. Video however, can only be cut into smaller and smaller chunks to cut out the rubbish.
Plastering music all over it doesn't, unless the client's really stupid, make it any better viewing.
 
awp said:
I doubt they'll have a licence to use that!
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It's actually quite straightforward to use regular music in a dvd wedding video. I ofter use it in slideshows for customers. As long as it's not on the net!
 
RichHobson said:
It's actually quite straightforward to use regular music in a dvd wedding video. I ofter use it in slideshows for customers. As long as it's not on the net!
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I thought that if you were making money from something you would need a licence regardless?

It's an area I am yet to look at.
 
Even if the results were rubbish, they have got to do what they have to do to give themselves the best chance. I would bet that had they been a bunch of pushovers and not been rude in the way you perceive, the pictures would have been a lot worse. I commend them for it - while they may not be the best ones out there, they probably know it and were trying their best to produce something half decent instead of total rubbish. Amateur and part-time-pro photographers love to bash the ones who get the gigs they wish they got. It's all part of the game or something.
 
This sounds terrible, at our wedding we had a local guy do it and all the comments from our guests were 'how friendly' he was. He seemed to be able to somehow remember every ones names, not only the 'main' participants.
Actually, thinking back he was even happy for our then 4 year old son take a few shots with his expensive dslr! He actually 'added' to the day!

mercedes said:
The nice thing about photos is, many can be rescued by a little PS magic. Video however, can only be cut into smaller and smaller chunks to cut out the rubbish.
Plastering music all over it doesn't, unless the client's really stupid, make it any better viewing.
Click to expand...

Just a quick point, video can also be adjusted/rescued although not to the same extent as photo's. Apps like Final Cut Pro / Adobe Premier Pro are well capable, but agreed, just covering everything with a looped piece of music is very weak.

It sounds like these characters had 'all the gear - but no idea'
 
PaulF said:
Just a quick point, video can also be adjusted/rescued although not to the same extent as photo's. Apps like Final Cut Pro / Adobe Premier Pro are well capable,
Click to expand...
Most video edit systems can rescue, like PS, colour balance and exposure, (cept blown highlights) but not add missed scenes, or add heads (see OP) where they're chopped off.
Having watched a few DVDS it's more noticable now when a few operators do use music to mask the fact they dropped the audio in key scenes.
They hope the B&G think it's contemporary. :)
 
nothign wrong with hand held shots, WB is taken off a gray card not white and whats wrong with using D200's.

Harvey_nikon said:
Hi all,

Our good friends got married yesterday, my wife was a bridesmaid and I was an usher. They got married in church and it wasn't dull at all in there and the vicar was great regarding photography and flashes.

However, the photography team they used was a man with his 2 sons. The one son kind of annoyed me to start with purely because he picked up a brochure off the side and when I looked at him he simply said: "I am checking white balance but you probably don't know what that is!" and then wondered off with his video camera.

This was despite seeing me with my D60 just 5 mins ago so I turned around and said that of course I knew what it was but wouldn't he be better of with a solid white card and not one covered in black writing and pictures.

Then during the ceremony, the one lad was walking around with a D200 and was taking shots using the built in flash, although his dad had an off camera flash. And the son who the video camera decided to move it and its tripod half way through the vows. He did this several times throughout the ceremony usually half way through things.

There equipment purely consisted of 1 video camera, 2 D200's, one off camera flash that looked about 10 years old and I am guessing due to the size of the lenses they were both using fast aperture ones.

Come the official pics the dad and sons kept moving into other peoples shots to stop them taking any, I even tried taking one of my wife on her own off under some trees looking out over the cliff and one of the sons 'wandered' in front of her.

We arrived at the venue where the meal and more photos are taken and me and the other 3 ushers got everyone together for them. They took maybe 20 photos all handheld (at least he didn't do it in direct sunshine) and then disappeared. The line up commenced and I was giving out drinks, the older photographer helped himself to several drinks and disappeared again. They took no photos of the venue, cake, line up, sat in the bar putting images onto a laptop during the meal and then left without saying anything.

Is it just me that thinks that they were highly unprofessional? Perhaps its that i've spent too long reading the excellent posts that you guys post and my expectations are too high but I am really worried they may be disappointed with the end result.

Is there a website anywhere that lists photographers/companies that have reviews of them?
Click to expand...
 
mercedes said:
Most video edit systems can rescue, like PS, colour balance and exposure, (cept blown highlights) but not add missed scenes, or add heads (see OP) where they're chopped off.
Click to expand...

How do you add a chopped off head to a photo in PS? :D

I was just pointing out that more can be done to video other than cutting out the rubbish............:coat:
 
POAH said:
nothign wrong with hand held shots, WB is taken off a gray card not white and whats wrong with using D200's.
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10 points for reading all the thread including the bit where the point about D200's is addressed.

Surely a plain white card would be better than a brocure :shrug:

Agree about hand held, nothing wrong with them. But the scenario sure shows them making a bum job of their commitments.
 
mustanir said:
Even if the results were rubbish, they have got to do what they have to do to give themselves the best chance. I would bet that had they been a bunch of pushovers and not been rude in the way you perceive, the pictures would have been a lot worse. I commend them for it - while they may not be the best ones out there, they probably know it and were trying their best to produce something half decent instead of total rubbish. Amateur and part-time-pro photographers love to bash the ones who get the gigs they wish they got. It's all part of the game or something.
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Are you actually being serious??

My wedding tog wasn't rude and got good results. Do you honestly think that being rude makes up for skill?


POAH said:
nothign wrong with hand held shots, WB is taken off a gray card not white and whats wrong with using D200's.
Click to expand...

EDIT: Richard beat me to it :)
 
mustanir said:
Even if the results were rubbish, they have got to do what they have to do to give themselves the best chance. I would bet that had they been a bunch of pushovers and not been rude in the way you perceive, the pictures would have been a lot worse. I commend them for it - while they may not be the best ones out there, they probably know it and were trying their best to produce something half decent instead of total rubbish. Amateur and part-time-pro photographers love to bash the ones who get the gigs they wish they got. It's all part of the game or something.
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I really find this hard to understand, its perfectly possible to be polite, not get into other peoples shots and still get the photos your paid to get without being an a*** about it.
 
Yes I am serious and yes I know it is possible to do a good job AND be polite about it. I also know it is not possible for everyone though and the impolite attitude can be interpreted as the less-skilled photographer trying to do a good job. That they realise that they are being paid to do as good a job as they can and are going to do what they need to do is better than them being complacent, lazy and producing even worse results. There is such a thing as giving benefit of the doubt, something I find strangely lacking here given the average, amateur, forum-dwelling photographer's ridiculous drive to do anything in order to "get the shot".
 
Spiritflier said:
Hi Hugh,

I understand what you mean about clients taking an age to decide but the longest it's ever taken me to supply an album was 10 weeks... Half of that was down to the bride and groom being unable to decide what they wanted in it and the other half came down to problems with the actual supply... The album 'got lost' twice and the third time there were printing errors.

Si
Click to expand...

Still waiting on a 2008 & 2 x 2009 couples choosing their images, my album turnaround time is 2 weeks from choosing their images to my deivery so certainly not me holding them up!!

I hate when the photographer automatically gets the blame when it could be nothing to do with them! Had a MOB call me regarding one of the 2009 couples saying it was terrible they didn't have their album yet, bride didn't want to admit her and hubby hadn't got round to choosing so blamed me, mother was very very apologetic!
 
POAH said:
WB is taken off a gray card not white
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I thought that if you are setting the white balance manually in camera you point at a white object to set it; if you want to adjust the white balance afterwards, you include a grey card in the picture to provide a reference :shrug:
 
f1charlie said:
I thought that if you are setting the white balance manually in camera you point at a white object to set it; if you want to adjust the white balance afterwards, you include a grey card in the picture to provide a reference :shrug:
Click to expand...

White or grey - it doesn't matter - with a grey card it can also be used to do an incident light reading, which is why it's more useful than just a white card...
 
did a wedding on good friday, one of the guests was a tard with a dslr who after 2-3 polite requests to wait til i'd finished the group shots carried on

got a bit sheepish when i loudly told him he'd be the one responsible for ruining their shots when people are looking out of frame at him instead of me

as others have said, it seems a bit off imho but if they get the job done then that's fine, they're hopefully better photographers than people persons :)
 
Forgot about this thread.

I've actually spoken to them since at a recent event, I was cheeky and brought up the quality of the video.

They admitted to me that it was nowhere near the quality of their commercial shoots but they've only done two weddings. I think it has resulted in them offering a partial refund and they've asked if I could take a look at the footage to see if there is anything I can do, but I know nothing about editing video so it's kind of pointless. :(

The one lad was still a bit of an arrogant **** but the other actually turned out to be quite nice, ended up chatting for quite some time, they would like me to look at their website as it needs updating AND they've asked me to go to their studio to discuss weddings in general so they can get a better understanding of the process.
 
really unless the couple were aware of this before hand then that's not acceptable imho
 
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