wreckdiver1321
Senior Member
I went to a wedding over near Coeur d'Alene this weekend, and I saw something that really pissed me off.
A good friend of my fiance's was getting married, so naturally there was a photographer walking around. I was packing my D3100 with my 35mm 1.8 on it, snapping various shots of the location and other small stuff, just for fun (soon to be featured in my daily photo thread). I consider that setup to be pretty amateur, so much so that I am planning on a D610 in the very near future.
Anyways, after getting as into photography as I have, I've started to watch wedding photographers. I'm interested in seeing their style, how they pose people, how they handle themselves during the ceremony and the reception, etc. What I saw out of this photographer nearly made my head explode. To start with, she was walking around with a glass of champagne in her hand. That was bad enough, but she was doing so before the wedding had started. Then I started to size up her gear. I thought to myself, "that's kind of a small camera for a pro..." She was using a D60! 10.2 megapixels! Highest native ISO is 1600! To match the stunning power of this body, she had selected the infinitely sharp and incredibly fast 18-55mm. I then had the realization that I was better equipped to shoot this wedding than the photographer was. My suspicions were confirmed when she was shooting the ceremony. She turned the D60(!) vertically and I got a chance to see the mode dial. She was firmly affixed in auto mode. My brain had totally melted by this point. To round off this nice little debacle, I later found out that she had been paid $1700 to shoot this wedding.
Now, I know that all that matters is she gets the shots and the couple is happy. Yes. But certain things were happening in really dark rooms, where I was shooting at 1600 ISO, f/2.8, and 1/50 to get a clean shot. There is no way she got anything from those shots. Then she was drinking on the job. And the camera was in auto mode? That just seems unprofessional and incompetent to me.
A good friend of my fiance's was getting married, so naturally there was a photographer walking around. I was packing my D3100 with my 35mm 1.8 on it, snapping various shots of the location and other small stuff, just for fun (soon to be featured in my daily photo thread). I consider that setup to be pretty amateur, so much so that I am planning on a D610 in the very near future.
Anyways, after getting as into photography as I have, I've started to watch wedding photographers. I'm interested in seeing their style, how they pose people, how they handle themselves during the ceremony and the reception, etc. What I saw out of this photographer nearly made my head explode. To start with, she was walking around with a glass of champagne in her hand. That was bad enough, but she was doing so before the wedding had started. Then I started to size up her gear. I thought to myself, "that's kind of a small camera for a pro..." She was using a D60! 10.2 megapixels! Highest native ISO is 1600! To match the stunning power of this body, she had selected the infinitely sharp and incredibly fast 18-55mm. I then had the realization that I was better equipped to shoot this wedding than the photographer was. My suspicions were confirmed when she was shooting the ceremony. She turned the D60(!) vertically and I got a chance to see the mode dial. She was firmly affixed in auto mode. My brain had totally melted by this point. To round off this nice little debacle, I later found out that she had been paid $1700 to shoot this wedding.
Now, I know that all that matters is she gets the shots and the couple is happy. Yes. But certain things were happening in really dark rooms, where I was shooting at 1600 ISO, f/2.8, and 1/50 to get a clean shot. There is no way she got anything from those shots. Then she was drinking on the job. And the camera was in auto mode? That just seems unprofessional and incompetent to me.