On our trip up here to Syracuse, my wife informed me we would be getting our pictures taken by a 'professional photographer'. My wife said I could also shoot my images, but that 'Jeanne' was a professional. Well....after watching the 'professional' shoot yesterday...and she was kind enough to take a few pictures of my wife and I with my camera...I asked her whether she shot in Raw or .jpg. She responded ".jpg", and said it's because she didn't have time to edit all the shooting she does in Lightroom. She casually told how she uses Lightroom, Photoshop, and several other programs to edit her pictures.
Now, to make a long story shorter....the lens she shot with was a Canon prime 105 mm 'Macro'. For family portraits no less. I hope she isn't planning on getting paid.
Thanks for keeping it real. You're probably right. But she did have a 70-200 mm f/2.8 just sitting at her table that she could have used for better bokeh. She never used that lens or her 50 mm f/1.8. Plus, we were shooting in a heavily shaded and wooded area. To each their own. She also announced to everyone that she never does weddings where they pay $5000 because she doesn't want to deal with 'bride-zillas', and mother-zillas'.
I wrote and rewrote my post. didnt know if I should, but here we go. whats up Sonic. We shoot only in jpeg for weddings. some protogs I know do only the ceremony or formals or BG photo shoot in raw(canon or nikon) most through only shoot jpeg. we shoot between 1700-2300 pics a wedding-each. I run through them all in acdsee pro. tweak exposure, contrast, turn doubles to BW and so forth. I filter hard to get the best. we always work hard on getting the image, to, or as close as correct as we can in the camera. you really dont need to adjust much for the bulk of the images. table shots, dancing and here and there pics. we invest a bit more time with the ceremony and the family pics. but my exposure is pretty much 90% to what I want. formals and ceremony bottom line is the most critical of all the photos. jpeg is very good even for a double page spread album print. it looks great. customers are happy, they get great pictures, great quality and everyone is happy. when I did my comeback, I too thought "WHAT!? NO NEF! BUT JPEG SUCKS!" and it simply isnt so. it isnt so. the amount of quality you achieve with using nef is so little after outputting to jpeg, it simply isnt worth all the extra time to edit. joeg with FF and L/FINE with pro glass is very high quality.
when I shoot family formals, and unlike the majority of protogs who hate family formals, im in the zone when I shoot formals. its one of my strong features as a protog. I would go for the primes (85 1.8d and 105VR) always if a, I had the space to work, and b, if I had enough time as I usually have to shoot a lot of pictures of different amount of people and usually in different orientations (depneding whos standing). face horizontal, face vertical, half body vertical/horizontal, full body vertical/horizontal. and I have at times went with the primes.
I prefer the 70-200 VR1 only because I need versatility and speed so I can adjust on the fly. you will never see me standing in the same place for two pics. even though I have a zoom, my mindset is to go back and zoom in for better compression, isolation, shallower DOF and better perspective aesthetically. So I will put the mm I want on the lens and move myself to adjust the composition. full body, 70-135mm, half body 135-200, face 135-200mm. so I will at times shoot 10 people, standing side by side, full body at 100mm! thats far back. I could shoot at 50mm but the IQ just has a better look. 100mm is just great for family formals.
dont stress she went for the 100mm. its a killer lens and very sharp. you know that you can also get in closer with our 105mm vs the 70-200's. so thats a plus as well.
till you dont see all the images, dont be quick to judge buddy. I dont know what settings you were in. was it a studio, was it in a location and what lighting did she use. I dont know if you can see a protog work and see what level he is. but I can most definitely watch a protog work for 5-10 minutes see what he does without seeing a picture or even looking at his gear and I can see what level he is. when you say certain things about the image thats locked in your mind, I dont know if what you say is what id see. understand me? meaning it might seem much worse or less that what youre explaining. stay calm, wait for the images, come back and let us know how they were. see how the family liked it first. dont brain wash them beforehand though. I know a photogs mind. youll try to brainwash them and get them worried. be neutral. dont mentally psych them up before you get the pics and tell them, man I saw how she worked and she sucked***. wait quitely and patiently and then judge. then after, when the pics do suck***, you can say "I told you she sucked ***" with a big smirk on your face hahaha. cheers buddy.