jpg or raw for wedding shoot?

[metalstorm]

Thanks!

[jfrancho]

I use a grey card for this.

[JohnG]

Raw is what I would shoot as well.

However, I went to a David Ziser seminar recently and he strongly recommends shooting in jpg for the time savings in pp. (just need to always check the historgram and adjust when needed)

Since I'm not as good with nailing the exposure everytime and would hate to miss a critical shot, I have always shot in RAW but after giving myself carpal tunnel syndrome (literally) from pping the last wedding, I may have to experiment with jpg a bit.

[metalstorm]

Okay. I'm gonna stick with RAW for now. How many exposures do you wedding shooters shoot for the day?

[dvdowns]

I'm no pro wedding photographer but I like to also take a lot of cameo shots of the guests as well . Over about 6 hours I have taken close on 700 pictures , snapping away at anything that moves and has the wedding as its theme along with kids running around , the candles on the tables etc.
Then I select the 280 or so pics that fit on a 700meg disc and make them a few copies of that plus one dvd with all the pictures on it . I suppose someone who knows what they are doing would not have to take so many to get some good ones ... I would also say if you are used to RAW stick with it , maybe shoot Raw+jpeg if your camera has it , then you can see how your jpeg images would have come out .

[kc7dji]

This debate is always matter of opinion and preference. I'll shoot RAW but only for small shoots and/or landscapes and such. For weddings - No Way for me. We just shot a wedding and ended up with 988 photo (3 photographers). I would spend the next 2 months correcting and converting if I shot RAW. For big shoots such as weddings I shoot JPG. You can correct JPG almost as much as you can RAW. I use a white balance photo to set the cameras up so i get the correct colors and I shoot for the best photos possible with the camera. I don't want to spend much time playing around with corrections as I just may have another shoot to handle.

Different processes work for different people. Try both, see what you like and develop a process that works for you.

My most significant improvments were the Gary Fong Lightsphere II and the color correction (gray card).

Happy Shooting

Scott
3rd Planet Photography

[metalstorm]

I have lightsphere 1 and I need to get a grey card someday.

[Liza]

A friend of mine, who is a professional wedding photographer, says it all boils down to workflow. He recently took 1,000 images at a wedding, and his assistant had them processed in a couple of days. If you batch process and have an established workflow, it isn't that hard. I process an average of 300 sports and event images each week during the school year for our yearbook, the newspaper, and to sell on my website. It takes discipline and hard work, but it isn't impossible.

[paulhodson]

The thing is if you shoot Raw you increase your headroom for rescuing a critical shot you messed up. The options would seem to be

Shoot Raw only, process individually and accept the time involved - and once you get the workflow sorted it need not take that long

Shoot Raw only, process them all the same - (that's what the camera does after ) all but you can produce 16 bit tiffs and avoid any image degradatiion

Shoot Raw plus large jpeg and use the jpegs except where you need the Raw for rescue purposes

[karls-images]

Ok....would this work fo a G6?? I have used the G6 for wedding shoots set to RAW and have got some incredible images from it, i know all you DSLR users are cringing, but it really does do a good job, but i do plan soon to get a DSLR and i can't wait....

Originally Posted by Mark McCall

Take a photo of a white sheet of printer paper, properly exposing it, and filling up the frame. (believe it or not, Canon's manuals actually mention white printer paper).

Menu>Custom White Balance>Select the image you just took>Click OK.
Then change the white balance mode to Custom on the LCD on top of the camera.
Done.