Will Hey Photography: 2013

Tuesday 22 October 2013

Tips to help you get the best out of your wedding photographer

Chances are that unless you work in the fashion industry it is not often you will employ a photographer, leaving you a bit stuck in terms of what to expect and what to provide on the day. Luckily knowing a few simple facts can help you get the very best out of your wedding photographer.

1. When making your selection, choose one whose artistry you trust and then let them go for it.

Once you have made the decision of who to hire, rely on your judgement and theirs. Part of what you are paying for is a professional artistic eye and their experience in the wedding industry. That said, it’s OK to send over photos of other artists to give the photog an idea of your preferred style. Any good photographer takes pride in their creative ideas and “the hunt” for the money-shot reigns supreme but it is always interesting to take on new ideas and perspectives.

2. Separate the Weekend Warriors from the Real Deals.

Now that bigger box stores sell DSLR cameras, there are many non-professionals who mistakenly think that wedding photography is an easy way to make money. The request of a simple equipment list will go far to make the distinction between the hobbyist and the full-time professional photographer. Professionals have mucho back-up gear; camera bodies, flashes, lenses, etc. and can easily describe to you what is in their arsenal. The weekend warrior typically doesn’t have the resources to provide the appropriate back-up equipment. Back-up gear is an absolute necessity (and, no, a camera phone doesn’t count!). Also, any professional is going to protect themselves with a business liability insurance policy. It’s completely ok to ask anyone you are interviewing if they carry any.

Tips to help you get the best out of your wedding photographer

3. Read your contract.

The contract exists to protect both you and the photographer so take the time to read through it. I know it seems like a no brainer, but you would be surprised at how many people do not do this. Make sure you know what you are responsible for and also what you are getting out the deal in terms of coverage, albums and images.

4. On the wedding day, set aside an area for the photographer to shoot beautiful photos of the dress, shoes, accessories, etc.

Make sure the area is not cluttered with items and is clean. If possible, hang the dress in a pleasing manner; such as on a bed post, mirror, door frame, etc. Set out all of your accessories so the photographers can arrange in an artistic way. Many brides are purchasing specialized hangers for their dress along with utilizing specialized accessories such as “I Do” stickers for their shoe bottoms.

5. Timelines, Timelines, Timelines.

When preparing your timelines, remember to include items such as travel between locations, photographer set-up and tear down, down time, receiving line. etc. Photography does take some degree of time to set up to optimal lighting scenarios, change camera settings, etc. To get the best of your wedding photography experience, it is absolutely imperative that the photographer is allotted enough time to get the job done properly.

6. Save Big Bucks with minimal Photoshopping.

Although most photographers will perform some image manipulation as part of wedding photography package, some tasks are just not going to be included in the typical editing rates. Tanning, removal of braces, weight loss, and other cosmetic enhancements are extremely time consuming tasks for any photo editor. Wedding photographers work with massive quantities of images and it’s not practical for any photographer to include these type of edits as part of a typical package. Also, this type of editing can be very costly for the consumer. Save big by trying to take care of these things, if at all possible, naturally prior to the wedding day.

7. Above all, enjoy your day!

Just know that life is never “perfect” and some things are probably not going to go as planned. Try to let things things roll off your back since the camera doesn’t lie- you want to look and be happy on the most important day of your life!

Photography by Adrian Spencer of Will Hey Wedding Photography, a professional wedding photographer based in the High Peak near Buxton and Stockport and covering Derbyshire, Cheshire, Manchester and Sheffield.

Monday 21 October 2013

Grey Imports and the Pitfalls and Perils of Warranties

I have always been suspicious of warranties. Given the level of protection afforded us in the UK by the Sales of Goods and Services Act they seems a little redundant, after all a 12 month guarantee is enshrined in law so why do we need them? This is compounded by the hoops that companies make us jump through to ensure they are valid. Registration, retention of receipts, making sure you don't lose the toilet paper thin slip of paper stuck at the bottom of the box. All told it is a lot of messing about for something that, assuming the product is built to a decent quality, we probably won't need.

That said when it came to laying out for my camera gear I made sure that I followed the procedures set down to the letter. Given that my camera and lenses are worth significantly more than my car it seemed prudent that I should have recourse for action should something go awry. Turns out that despite my best efforts and form filling I have still managed to fall foul of the technicalities by unknowingly purchasing a camera that is a grey import. For those who are unaware a 'grey import' is a product that was intended for sale in another country or region. A lot of manufacturers price their products differently in different areas and different governments set taxes at different levels on consumer electronics. This means certain high end goods (for example a £5000 Nikon D4) can retail in places like Hong Kong cheaper than the wholesale price in the UK or US. The upshot of this is that some savvy business people can purchase them in bulk, ship them over and then under cut the local market. At first pass this seems like a win/win scenario, the consumer gets a good deal on a product and the supplier makes a healthy mark up which is all well and good until the item develops a fault.

For me it was my D700 that started having an issue with the hot shoe sync. A quick blast of Google-fu and it turned out to be quite a common problem (in fact you can read about that here) so given that the camera was only 6 months old I packed it all up and posted it to Nikon so their usually excellent warranty department can take care of it. The next day their customer care representative was on the phone. They had checked the serial number and the camera had been sold in Hong Kong and as such wasn't covered under European warranty. I went back to the original listing on eBay (really, that should have been a warning sign) and the camera was advertised as "UK Stock ready for immediate dispatch" so I contacted the seller and they explained they had 'made a mistake due to mix up in their warehouse' *cough* bull crap *cough* and sent me the wrong camera. However they went on to reassure that the camera did have a warranty but I would have to post it back to Hong Kong for it to be honoured!

As you could imagine I was livid. To make matters worse my credit card company were powerless as the transaction had been handled through PayPal. It turns out if you use PayPal you lose your credit card's security because no contract exists between them and the supplier. All responsibility passes to PayPal as the mediator. My next step was to contact PayPal (you may know them as the people that advertise how safe and secure they are to use) and they could do nothing because the item was over 90 days old.

In short, I was boned.

The most frustrating part of this was despite how careful I had been I had still fallen fowl of the fine print. I had made sure to buy UK stock, I had filled out all the forms, registered the products online and kept hold of the warranty cards yet somehow I still ended up with an expensive camera that had no protection under UK law. For the record I don't blame Nikon for this, they have to protect their product somehow although given that all the cameras are manufactured to the same specification a world wide warranty cover would be nice. I had no choice but to foot the hefty bill for the repair as I couldn't be without the camera for the month or more it would take to ship it to Hong Kong and back. All told I learnt a few important lessons; credit cards are worthless on PayPal, PayPal protection isn't worth a damn after 90 days, people lie on eBay, and most importantly check your gear with the manufacturer to make sure it is UK stock!

Sunday 20 October 2013

AN EXPENSIVE LESSON FROM SOME CHEAP, FAKE BATTERIES.

Just learnt a very expensive lesson and thought I would share in the hope that one of you beautiful people will avoid such a costly mistake.

Being a wedding photographer I tend to push my flash hard and as such I was going through batteries at quite a rate. Looking around it turned out it was much cheaper to buy Duracells in bulk off eBay rather than in a shop, in fact it was nearly one third the price at 50p a unit rather than £1.50. In total I purchased about a 100 batteries and all seemed to be going fine until the day I came to use my SB-900 and it wouldn't power on.

Disaster.

Turns out despite looking legit the batteries were fakes and had leaked inside my flash. I posted the flash back to Nikon who informed me that the unit was severely damaged inside from the battery acid and it was beyond repair. Also, as a final insult, my camera insurance classed it as 'contamination' and wouldn't cover it.

The moral of the story is avoid bulk batteries, pay a bit more and buy them in the shop. Trust me when I say it is cheaper in the long run. There is an excellent guide on how to spot fakes here.

If you are wondering what to use as an alternative I can heartily recommend 'eneloop XX ' rechargeables. They maintain a steady power output and seem to last much better than the high end Duracell and energizer batteries.

Hope this helps, if you have any similar experiences please leave a comment below.

Saturday 19 October 2013

Seven tips for first time wedding photographers.

If you are thinking about taking on your first wedding as a photographer then it is usually for one of two reasons; you are looking to make a career of it or you are doing a favour for a friend. Either way there are a few things you should consider and a few more things you should know before you step out to photograph the most important day of someone's life.

1. Are you nervous and worried?

Good, you bloody well should be.

I can’t overstate how much of responsibility photographing someone’s wedding is and as such it should not be undertaken lightly. The images you create will form the basis of the couple’s memory of the day and they will be viewed by the generations of their family to come. In 60 years time, when they are explaining what their wedding day was like, it is your photographs they will be showing to their great grandchildren. If you keep this in mind at all times throughout the day and make it the foundation of everything you do I guarantee you will see better images as a result.

Also, keep in mind that if you mess up the responsibility is on your head and your head alone.

2. Have a plan and stick to it.

There is a wealth of information you need from a couple before you set out to photograph their day. Logistically you need to know the venue local, ceremony times, name's of the key members of the wedding party, contact details and countless other details so you are sure you know exactly where and when you need to be.

Stylistically you need to have an idea of what the couple are looking for. Are they hoping for “reportage” style images or are they after something a little more structured? Do they have any special requests for the family formals? Is photography allowed in the church?

To help with these questions I have put a copy of my personal information sheet here for you to download. It is exactly what I forward to all my brides and will give you an idea of what I consider to be relevant and useful.

Also, have a look around at some sites that put together a recommended list of shots you should be aiming for and keep a printed copy to hand during the day in case your inspiration runs dry. There is a passable list here.

3. Equipment counts.

As I mentioned here equipment matters a lot more than most photographers care to admit. As such I would say the absolute minimum level of equipment required to competently photograph a wedding is:

·         A DSLR body that can be pushed up to a useable minimum of ISO 1600
·         A semi decent zoom lens (18-105 is very handy if you are on a crop sensor)
·         The “nifty fifty” f1.8 50mm prime
·         An external flash unit with a rotating head
·         A raft of spare batteries and memory cards.

If you are reading this wondering what “ISO” and “f1.8” mean then you don't have the level of technical knowledge required to shoot a wedding (don’t forget, photography is half science and half art) and you should hand over the job to someone who does.

4. Have a solid written agreement in place.

Sadly there are a few well educated lunatics out there who will deliberately try and ensnare a good photographer who has failed to protect him or herself legally and as a 'noob' to wedding photography you are doubly exposed. As such it is vital that you have a written agreement in place expressing clearly exactly what is expected, what your experience level is and what you will deliver in terms of prints and digital files.

If you are looking to have something a little more robust you can either have a contract professionally drawn up but expect to pay big bucks or a lot of photography organisations have sample contracts you can download and use. The Guild of Photographers has an excellent contract available for free to its members

5. Shoot RAW and don’t delete off the camera.

Simple one this, if you are not familiar with the RAW format then take a little time to get to know it. Shooting RAW gives you the freedom in post-production to pull back a lot more out of the image and, vitally, it means you can easily correct the white balance. A lot of venues like the warm look of tungsten bulbs which look great to the eye but play havoc with a camera leaving everyone with an orange hue. Shooting RAW means batch correcting these images is the work of seconds.

Also, don’t be quick to ditch your mistakes. You will be surprised what you can sometimes recover in post-production with some simple corrections and as such you want to keep the files even if you don’t feel they have worked out as well as you would have liked at the time.

6. Keep a smile on your face no matter what.

Think of yourself as a mirror at the wedding. If you project stress and frustration it will be reflected back to you in the images you take through the body language of your subjects. As such it is vital that no matter what happens you keep upbeat and positive all day or your images will suffer.

Never point out anything negative to a member of the wedding party. If there is something you don’t like that you can’t change yourself then say nothing. This goes when you are photographing the bride and groom as well. For example if you are setting up a shot that turns out to be unflattering do not say anything as you will instantly make them self-conscious. Take the shot anyway and review it later. It might turn out better than expected.

7. There is a line to walk between being assertive and rude.

The nature of weddings can vary tremendously. I have shoot some where the couple have been so laid back and the ceremony so casual that anything goes and done others (usually church weddings) where I have been relegated to the back or worse still not been allowed to take any photo’s at all.

It is up to you to judge what balance to strike between doing the best by the couple that you can and not being intrusive or aggressive in your approach. If you have followed my advice about a game plan then you will have a much better idea about what you can get away with.

Re blogged from Will Hey Photography

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Is your BlackRapid strap damaging your camera?

Just a quick post to let you all know about a recurring problem I have had with my Nikon D700 caused by a combination of a BlackRapid strap and a heavy flash unit. Despite the excellent build quality both my D700s have developed a fault where the speedlight doesn't sync properly with the camera. This causes a lot of unpredictable behaviour with the flash units, including random strobing, failing to fire and overpowered shots when it does fire. The image below is a typical example on this, notice that the IR focus assist works but the SB900 didn't fire when the shutter was released.

After sending my cameras back to Nikon it turns out the culprit is a distorted hot shoe that doesn't maintain a proper connection. When I quizzed the staff over what could have caused it they couldn't give a definite answer but they suggested it may be an issue with the way the flash unit is stressed if the camera is left hanging upside down for prolonged periods. My first thought was that my camera never hangs upside down and then it struck me, when I use the BlackRapid strap and the camera is in the resting position then the full weight of my heavy SB900 is hanging from the hot shoe. Given that I can have my camera on me for eight hours or more at a wedding this might be enough to cause the problem.

I asked the Nikon helpdesk outright but they couldn't or wouldn't give me a definite answer or give me a recommendation as to if I should stop using the strap, simply stating that "…..the hot shoe issue that you refer to, on the D700, has not been announced as a known issue by Nikon….." however one of the engineers did comment that the problem was "not uncommon". This is backed up by a quick search on Google which shows I am not the first to have this issue (here, here, here, and many more if you look) and the only fix seems to be replacing the hot shoe.

All this means I am going to have to go back to the uncomfortable Nikon strap for the time being for any shoots that involve using my speedlights which is a real shame as my BlackRapid strap is far more comfortable, especially on long shoots. I have emailed Black Rapid to see if they have a comment and will let you know if they get back to me.

Reblogged from the Will Hey Blog