Posts Tagged ‘Shutter’

Beg, borrow, hire or steal an extra camera for the day – set it up with a different lens. I try to shoot with one wide angle lens (great for candid shots and in tight spaces (particularly before the ceremony in the preparation stage of the day) and one longer lens (it can be handy to have something as large as 200mm if you can get your hands on one – I use a 70-200mm).

A decent shot.

Get a little creative with your shots. While the majority of the images in the end album will probably be fairly ‘normal’ or formal poses – make sure you mix things up a little by taking shots from down low, up high, at wide angles etc.

Visit the locations of the different places that you’ll be shooting before the big day. While I’m sure most Pros don’t do this – I find it really helpful to know where we’re going, have an idea of a few positions for shots and to know how the light might come into play. On one or two weddings I even visited locations with the couples and took a few test shots (these made nice ‘engagement photos’).

The ability to bounce a flash or to diffuse it is key. You’ll find that in many churches that light is very low. If you’re allowed to use a flash (and some churches don’t allow it) think about whether bouncing the flash will work (remember if you bounce off a colored surface it will add a colored cast to the picture) or whether you might want to buy a flash diffuser to soften the light. If you can’t use a flash you’ll need to either use a fast lens at wide apertures and/or bump up the ISO. A lens with image stabilization might also help. Learn more about Using Flash Diffusers and Reflectors.

Having the ability to shoot a lot of images fast is very handy on a wedding day so switch your camera to continuous shooting mode and use it. Sometimes it’s the shot you take a second after the formal or posed shot when everyone is relaxing that really captures the moment!

Beeps during speeches, the kiss and vows don’t add to the event. Switch off sound before hand and keep it off.

One of the challenges of weddings is that there are often people going everywhere – including the backgrounds of your shots. Particularly with the formal shots scope out the area where they’ll be taken ahead of time looking for good backgrounds. Ideally you’ll be wanting uncluttered areas and shaded spots out of direct sunlight where there’s unlikely to be a wandering great aunt wander into the back of the shot. Read more on getting backgrounds right.

As a coordinator, Wendy Stoller, has been a guest in many weddings and has collected a series of heart feltExamples of Wedding Speeches. For some inspiration, visit and listen.

I have owned a Nikon Coolpix digicam for a little over two 1/2 years and in that duration of time I have taken over 3k photos. As I searched for cameras with longer zooms, there were two I liked the range of- both the Canon Pro1 and the Dimage Minolta. The Dimage Minolta 7X optical zoom provides me a great range from wide angle to telephoto. Due to this wide range, it’s feasible to make many different pictures with this impressive camera.

Another awesome feature that attracted me to the Dimage Minolta was the anti-shake feature. A camera with a powerful zoom is not useful if you can’t hold it steady enough to get a great photo. Regardless of the length of the zoom, the Dimage Minolta camera is incredibly compact and simply fits into my fanny pack which is exactly what I wanted.

Another feature that I just love about the Dimage Minolta is the adjustable LCD monitor which is much clearer than the one on my Nikon. This enables you to aim over your head or at a low angle and still see what you are shooting at. You can fold the LCD to where it’s facing the camera body to protect it and also take pictures by trying the EVF viewfinder. Which allows you use less battery strength.

The Dimage Minolta LCD will also turn absolutely forward so you can do a self portrait by trying the radio control to trip the shutter. The remote may also be advantageous for long exposures on a tripod like night shots. For night shots, it has got noise cancellation to where it will take a second photo with the shutter closed to record any “hot spots” from the pixels and take away them from the final picture so it is sharper and doesn’t have all those white dots on it. I tried this and it takes great dim lighting photos – in truth the Dimage Minolta took the best low light shots I have gotten with any camera I have used.

The time between shots it pretty fast. Quicker than my Nikon certainly. It has manual or auto focus I used manual with it at infinity for my night photos since this like many auto focus cameras can have trouble targeting in low light scenarios. The macro can be employed at either the wide angle or telephoto ends of the zoom. I have not especially attempted that yet. Nor have I attempted the film format which is alleged to be fantastic. There are 2 resolutions you may use for that.

I thought my small Nikon 4mp camera took nice pictures, but the Dimage Minolta blows that away. It is easy enough for a beginner to use it on “Auto” but has enough features to please most professionals too. I already have taken several pictures with this camera. They are extremely crisp – from the wide angle through telephoto. This camera fit my wants and then some – with all the options available this camera offers. If you’re serious about photography and yet want to keep it simple, the Dimage Minolta is a remarkable camera!

See I did not debated the 8 mega-pixels the Dimage Minolta has. The cause of that is because it was not a forethought for my purchase and delight for this camera. 4 mega-pixels is a lot for most uses particularly since most users won’t be making prints larger than 8 x ten. But this camera definitely gives you that chance.

I praise this camera! The photograph is what the eye sees, and the Dimage Minolta will definitely help you to capture what you see with simplicity. I think it is worth every penny!

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