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Old 01-10-09, 08:03 AM
flake flake is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 448
Weddings are very expensive, and it's easy to see why a couple would look at the cost of a wedding photographer as something they could cut out, but the issue here seems to be that they have pushed the cost and responsibility on to you!
If you do decide to do this for them remember that organising all the people will be largely down to you. If it's a formal set of pictures there can be a lot of people to gather togther, and what's going to happen when Auntie Maureen has gone missing or is gossiping with a friend and doesn't want to be drawn away?
Then there's the weather, what are you going to do if the wedding day is wet & windy, and if it's the months of May to August which we laughingly call summer? Do you have enough lighting for a group of 20+ inside a darkened church? Studio flash gear is available for hire quite cheap, but do you know how to use it, and who is going to help you set it all up? Even in daylight you're going to need a flash with you for fill.
Then after you come home with a camera full of shots, you have somewhere around two days of post processing work seperating the wheat from the chaff, and putting together a set of shots which tell the story of the day, which you feel happy with and you feel others will too.
What about printing and albums? Because you can end up with an administrative nightmare when you get 20+ orders for prints, have you thought about where you'll get them from, how long it will take, and what you will charge ? (chance to make some profit here).
The happy couple are going to want an album with all their pics in, have you mounted prints before? Do you know where to get the albums and how much they will cost?

The lenses which you have at the moment are the basic kits ones nothing wrong with that, but you would get far better results from upgrading the standard zoom to something like a Sigma 17 - 70mm or an 18 - 50mm f/2.8. None of the lenses you mention are very fast, and on a crop sensor, it will be difficult to develop a good bokeh (background blur). It would take a minimum of f/2.8 so you will also need a faster lens, and Canon have a nice cheap option for you, the 50mm f/1.8 which you can buy brand new for just £80

But when I think about it, I have to agree with Norman, I think it's a terrible impositon by people who probably have no concept of whats involved. I wouldn't do it for less that £1000 probably an average cost, but there's good reason why it costs that much - the amount of work involved to do it properly.
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