It's official film is dead :(

 

As most of you know I love shooting film. But after a many months(years) of pondering and debating it has become clear that shooting film at weddings serves my customer wrong.



In the past the argument always has been that the quality of digital did not meet the standards of film. Well that is simple not true anymore. With our 16.7 & 12 megapixel canons we can easiliy print up to 30x40 with NO difference. It helps that we are Adobe Photoshop CS2 experts.

Click here to see a slideshow that was scanned from a film proof then

Click here to see another couple shot digitally

The final straw for me was when I learned that my lab (the people who develop our film) switched to scanning our negatives and printing from the scan. This happened early last year. It was a sign of things to come.

We are the consummate professionals. In fact, Marianna, Natasha and I are probable a little crazy when it comes to provide the best quality available. We recently attended a bridal show in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. It was really cool being on the other side of the desk. Anyhow, I visited 7 different photographers. Not one of them had packages less than 4000 US to start.

The quality was absolutely terrible!!! We are sooooooooooooo lucky to have amazing labs here in Toronto. The photographic images taken looked great. Emotional, well composed funky and unique. But compared to the print quality we produce, I was actually upset! How could these guys provide such terrible images to their couples?

So we are shooting all weddings on high end professional digital cameras from now on.

But wait there’s more!!!!

Some of you may still want some film to be taken. No worries no question, just let me know before your wedding and we will shoot a few rolls along side the digital cameras.

Now my five reasons I absolutely love digital

1. The lenses are all autofocus. You see I where glasses, so when I focus with the film camera it takes a few seconds for me to focus then refocus to make sure its dead on. With our pro series lenses every shot is bang on sharp no matter how fast the bride or groom is running.


2. For the past 8 years I have been studying Adobe Photoshop. As a member of NAPP, I have honed my skills and that of our team to the point where we can basically do anything. When I shoot with film we have to take the extra  step of scanning the film, removing the dust that usually accompanies the scan. When we shoot high resolution digital files we save time. And having to explain the $35 scanning fee.


3. It way less obtrusive. Have you ever seen the photographer with the huge ugly tripod standing in the middle of the aisle as the Bride and her father walk down the aisle. Nuff said.


4. Storage and safety. We are fanatics about workflow. Workflow is the methodology of how you produce the same complicated event over and over. So when we shoot digital our main concern after taking kick ass photos is preserving them. On the day of the wedding with film each film is wrapped up and stored in our camera bag until Monday when we bring them to the lab to be developed. In the back of my mind I am always worried until I see the proofs a week later. Then the negatives have to be stored carefully so that they an be used for ordering enlargements in the future. With digital we create a total of 4 back ups 3 on the day of the wedding. If the lab loses a CD no biggie we burn another.


5. Digital Art, Imagination Art Album, and Fine tuning. You see I have always believed going back to my performance days (search the blog achieves for my days with the Cadets of Bergen county) that for me to be truly happy as an artist I need to push the boundaries. Like Jackson Pollack or Cindy Sherman I cannot accept that every wedding can be taken the exact same way. There are too many variables.

 

Digital Art allows me to take an image, and using Photoshop rework it into my vision. (We never charge for this ever. And I would love your input if you have any ideas)

Imagination Art Album is a secret project that I will let you in on when I’m ready. Until then sorry.

Fine tuning is what happen today with Christina. She had an image that was taken by Marianna that was a close up. She loved the photo and wanted it as her final 30x40 portrait. But her arm had a few red splotches on the upper part where the waxing go a little out of hand. In the old days it would have cost over $145 to remove the red by having a retouch artist paint on the negative. Because it was shot digitally I was to fix it in front of her. In 45 second. For free.

So to close off the really long post (sorry guys) – You can see that just like screw caps replaced can openers, digital cable boxes replace complicated VCRs, ipods replaced walkmans, and DVDs replaced VHS tape – Film is dead.