Thanks to everyone for all the good, well thought advice. Just as yet another reason to say how cool this place is, I have had a few pms already of people offering to loan me their gear. Thanks to all... man this place is cool!
I'm really torn over the dslr vs "prosumer" point and shoot debacle. I REALLY want to stay under $500 for everything, but I guess between my old manual and my little P&S I should be able to make up atleast $100. I'll hold them both till after the wedding so that I can use them if something goes to shit, but I should be able to dump them soon after.
I really like the features on the minolta a1. The reviews I have been reading say wonderful things about the camera but criticize the resolution. Do I NEED the image stabilization? No... I can hold a camera steady and I have a tripod. Do I like the security of it... yes. Same with the 3d autofocus and some of the other features, but when it comes down to it, the money shots are going to be at the church, posed, and with a tripod. Most everything else is going to be a 4x6. In a 4x6 I can get away with a lot more than I can with an 8x10 or larger. A little shake, a big crop or a little loss in resolution isn't the end of the world there. So do I push my budget a bit and get an slr with inferior glass and features just so I can get better resolution... that is the question. I have found that I can score rebel 300's, Nikon n50's, fugi s1's, olyimpus e-300's and a few other entry level ~3yr old slr's with kit glass for the range of my budget. I will have to comrimise on the flash but that is probably a better compromise in the scheem of things... especially if I rent some
reflectors and lights for the formal shots.... soooo I'm just sittin' here in limbo
I'd just go with the point and shoot camera that you are comfortable with, it should get pretty good pix and while it might not be rated for anything larger than a 5x7 or 8x10, I find you can print larger and most people will think it looks great. Most of the pix will be 4x6 going into an album and any larger ones will most likely be on walls or mantles and not looked at closely. I'm sure there will be someone at the wedding who has a nice DSLR and if you wanted to approach them and ask if you could take a couple shots for the bride and groom I'm sure they'd allow it.
This is true. Just like concert recording, there are people who can hear/see the difference and people who can't. When it comes down to it I am archiving the event and I trust myself to do that. I will get the shots, I will get good poses, and the people who count most will be extreemly happy I was there doing it.
Bring a laptop and make sure you have both CF and SD > USB thingies to transfer the pix over. That way you can borrow a camera if the opportunity presents itself and copy over the image right there and then. Also, the coolest thing is to have some kind of slideshow software installed and just keep dumping your pix onto the laptop with it running in a continuous loop for the guests to enjoy....that's always a big crowd pleaser.
Aready planning this! I have a screen saver program that will just read from a folder. That way I can pw protect the lappy from the kids, dump my cards, and let people see themselves minutes after the pics are taken.
When it comes time to print them, you can get pretty good 4x6 prints from Target or Walmart, but with the 8x10s I'd recommend going someplace like Art Craft. It will cost a few bucks, but they do a Digital > Negative transfer (with some cleanup) and then print from a negative and it's supposed to make the digipic MUCH cleaner. I had them do this for a larger picture of my parents old house all decorated for X-Mas at night...took it with a 1.2MP piece of junk that made the surroundings (from the red lights) look brown instead of black. This was a few years ago but they transfered and cleaned it up for $12 per 8x10 and they looked AMAZING for such a crappy camera. My parents still have the pic at their new house and guests always comment on it.
Part of my inintial cost calculation was for this exactly. I'm a bit color blind for one, and I don't have any highend grafics software so I wouldn't attempt this if I didn't have someone elses eyes on it. My local specialty camera shop is going to do all the color processing for me. I will meet with the family and go through each shot on a dvd in their living room with printed thumbnails for notes. I will do all the croping myself and then have the camera shop do the color ballancing and printing. They are charging me .69 per 4x6 and about 8.00 per 8x10 including all the color adjustments. This is actually one of the places I worry about my capabilities so I am happy to have them involved.
I also agree that it is amazing what you can do with a lower reso image. I shot a very professional looking glossy brochure for my company with a 3.2 mp p&s and everyone raved about the quality of the photo's. I've heard many times that the quality of the photagrapher is far more important than the quality of the gear (often true for audio too). I'm not saying I'm all-that, but my momma taught me as a boy that I could move mountains and if I set my mind to something I get it done. I'm not going into this blind... I will spend a lot of time researching and plan on hitting a few wedding between now and then to watch pro's in action.
RAW pictures contain data for every single sesor on your CCM or whatever it is....so if you have a 6 MP camera, it has the data for all 6,000,000+ sensors. The file size is typically over 20MB per shot. This is good if you're a professional and going to recolor it and do minute edits, but for most people it's kinda overkill. Also, before you can look at it, you have to convert it from RAW. For the MPs you are looking at and the amount of editing you will be doing the RAW option would be like recording with a Ratshack mic help up to a radio and doing it 24-bit Regular JPG or a mid ranged TIFF file will suffice as it "guesses" on some pixels....if this one is blue and this one is blue, the one in the middle must be blue...and it saves space. This RAW summary might not be 100% technically accurate, but I was looking into if I needed a RAW camera or not and got this info.
I deally I would like to shoot raw now that I have researched it a bit. Some camer's I'm looking at shoot raw + jpg (at the same time) which is a good idea IMO. Do I need it? no, but it would be a nice feature especially for the formals and some of the other money shots. I'm sure for all camera's it is a little different but for the A1 these are the file sizes
File size* (approx.)(2560 x 1920) RAW: 7.4 MB, TIFF: 14.5 MB, Extra Fine: 4.9 MB, Fine: 2.5 MB, Standard 1.5 MB, Movie: 522 KB / second
in this case the raw is not much larger than the jpg and 1/2 of the tiff. My biggest concern with the raw is the cropping. Most of the camera's that shoot raw come with a basic editing program... how they work I don't know yet. In my perfect world, I can shoot raw, crop, and save as raw for the printer so he can have maximum flexibility in color matching. However, if I have to shoot jpg, or have the printer do a couple of crops for me it isn't the end of the world.
Now... back to the new gear
Here is how I see it:
With the A1 (I really think this is the best option for a p&s)
I get a 28-200mm f/2.8 lens
anti shake
5 mp
very respectable af
average noise performance at higher iso's
marginal resolution
easily stay in the $500-550 range with extra batts, media, and hq flash
As for the slr's that are in my range:
some are certainly better than others feature wise
most have far better resolution
lens's tend to be all f/3.5 (kit lenses)
lens's are mostly 18-45mm, 70-200mm or 28-70mm
Most are 6mp but a couple are 8mp
quality at higher iso's are all over the board from crap to awesome
all would require a compromise on the flash (low-end, off-brand tilt head)
So which is the lesser of two evils?
With the slr's I can upgrade glass later and I like that, but the glass in the a1 is pretty good to start with. I like the idea of having a camera capable of shooting concerts from a bit of a distance... I would get use out of that, but the anti-shake on the minolta will let me shoot down a couple of speeds, which will allow me to lower the iso and it has better zoom and speed right out of the box! Which is better!
For the wedding I guess I can shoot with a lower powered zoom if I have better resolution because I can crop more. i.e. an 8 mp camera with a lower power zoom is probably a wash with a camera that is 5-6mp but has a larger zoom.
An slr that has kick ass performance at higher iso's (the rebel 300d is quite good up to 800iso, and not bad at 1600) will be a wash with a camera that has a faster lense.
Better resolution and lower noise at higher iso's will allow me to shoot at faster shutter speeds and this makes the anti-shake less of a big deal
It goes on and on... what to do, what to do.
T's for all who are helping...
Matt