Why do some wedding photographers charge £400 and some £2000, well there are many explanations but heres my perspecitve from years of experience.
First of all lets dispell a complete myth ' Anyone can take a good photo with cameras these days ' , maybe a snap of uncle john standing on the beach yes , a 12 hour wedding with multiple locations , artificial lighting and real lighting , daylight darkness, shadows , rain or wind , people , macro-detail , and time constraints - ermmmm NO.
A modern day professional digital slr takes years to master and the theory of f-stops , depth of field , iso sensitivity , composition etc does not come in a camera handbook. It takes time and practise for a photographer to know what settings to apply and how best to wring every drop of performance from his camera, and even then technology advances so rapidly once you learn the one you have a new once comes along, and in the reality of a wedding situation the photographer has milli-seconds to make each setting decision or the shot has gone ...
So we have a few different types of wedding photographer, heres what to look for :
First theres the new guy/girl starting out - probably got a half decent camera and has been into photography in some way for a while as a hobby so has what we call 'The Eye' for a photo , they will know it because people will comment on how good their photos look. These people are usually low priced because they are trying to gain experience and although there is a small element of risk with a non-pro , if you can only afford a few hundred quid these are the guys to look for. Once theyre experienced you wont get them for that anymore. However if you find a photographer for a few hundred quid whos been in it for years , its because there work is of such a standard that they cant command a higher price - so be wary.
Then theres the business photographer - many start out off the back of a degree or without any experience at all purely as a commercial enterprise , buy a camera , start a company and off you go - get some experience and hopefully some good shots along the way - well lol , i wouldnt pay these guys at all to be at my wedding..wedding photography is an artform first and a business second - if you dont produce the results you wont get recommends and you wont survive. Be mindful too of organisations that employ photographers to do their weddings , freelancers are never as interested in getting it right as you are in youre own business , I dont employ photographers , but I do have friends and family who I know are good enough to do it that help me out.
And last theres us hard working full time wedding photographers , our bread and butter is your big day and we will go out of our way to make it perfect wether that be taking photos , giving people lifts or organising things , its all part of the fun of the day to us. We also spend a huge amount of time after your day and I personally take about 3-4 weeks to process shots after a weddings spending some 20 hours or so editing on top of the 12 hours at the wedding. We reccie the venue , plan our timings and vanish into your day in a seamless way that makes you smile capturing moments you forget and moments you want to remember , and then wrap it all up in an exquisite album aswell as giving you your treasure memories on disks.
Equipment Considerations..
Technical stuff aside for one second, consider any other trade you would use and think about it the same way , if you employed a builder to do an extension on your house and paid a fair price , then the builder turned up jotted some notes down on a scrap of paper, took some measurements with a cheap tape measure and said he would have the job done in less time than anyone else would you then be concerned .. ??
If the builder turned up with digital measuring devices and books to show you examples of his work and sat and discussed your requirements and then laid out his plan and timescale, would you be more convinced the job was going to be right ??
For a bride and groom choosing the right photographer is bad enough but as with most people they would have no idea what an expensive slr looked like compare to a cheap one , these days a cheap one can be bulked up and made to look expensive with a battery grip and a cheap white lens so who would know ? yet another similar camera with a built in batter grip and expensive white lens could have cost in excess of £5,000 .....
So whats the difference you may ask , well lets say youre getting married in church and its fairly dark which a lot of churches are , the vicar demands no flash ( which is common ) , the camera used now needs to be capable of shooting in low light and have a good lens to match , commonly f1.2-f2.8 is the technical low light type of lenses , these cost good money and dont come with cheap photographers. If a non low light standard kit lens is used on a cheap camera which doesnt shoot in low light well the resulting shots when blown up especially are going to be blurred - no 2 ways about it. With a good camera and lens , they wont ..
We personally use Canon equipment as we prefer them but Nikon , Sony , Pentax and others all make good cameras , Our cameras are also Full Frame , which means the capture the most light possible on their sensors ( digital film ), there are not a lot of these on the market as they are pro cameras and pro prices ! Canon 1D series and 5D series , Nikon D3 and D700 series are currently the most used choices.
Again with lenses a good lens matters , it will produce a sharper clearer more colourful shot , some are designed to shoot over long distances and some in low light , commonly a good photographer will have a few fit for different needs . The pro lenses we use are all waterproof aswell which means we dont have to stop shooting in the rain , on a canon system all pro lenses have a red ring round the end ... Nikons pro range have a gold ring in general tho there are exceptions ..
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