Wedding dilemma...

Hi,
I'm going to be photographing a friend's wedding later this year (paid job).
He wants to rent a Canon 5d mark II and 24-105mm lens. He's rented this before for a work event and loved the camera. The plan would that this would be the main camera for me to use and my Pentax as a backup.

My obvious issue is that I'm not familiar and would only have an evening and morning to get used to it.
I'm very familiar with my camera, where settings etc are. I also have a few lenses.
I have a Pentax K-7, Sigma 30mm f1.4, Tamron 17-50 f2.8, Sigma 70-200 f2.8 and Pentax 100mm f2.8 macro.

I've said to him straight out what I've mentioned above. Part of me is saying turn the job down, part of my saying do it under the provision that he's aware of my feelings, not familiar with camera etc. It'd be my second wedding (I'm 100 amateur, 2 friends have just asked me to do their wedding and will pay me for it) and I'm interested in the experience.

Any thoughts?
Cheers,
Pa.

A wedding is a very stressful, fast and unforgiving job. Usinf unfamiliar equipment is IMO a huge mistake. If you are going to do it, then use your own Pentax gear, but perhaps hire a backup body from SRS to be safe. Another K-7 would be ideal.

You can shoot most if not all of the wedding using the Tamron 17-50mm and maybe the 30mm f1.4 for any low light stuff in the evening. You have longer lenses if you want them for tighter portraits earlier in the day.

Study a wedding photography book for posing ideas, make sure you are well practised with your camera and have an assistant with you to help organise people.

Forget the Canon, it won't help at all. I would go further and refuse the job if I couldn't use my own gear.

Hope that helps!

He loved the Canon - that's his prerogative

However he expects you to use a camera with which you are not familiar and he wants to you shoot his wedding on the Canon - would have thought that was a recipe for a disaster.

Ask him if he would like to do a professional job with a camera he didn't know inside out and back to front .

Stick to your guns on this one .

I'd be reluctant to do a wedding anyway, ut there's absolutely no way I'd do one with a camera I'm not used to!!
Renting a K5 for the event & having your K7 as backup makes much more sense. The controls on the K5 are I believe very similar to the K7, and any lenses could be used on either camera.

You don't want to be using a camera that you aren't familiar with, especially when your not a wedding expert Tell him you will do it on the K-7 only. You have enough lenses to cover it. You will need a decent flashgun for indoor shots.
Signing the REGISTRAR etc.

Totally agree with John here (unusually, perhaps ).

Making him "aware of your feelings" will be fine beforehand, and absolutely no bloody use at all afterwards, if you stuff up some important shots.

Personally, I think doing a wedding with unfamiliar gear is irresponsible, plain and simple.

You'd be nuts to do it with the Canon IMO. If you can't use your own gear, turn it down.

Do you really need the money?

If he's a friend, humour him, don't take the pay - give it to him as a wedding gift, use the camera and lens he wants you to use and keep it in point and shoot mode. Then you'll have little stress and can concentrate on composition.

If you're doing it for the pay then make that clear to him and use your own kit.

Hope I haven't offended any professional wedding photographers. The very highly paid professional at my daughter's wedding didn't get a photograph of the bride with her mother. Urgh!! He missed out on a great deal of money because I was so annoyed I bought nothing, whereas had I been in a couple of photographs with my daughter then I would have bought the rights to the lot, which the newly married couple couldn't afford.
Note to myself - photoshop one.

Having done two weddings for friends that couldn't afford a pro, trust me when I say that there's plenty of stress whether it's for money or not.

I still wouldn't do it with the Canon, even for nothing.

If he insists then you insist that you have the "replaement camera" for a full week beforehand so as to get used to it.

What he saves on this will probably pay for the weeks rental.


Oh dear I can't work this one, tell you what I'll use my own

regards
Bernard

Your pics will turn out a lot better if you use the camera you are used to.

Tell him you'll use your K-7 or no gig.

And of course you have some great lenses. The sigma 30/1.4 will be fantastic for some close proximity shallow DOF people shots

It's far too common to only focus on fast lenses for low light purposes. And it's a real shame IMO.

Aperture control is one of the most wonderful aspects of photography. Using wide apertures to get shallow DOF shots with nice areas of Bokeh is particularly nice for wedding photography.

The first two pictures on this page show the effect nicely

http://www.rokkorfiles.com/Wedding101-page2.html


And while we're on wedding photography a long time friend of mine Mandy runs a Photography business called Dottie Photography. She's damn good at it ..

Check this out ...

http://www.dottiephotography.co.uk/#/image-weddings-gallery/


Her favourite lens is her new 50/1.2 and she'd slap you with a wet kipper for only suggesting a 30/1.4 for low light.

Smeggy ,Those two women are truly bonkers, the best wedding pics I have seen.
I love the use of theatre to tell a story not just record an event,top stuff
very original and top class... (do they need an assistant?).... jeff..

I read this thread in disbelief, friend or not you don't ask someone to do a job like that and tell them how to do it. Sounds like he would love to do it himself but can't. Not only could it jeopardize the record of the day it could ruin your rep too. I refused to do a friends wedding for different reasons (hadn't a clue how too) but my friend was happier I refused than make a bad job. I did offer to make a separate album of photos the pro tog might not get and due to a mix up and the pro disappearing I took the cake cutting ones.
Stick to your guns and use the equipment you are happy with !!

I think I would suggest your friend also hires a decent tripod and radio/ ir remote control. He can then use the camera of his choice!

A 'mate' who can't trust you to use your equipment and give you 'professional' freedom, sounds like trouble to me. I would steer clear full stop. My guess would be that he would not be happy with anything you do and be hyper critical technically and artistically.
Might be easiest to have a small fallout now, rather than lots of acrimony later.

As others have said, this will be a high stress job. I did my brother-in-law’s, wedding many years back, in the film days using my SpotmaticII, plus his SpotmaticII, as a back up, also to have a second lens choice, without the need to change, on camera, plus a TWR, with black & white film. All cameras I was very comfortable with.

I had carried out many event jobs before, birthday parties, retirement parties, award events, etc,etc, yes there was always a stress factor in those jobs, but not nearly the amount there was for this wedding, and it was a relatively simple registry office affair.
I was never more relieved, than when I received the proofs back from the processor.

So number one, think very carefully before confirming that you will carry out the job, and number two, do not even think of attempting it with unfamiliar equipment.

If you decide to refuse to do the wedding, it may cause some uneasiness between you and your friend, but not nearly as much, as there will be, if you don’t deliver the wedding images that he and his bride are expecting.

Take care.