The last wedding we did, Sue used her 18-55mm all day and I used the 16-45mm, only changing to a 50mm to experiment with some low light disco shots.

I could shoot a wedding on a TLR if I had to, with its one fixed 80mm lens and twelve shots per film. It's been done that way for decades before the advent of digital cameras.

You're right, some things just get too complicated.

Although it depends I suppose on what sort of wedding style you have, I do find it difficult to imagine that anyone would need a 200mm (300mm equivalent) to take candid shots at a wedding. Surely nobody can be that far away?

The best candids we have done have been right up close with wide angle to standard lenses - you get the feeling of involvement from being within the melee and to be honest almost nobody notices what you are doing. They are quite busy enough enjoying the wedding.

All lenses though should be top quality because there is no excuse for poor results if you are charging for your expertise.

There's nothing wrong with Nikon cameras and lenses. They would be my next choice after Pentax. I don't like the fiddly way some of the lenses are switched to MF, but you can't knock the image quality.

Long lenses in low light = camera shake. The 18-55mm will do all you need at close quarters and for candids too. A 50mm f1.4 might be a better choice for really low light - I had fun experimenting in the disco and got some interesting resulkts that the bride and grom loved. Not technically good, but full of colour, movement, image noise...Fantastic!

There is an idea that a photograph should be taken as is with no manipulation.

Where does this leave the darkroom and the great photographers who made prints using every darkroom trick in the book to make sure that what was on the negative could be reproduced on the fairly limited dynamic range of the paper. Where does it leave the photographers who combined negatives, maybe just for the simple prupose of using their stock of good skies or maybe for more complex multiple images.

All this is creativity.

Are we saying that this is all somehow "wrong" just because it can now be done on a computer?

I see it as a different set of skills for a common end result. We still need the creativity to make the final image, not take it, a distinction made in the first instance by Ansel Adams.

So I would say that the initial capture is the score and the Photoshop manipulation the performance, again quoting Mr Adams.....

I've no doubt that using part of someone's image is a breach of copyright. Of course you have to be able to prove it, which may be not so easy.

Possibly sites will develop software that prevents this abuse.

We try to be tolerant, but this is now closed.

I was out...and you could have won so much.

Noise was not an issue as most churches did not allow photography during the actual ceremony. Where they do, or did, photography was expected to be unobtrusive. So a couple of discreet images is all that is required.

After the ceremony, noise at a wedding is not an issue, at least as far as photography is concerned.

Thanks for that, very useful and interesting.

Please only post once, not in multiple locations on the forum. Thanks.

Well, welcome back anyway, sorry we had to carry on regardless!