ElizaBeth and I have been photographing weddings since 1995. We’ve seen lots of changes during those years, but some things remain the same.

In the days of film, the quality of the final product didn’t always rely on the photographer’s talent or equipment – the prints could come out poorly due to the skill (or lack thereof) of the lab tech. We always used the expensive, refridgerated professional film. We used a professional lab to develop the prints. The pro lab corrected for color and density. It was expensive, but well worth it.

Now we have entered the digital age. When we switched over to digital capture in 2002, DSLR’s were VERY expensive. It took $7000 to purchase our first Kodak 760. In those days, Kodak was the king of digital cameras. They took the pro level film cameras from Canon and Nikon and adapted them to digital capture by inserting a chip where the film used to be. We had to learn how to do all of the things the lab used to do for us.

Our conversion to digital capture took about one day. We took delivery of our Kodak 760 on a Friday and used it for senior pictures on Saturday. A week later we used it on our first wedding. The first wedding was very interesting: we started out to using film as a backup. That lasted for one one roll. We put the film camera away and never looked back. We learned to expose by the numbers and manage our own color.

We developed a work flow that let us check right away on a laptop that everything was correct and that we had no problems. We downloaded cards through the day and then reviewed the images. This work flow was the basis of what we do today and lead us to doing wedding reception slideshows a year later.

TO BE CONTINUED…