Question:
Have you shot an indoor wedding with a Nikon D80?
hamsterbabies
2009-09-30 17:58:04 UTC
I have been asked to photograph a wedding indoors. As we all know, churches have very low lighting and require high ISO's. But I've read the D80 does not do very well with high ISO's and the D700 does an excellent job. I can rent a D300. But I don't want to spend $2500 on a D700 to shoot one wedding. Is it possible??
Five answers:
Ara57
2009-10-01 03:45:38 UTC
I shoot with both the D80 and the D300. In a print, the noise is not so bad. Do not underexpose at all, lifting levels in post accentuates the noise. Better to let the shadows go dark in the ceremony. The D300 has much better higher ISO performance. You can see examples from both in my Flickr:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/12604020@N05/



The jellies are high ISO from the D300 and the 18-200 VR lens. The B&W wedding shots on the second page are from the D80, 17-50 f2.8 Tamron at 400 ISO, 1/60 @ f/5.6, SB600 with a lightsphere. I have also shot ceremony plenty of times with the D80, but have no images handy to show you, especially on Flickr. But with careful technique it is possible. After all, we shot weddings with 400 speed film or slower for years.



Email me if you want to talk more.
FotoZ 4 FX
2009-09-30 18:44:23 UTC
In reading your question you do bring up an interesting thought and one that does need to be asked,... "Will the officiating member of the marriage allow for flash during the ceremony?" Sometimes this needs to be addressed with the Bride and Groom before the event so that the paying party can step in and secure the requirements of the photographer.



I have always felt that the people paying for services should have a say in what services are provided. If the Minister, Priest, Rabbi or other official says 'no flash' then perhaps relocation is in order. It's a once in a lifetime event (hopefully) and capturing it is a once in an event effort. Posing after the ceremony does not capture the emotion of the event itself.



You say you can rent a D300,... then why not a D700 if that's more in line with what you will need.



Before the wedding actually takes place, do some test shooting in the church to determine the quality of light and how your camera (or rental camera) performs under the conditions of the day. Take into consideration that outside lighting may not be optimal so you may have to rely on artificial light. If you don't know how to do white balance here, you are going to have a post production nightmare in editing hundreds upon hundreds of images. Now is the time to do color management,... not the day of the wedding.



I'm not familiar with you so please don't take it personal that I suggest things that maybe you already have in your repertoire of skills. This is, by your own admission, your first wedding so it's not unreasonable for me to assume you have a certain gut-wrenching feeling about failure. I suppose we all have to start somewhere and this is your debut. My only hope is that you have the ability to think on the fly and to overcome immediate obstacles by adapting to your changes in lighting on the fly.



Your Nikon is a capable camera,... the question is, are you a capable Photographer?



Suggestion. If you can afford a stroboframe and external flash with a dummy battery (used in conjunction with external power), two battery packs (you will go through one reasonably fast and do need quick recovery time between shots).



It would be very desirable to have two camera setups with lenses already attached (fast lenses) so you aren't constantly changing lenses between moments. That's typically what a good event photographer will carry... it's called backup too. What would you do if one camera failed?... use the backup and go to switching lenses as necessary to complete the assignment.



Getting nervous?



You should be... failure is not an option here and someone is counting on you being able to do a good job. I don't know what you quoted as your fee but it should be enough improve your inventory of equipment and the references and referrals from your images may determine your future in photography.



Bow out... while you still have friends if you are not prepared to do this (you sound like you are far from prepared).

.
Picture Taker
2009-09-30 19:16:46 UTC
I'll just address the D700 vs D300 issue, as I am sure that there are several who will caution against taking this job.



See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/tags/lowlight for many samples of the results you can get with a D300 in low light. See especially the bunch of a band indoors where the pics all look about the same. They are actually a series shot with increasing ISO's, ranging from 1600 to 6400. Not that you want to go up in to the higher ranges, but download the original size and play with the 1600 sample and see if the image quality is satisfactory to you.



Here's ISO 6400 at f/2.0: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstein/3778969977/

I wouldn't want to crop anything out of this or make too large of a print, but it's not horrible.



I can understand not wanting to rent a camera for more than you are probably charging for the event - guessing that you are new at this. The D300 will be miles better than the D80. Just be sure to get as much of the composition done in the camera as you can so that you don't have to crop too much and you'll make out half decent.
2016-05-21 07:06:16 UTC
I would say the D80 is a good enough body as long as you couple it with top-notch lenses, select the right filters etc. I use a D70 and whilst I'm still very much a beginner, I took shots at a wedding earlier this year which were almost as good as those taken by the professional photographer. If I were you, I'd start with the D80, get as much as you can out of it, then go for a more expensive model later on.
2009-09-30 18:13:45 UTC
maybe hire some fast F1.8 glass instead and shoot around 200-400iso,



or use some flash units, if you must sure hire a d300 and make sure you cover the cost in your quote


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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