help desperately needed

Looks like this is simply a photographer who didn't have the gear, the experience, or the attitude to be there. There is this great temptation to say "My friend is a good photographer - surely he'll do it for us for a bargain!" But it seems like many of these people lack the critical appraisal skill to actually know what good photography is. And there are so many different kinds of photography. Your friend who is an amazing nature photography hobbyist may be the last person you'd want shooting your wedding.

Anyway, agreed that there's basically nothing that can be done to salvage any of these in a traditional sense. There may be promise in the artistic route but I think you're going to have to be prepared to fess up to the newlyweds when you're unable to deliver more than a handful of decent shots. Hopefully the video is great and they will be understanding. Then get a guy with the lenses and the attitude to do the job!
 
GageFX said:
BTW, I pulled the EXIF from the photo:

1/8s @ f5.6. ISO 400

Aside from the fact that he was probably in an auto (probably App Pri) mode (the EXIF says "Exposure Program = Unknown") I already see two problems here. #1, kick it up to ISO 800 and open that apperture up. The next problem is that he was at 300mm actual focal length which puts it at a 480mm equiv. He was at the back of the church, shooting 480mm at 1/8s! Ikes.

(The second and third photos were both 1/5s @ f5.6, 55mm. Still Ex.Prog.=Unknown, but the f5.6 and changed shutter suggests Av.)

-GageFX
Click to expand...

Which means he was shooting a garbage lens too. It's not the pro body these days... its the pro LENS.

A decent lens (say a 80-200 USM) at f2.8 and iso 800 would have taken the exposure to 1/60. Not great but usable.

But what the h*** was he doing WAYYY out in the boonies shooting 300mm????

This photographer should NEVER have been the main guy. Backup maybe, but never the main.
 
Video Framegrabs?

Video Framegrabs?

Most likely the DVX100 video was a bit on the dark side also, but if you shot progressive you might be able to snag a few good frames at 720x480 and then double them to get decent prints (at least better than the stills!).

You could also do the same with the interlaced video, if you use one of the SD to HD conversion programs to get a few good photos out of it...

Another alternative to saving the blurred photos is to use a paintbrush filter on them in photoshop, then get some gallery prints made on canvas at www.finerworks.com and they will love them potentially...just a thought.

Good luck!
 
yeah, i agree with the lot of you on this one; the only reason i asked him in the first place is that he said he had done weddings before and went well, i know this guy so i knew he wasnt bs-ing me, but i'm sure (now) that he was secondary at that event. but given that i'm a bit new to this event videography thing, i thought that a little experience and a fairly good piece of equipment would be helpful; but i think that this was a careless mistake but there were some good ideas for shots, it is just that the execution was haphazard. i was surprised to see that there was no external flash, but i was under the impression that there was a rule about bieng out of the way, as much as possible, but still getting the shot (those often do not go together, i know), so i am to blame for him bieng back farther away than desired. but i realized with this annoying edit of the ceremony that the people at the wedding want to get pictures to remind themselves of the day, they will probably not remember the slight annoyance of the cameraman.

luckily i am not responsible for the wedding album, just the video, and the stills were for inserts, and montage purposes (emphasis on were).

this just proves that you can plan for weeks in advance, but it can be in vain if you cant count on your people/equipment. i say equipment, because my other cameraman on the gl2, due to some miscommunications, and the apparant decay of his camera's recording heads, i've had to rely on my dvx-100a quite hevily (not my intent).

so, the editing challenge continues, i'm learning alot about photoshop/and like products though (knowledge is always a plus), but long nights for me.

thanks guys,
-brad
 
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