Wedding Photographers in Cornwall Blog

In  film cameras, the amount of detail achievable depends largely  on the iso film speed rating of the film. This governs the films sensitivity to light – the higher the film iso number the greater the sensitivity to light and the darker the conditions you could shoot in. However, there’s a trade off between film speed and the grainyness of the image – high speed films capable of shooting in darker conditions at higher shutter speeds add a lot of grain to the image. In the digital world the grain has been replaced by digital noise and, just as with film, the higher the iso setting on the camera the more noise will be introduced. However, digital technology is getting better and better at reducing the iso to noise ratio and the modern Digital cameras are capable of shooting at almost unheard of speeds related to film.

So what’s all this got to do with wedding photography? Most of the wedding photography takes place in largely uncontrolled and frequently volatile lighting conditions. Lighting in many churches is rather subdued to say the least and vicars and priests are not terribly keen on their service being disrupted by flash photography. This means that film photographers rarely managed to get comprehensive coverage of the ceremony itself because they were required to either use very slow sutter speeds which resulted in camera shake, motion blur … or a combination of both, or to use a faster film they which means having to carry an extra camera preloaded with high speed  film or to use special processing to “push” the speed of the film up. Either way, once loaded, the speed of the film in the camera dictates what you can achieve with the camera. A camera set up to record the events in a dimly lit church might struggle severely once the wedding party moved outside into bright sunshine.

In digital photography things are different. They still use ISO speed settings to control the sensitivity of the sensor but, unlike film cameras, this sensitivity can be altered for every single shot. This means that the cameras can quickly respond to an enormous range of lighting and shooting situations without having to change film midway through a shoot. It’s perfectly possible to follow the bride and groom up through the dimly lit church straight out  into glorious sunshine with minimal effort.

Another big advantage of digital is that you get instant feedback so that you can see straight away if there are any problems with exposure levels or even with the camera itself. It used to be somewhat scarey in the days before digital when I’d be shooting off roll after roll just trusting that the camera was doing its job ok. The processing of the film was always a nervous time too – you’d hand your rolls over to the colour labs and just hope that they woudn’t have any technical problems. Problems did happen from time to time and there was little that could really be done to rescue the film successfully. With digital cameras cards can get corrupted from time to time but software is available that can rescue most information from the memory cards even after they’ve been reformatted.

Digital photography has changed the way photographers work. Developing and printing colour film was a specialist area so the end result hinged very much on the skill and judgement of the Colour Labs who processed you film. Any extra artistic were extremely difficult to implement. With digital technology the photographer has regained control of his images with Digital imaging software like Adobe’s Photoshop and lightroom. These are incredibly powerful  tools for retouching and enhancing the images and, in the right hands, can transform the photographs into stunning artworks. Skilled photoshop experts can remove blemishes, objects and even distracting buildings from the photograph . The program can even help to transform a size 12 into a size 8 figure, whiten teeth and smooth out wrinkles.. I’ve even been asked to put a thoroughly convincing smile back on someones face . This all has to be done in an expert way so that the transformations still look natural and with our vast experience in this area our customers, other than to be completely flattered by the result, find it impossible to spot exactly which images have been adjusted or what has been done to make them look so stunning.

In my opinion, digital has transformed the world of photography and given photographers  the ability to be truly creative. Along with digital imaging has come a new breed of product providers who have given our customers ani nicredible level and  choice of  services never before available on the high street. There will be those that see digital photography as the “anti-Christ” but, all in all, I think the digital revolution has set a new benchmark in quality which has now far surpassed what was available in the era of film.

Robb

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