In a previous post I talked about the development of the camera over the past two centuries. Well it’s all come to a head with the latest crop of high-end digital cameras, specifically those aimed at sports & wildlife photographers. I choose to use this kind of camera (a Nikon Z9 is currently my primary camera of choice) for my wedding and celebration work because it allows me to capture those moments in a way that is impossible without.
The unique attributes are twofold, advanced autofocus, and very high burst rate. I have built my entire workflow around shooting far too many photographs, very much on purpose.
For example, in this photograph I saw an opportunity to capture the father and mother of the bride sharing a moment.
I framed them expecting the bridesmaids to walk past in the background, and in order to account for randomness, I hold that shutter down. Instead of taking a single photograph I might have taken 100, for the chance that one of them stands out. SO MUCH of the time, one of them does. As you can see here, we had this beautiful moment of the bridesmaid in the background looking between the couple while perfectly framed in the middle. This kind of moment is impossible to predict, and if you attempt it with a non-sports camera, you hit the ‘buffer’ which needs to offload before allowing you to continue shooting. On my setup I can shoot thousands if need be, without significant gaps.
Now there are a couple of big cons to this technique, storage, and processing. I need to use very large cards in my cameras (everything is saved to two cards at once for safety), and large backed up storage arrays in my studio.
The processing issue means that after a shooting day I might be coming home with ~10,000 images, when I only intend to deliver 200-300. So, for so many images I have to sift through tens or hundreds of almost identical images, looking closely at the differences and looking for those little moments that turn a pretty composition, into a beautiful photograph. The vast majority of those photos taken get deleted, leaving me with only the very best moments to then take into editing, grading, printing, and delivery.
Ever since high frame rate sports cameras came to the market, there have been those claiming you only need one frame to get that perfect moment, and it just requires skill. I think this is absolute rubbish, that does not apply to professional photography. If you are out on the streets or roaming nature you have the luxury of missing the moment. At a wedding you do not. And the average human reaction time of 0.25 seconds just isn’t going to compare to firing off 100 photos in 5 seconds. Which is 4 photos in those 0.25 of reaction. Amazing to really think about.