A Photography Blog
Friday, 6th April, 2007
Digital Workflow
Many people have asked me about the technical side of our workflow as a wedding photographer in London, so I though a brief outline of how we do things would be of interest.
Firstly our environment - it's all digital. We use Nikon D2X, & D200 cameras with a range of lenses and flashguns. For a wedding we use 2GB cards in the D2X and 1GB in the other cameras and everything is shot in RAW format. The files are larger, slower to write and slower to copy off disk but the increase in picture quality is huge and worth the effort. I would recommend RAW format for anyone, but be prepared to spend more time on the computer to get the best out of the images.
A 2GB card holds about 100 imges from a D2X and we shoot 800 to 1000 images per wedding so we have a lot of cards. Each card is given a unique name and they are used in order. Cards are used until they are almost full then stored in a ziploc bag until the images get transfer onto a portable Epson image backup device at the event - so we always have two copies of images and then transferred to the computer when we get back to the office.
When we get a quite moment we download the images to the portable viewer, which has two advantages. First it is a sanity check that everything is going well and nothing needs to be re-shot. Secondly it is our first backup. We now have two copies of each image and the sooner you get to that stage the more you can relax. The cards are kept separate from the viewer and the images are not removed until about 48 hours later when everything has been double checked and backed up again.
When we get home the images are copied over to a desktop server (we now have three sets) and two DVDs are cut containing all files. One DVD is put away in our library and the second is posted to our other office in Wales. Only when I hear that this has arrived and the images can be read will I re-use the memory cards.
Notice that I don't screen the images and remove bad shots. I archive everything and only start the edit process when my archive is safe. This may sound a little extreme, but I know about computers and technology and I know that things go wrong. Often at the worst moment. The only way to stay safe is to plan for disaster and then it almost certainly will never happen to you.
When we get around to looking at the photographs we use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom - more of these in a later entry.
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