Bride Called Regarding Photographer Missing Important Shot
 

I just got a call from one of my June brides (and close friend of my wife) who told me the photographer missed an important shot (just didn't set it up or pose it) and wanted to know if I could pull some frames from my video. This is the third bride I've had call needing some screen grabs from my footage.

Fortunately for her, I was actually sitting facing her and the audience in a little alcove, so I might have some pretty good shots of the B&G.

Unfortunately, the backdrop will be busy, there is probably going to be combing and other NTSC SD based artifacts. I told her the maximum printable size would probably be around 3x5 or so. I have never actually printed off a picture from my camera (GL2).

So two questions....

1) Anyone have experience actually printing off frame grabs? If so, mind sharing the details?

2) Anyone want to guess what shot was missed, just for fun?

1) Yes I have printed screen grabs from 1080HD and it came out nicely. Not nearly as good quality as a still camera would have done, but I have done it. It came out pretty nicely for being taken from a video camera.

2) Exchanging of the rings?

I guess I should clarify that I'm shooting with a Canon GL2 and at this ceremony I had my tape deck / emergency backup cam (Panasonic PV-GS320) in the balcony on wide (so no closeups).

The missed shot was a good guess, but not the one that was missed. I'd love to give a clue, but I'll wait until I get more guesses.

processional?

Geez don't tell me he missed the kiss...

I've printed stills even from SD, although it certainly works better with HD cameras!

You probably will need to work to find the "best" frame - the photog shoots maybe 3-5 frames/sec, you're shooting a few more... giving options! Once you've pulled a frame grab (it's fairly simple in Vegas, but I'm sure other NLE's will do the trick), you probably want to do some photoshop magic - there's usually a deinterlace filter floating around in most photo editors that will take care of the comib effect.

Probably fiddle with various sharpening/blur/vignette/border options.

With SD you "may" be able to go to 5x7, but 4x6 will probably be it...

I'm actually toying with the SR11 because it can shoot stills simultaneous at a pretty decent resolution - for those "lo budget" jobs it may be a passable solution. With the economy and my locale not being high $ to start with, I'm looking at some different approaches to meeting the market...

Close!
 

Two more very good guesses, but not quite right. If you are familiar with the web site "FailBlog.org" think epic fail.

getting in/out of the limo?

I WANT TO WIN THIS GAME!

my mommy won't let me play the game:-( BUT as for printing freeze frames, I've gotten very good quality at 5X7.I
pull a freeze in Vegas, then bring it into Photoshop. Set the properites to 300dpi resize the image to 4X6 or 5X7, deinterlace it and print it.
Let's face it. It's not as good as a print from a 10megapixel still camera but it is at the least passable and in many cases more than that.

Don

so Photoshop has a "preset" filter for deinterlacing? Interesting. Wish I had PS. :-) Any idea if Vegas can do the deinterlacing as well as PS?

You can certainly deinterlace with Vegas-is it as good as PS? Don't know but don't see why not.

Don

the whole ceremony?

didn't even go to the wedding?

had the camera facing backwards the whole time?

The unity candle

Jason, check out the utility - Topaz Moment.

Jason,
I echo these guys in that HD does pull stills very well. I have printed several DVD cases from HD stills as well as quite a few 4x6s with very little issue. The GL2 on the other hand might be an issue. Rings? It has to be Rings... Not the kiss, not the entrance, has to be rings.
Bill

Father giving bride away?

I said rings! It has to be something bigger!

Father lifting veil and kissing bride before give away

Ok, I'll give the hint. There is one part of the entire day that the photographer has complete control over..... and during that part of the day, he missed getting this shot.

Thanks for the tip on the app Jason, I'll check it out. So assuming
1) I get swamped with clients all of a sudden (thank to my first trailer I'm sure :-) ... or not)
2) and they all buy my top end package
3) and I'm booked every weekend for a few months in a row......

then I'll be able to buy some A1s and jump to HD where good stills from video footage are possible...... :-)

hey, it could happen!

again.... good guess, but not epic enough of a failure. The bride said they actually did get that shot.... and the groom had some weird look oh his face, so the picture was kind of ... "ehhh"

The Entrance of the Bride and Groom at the Reception

OK, are you saying he blew the FORMALS?????? Like he didn't get a good portrait shot of the B&G????? The MONEY SHOT that really needs to be a BIG (8x10+) portrait aspect ratio???

That's a big problem, as pulling a portrait aspect off a 4:3 landscape or 16:9 is going to involve a lot of cropping...

Jason,

I've pulled frames from a GL-2's footage with fair results. Usually I'll use them for the DVD printing, or something small on the DVD package. However, if they missed the bride coming down the aisle, it seems to me that no matter the quality, it's better than nothing!

Mark

DING DING DING DING!

We have a winner. The photographer missed getting a posed portrait shot of just the Bride & Groom. Yep. The ONE SHOT that everyone puts up on their wall...... that one........ yeah he missed it.

In all fairness, sometimes we all just screw the pooch and miss the money shot, and that is one of the reasons I'm still seriously considering liability insurance (but have yet to cough up the several hundred for a policy through WeDJ.com). He offered a re-shoot for free (obviously) to get that shot, but the B & G will still have to re-rent the tux (~$180-200) and get her dress cleaned (..... I have no idea how much that costs..... $200?).

I told the bride that it is unlikely anything I could pull off of the video would be remotely close to the same framing & pose .... let alone good enough quality to print above 3"x5". I did have a balcony camera, but it was set at wide angle for all the moments when the couple face the audience like immediately after the kiss and before recessional.

My photographer partner / good friend (full time employed elsewhere, so he takes very very few gigs) would probably let me borrow all his gear so I could drive out and do the shoot for them. It cannot possibly be too hard to get 5-10 poses of just two people with 3 hours to do it, right? I'll see if the bride is interested in doing that. Unfortunately as I have mentioned elsewhere, I recently jumped in with both feet to video productions and have no new clients.... so the $100 in gas to drive 1/4 across Idaho is a bit of a financial hit, but probably less than what any other pro portrait photographer would charge for that sort of shot.

New questions for those following this thread....

3) what would a photographer charge to cover this sort of shot?

4) what would they charge if they knew it was wedding portrait related? Would there be a difference?

5) if my client choose to go with a different photographer, should she tell them before hand the situation? Or get price lists first, check date availability, get travel fee quote, and then tell them the situation?

I think that is the key. It beats not getting anything. I did set my cam on a tripod and let it run over the photogs shoulder (actually 45 degrees off to the side) while I was setting up my second cam and getting the audio recorder (Sony MD) taken care of, so I might have a frame or two in there with a smile, just the two of them, and still enough....... but I kind of doubt it.

Fortunately he did show up. The bride says he had a decade or more of experience, and from what I saw of how he operated, it could be. So it just looks like one of those random screw ups, although it is a very hard to believe screw up. But stuff happens some times. The formals were together before the wedding so there wasn't the "split formals before the ceremony and together formals afterwards" thing to worry about.

Does it depend on if shooting in 720p vs 1080i? It would seem that cameras capable of shooting 720p/1080p would get the best results. Any experience in the difference between interlaced HD and progressive HD for pulling stills?

I usually have my wife wonder the venue shooting stills for the DVD top (lightscribe) and DVD cover for exactly that reason, so I don't have to worry about where to get the high quality cover images.

OUCH...

The best way to avoid liability is to not be a idjit. Have a shot list, make sure you get the things on the list... I even suggest having a shot list available when you contract and double checking it with the client, just in case they have any unusual requirements.

At least the photog offered to reshoot, and depending on the contract that may be his obligation, BUT IMO to be fair he should deduct the costs for the reshoot (tux and dress cleaning) from the total... was the rest of his "work" at this same level of "professionalism"? Or is that why you're considering doing the reshoot? I'm getting the vibe that the guy blew a bit more than "the money shot"...


That sort of shot is not anything you can recover off video at anything resembling acceptable resolution, PERIOD, not even if you had all that fancy forensic software they show on the Tee Vee where you take a blurry picture of a suspect a block away and morph it into a perfect picture showing he needs to trim his ear hair... he he he

If he has a decade or so of experience he should be willing to cover these costs to protect his reptutation.

Randy

I'll mention this to the bride. I had not considered that he might be willing to cover the cost of tux & cleaning, but that is always worth a shot. However, I think my client is pretty much done with him and doesn't want to see or deal with him again.

From what I could tell, the photographer did not mess up anything else, though I have not seen the proofs.

Seems like photoshopping a photo he did get would have a better chance of working than finding a frame grab.

There were posed pictures right? Were there photos with the B&G in the center and family around them? Perhaps cropping would work and then adding a little soft halo effect around the B&G would get a usable image.

I just got off the phone with the bride. She was not too impressed with the shots as a whole. Kind of hit or miss. Some great shots. Some blurry shots. Several shots that were way off angle (he didn't even rotate & crop to correct!) The Photographer did do some cropping to get usable shots from what he did get. Apparently there were 7 shots available that could be cropped, but as we all know, getting a crop to look like the original is going to be almost impossible.

Now there are some photoshop gurus out there that could stitch him in from one shot, and her from another and get a shot that looks normal (as well as blurring out the background or just replacing the background altogether using a different shot)..... but unless that is someone hobby and they are just dam good at it, that isn't likely to be possible.

If there's a group shot at a high enough res, that's not a big thing to doctor up in editing (presuming it was a digital original or can be scanned), but I'd think the photog would have done that already and covered his own goof...

Digitally fixing such a huge screw up is fair if done right, but that's the responsibility of the photog... or he should definitely cover the costs of the reshoot. That's just too big a mistake unless there were severe extenuating circumstances such as equipment failure or medication issues.

Stuff happens, but it's the responsibility of the professional to be on top of things like that. It sounds like this wasn't equipment malfunction, it was just plain old sloppy shootin', and if the guy has any pride in his work whatsoever, he should make up for it if the bride will let him... which presents another issue altogether.

My take is that if the rest of the guy's work is good, and he'll step up to correct the error both practically and financially, that would be fair and reasonable, and that'd be the best thing all around. People goof, so a bit of understanding on everyone's part couldn't hurt... hopefully it will work out.


Edit: Looks like we cross posted... doesn't sound like the overall "service" was all that good, so that's a big problem... Most people would call me one of those "photoshop guru" types (although I use other programs that cost far less), I've pulled off some pretty decent digital alterations along the way.... but it's still better to just get the dang shot!!!

If the bride's shopping for someone to do a reshoot, why not offer that yourself? Otherwise, pulling still frames from SD footage isn't going to meet the need here, and even HD frame grabs might be iffy for a formal enlargement print.

How can a photographer not get a formal posed shot of the couple? Ouch!

Hey Jason. I have Photoshop. If you want to email me a few grabs, I'd be happy to deinterlace them for you.

Cheers,
Vito

I did offer to do the reshoot. The only problem is my STILL camera looks like this (attached image). A Canon Powershot S1-is. And it took a tumble down the side of a mountain, landing in a group of lava rocks so that is why the flash cover is ripped off and it is scratched up (still works though.... but there are two hot pixels stuck on red in the middle of the camera!)

So I could shoot it for them, but I wouldn't do it with my camera. My wife's camera is a [url=http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/specs/Panasonic/panasonic_dmcfz3.asp]Panasonic DMC-FZ3[url]. Yeah. FZ whaaa?

I have been eyeing the digital rebel if for no other reason than to have a true SLR and the ability to take better pictures should the need arise (like it just did). Because honestly, I think I can do the posing, and get a good portrait shot. No time constraints, no rush. It should be dead easy to get 10 or so different poses for them.

Thanks for the offer. I may take you up on that. I'll get the grabs using Vegas, try Vegas's deinterlacing, and see if your Photoshop deinterlacing is better.

I'll have to wait to work on that till tomorrow because today I need to get some ad copy written for a DVD insert for a high school graduation I filmed a month ago. I figure why not put a coupon for wedding videography in the High School graduation DVD. That way I'm the first videographer they heard of AND I got to their parents (who lets face it.... pay the bills) because hte parents are probably the ones buying the graduation DVD.

No doubt. Get it in camera, rather than trying to fix it in post. That is why I got a white balance card and attached it to one of those retractable ID badge string spools. I just pull out the card every time I switch lighting conditions and re-WB. No sense hassling with it in post when I can just get it right there. Does add 30 seconds to any scene change though.

My photographer for my wedding (and my former roommate and business partner) pulled off an amazing photoshop trick on one of my wife's shots. She was in a grade school room for the dressing room so there were brightly colored posters all over the room. He painted out the whole background, so from what you see here, only the face & hair was left. Everything else looked like a perfect light gray cloth backdrop. I was amazed.