Boris wrote: "So when he recovered, he turned to me and said something like "Bro, we have a dangerous job". I was very pleased, one may say <g>."
Cool, a feather to put in your hat! Congratulations... " It would take too much of mental power out of me. It is plain difficult. Since I came to have fun, I did have fun. But I wasn't paid for that." Glad that you had fun Boris! What you say is so true. It is truly draining, and Bill's sentiments about the whole "whoring" thing couldn't ring truer. For every wedding that I do, I hand over the proofs feeling that a little piece of me is going with them. I now give the negs with my packages (they get them "after" their family have ordered prints/enlargements), cause I just keep the scans, and I am generally petrified of being responsible for storing them for goodness knows how many years to come. The first wedding that I did this for, it just about tore my soul out. I was literally shaking as I passed the negs to the couple, as I felt that I was also giving them a very personal part of myself. Of course, I am learning to deal with this now, and all is getting better in that respect, and like I said, I have since discovered the joys of roll scanning with processing, so I at least get to keep copies of everything that I shoot. But anyways, the point was, that yes, it is emotionally, mentally, intellectually draining. And the best cure for this is to eat a huge block of chocolate, and listen to loud, boppy music in the car on the way home, whilst singing very loud and hoping to God that no-one hears you! lol. (yes, I admit to having done this MANY times, but I probably drive many more km's than most of you too. The wedding I have this Friday, I will be doing a 750km round trip for, and all in the one day. So, singing and chocolate helps...!" > " By the way, Tanya, do you do weddings with MZ-6 you have? If so, I must really ask, how on earth you manage to time your shots w.r.t. very slow and unreliable AF of this camera, even with such a lens as FA 50/1.7. I missed several shots just because the darn thing wouldn't focus, even with its middle sensor..." Hmmm, now let me think. At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I generally keep the MZ-6 as a second camera, loaded with bw and with said FA 50mm f1.7 lens attached, and use my much older, less featured cameras as my main ones. I only shoot an average of 2-3 rolls of bw per wedding, so it doesn't really get much of a workout. (The main cameras that I use are the Z-20, which I love! Don't ask me why, I think it is just the feel of the thing in my hand, but I also know the controls so well now that it is very intuitive to me to use this camera). Anyways, back to the question... When I do use the MZ-6 with that lens, I almost always use it for shots that I have already taken in colour and have then thought to myself "oooh, that would be a good one in BW", so I'll generally set it up to look as similar as possible, and then reshoot it. Also, I shoot in Manual focus alot, so in light of these two things, I'd have to say that I have never even noticed the AF problems. I am assuming that you were shooting with the camera in a Portrait hold when this happened? The only time with any of my cameras that I have had problems with the AF is when I am holding the camera this way. I always get around it by turning it around to hold it in the Landscape position, AF on my object, and half press the shutter to lock the focus (or quickly switch it to manual focus) and then turn camera back to the Portrait hold to shoot the image. Sounds like a long-winded process, but really, it is second nature to me now, and takes probably less than 2 or 3 seconds to do it. I almost never change the AF switch thingy to the "wide" option, always keeping it on the little middle point option thingy so that I always know what point in the pic will be most in focus. (I know that said "thingies" have proper names, but I never remember these things. I know what the buttons do and that's all that matters to me, who cares about their names?) " Well, I'd appreciate any responses, including some advise." Well, I probably shouldn't really be giving advice cause I am such a newbie at it myself, however, I hope my comments have helped, and I can't wait to see the pics! Tan.
