Quote Originally Posted by clemmb


Quote Originally Posted by peety3



If the weddings are what will get you some money, I hope you plan to not make money for a while, while your wedding fees go into rental gear. None of the combos above are "safe" for a wedding, unless you're second-shooting or doing the work for free. As they said in the movie GI Jane, "two means one, one means none".
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I shot weddings for a couple of years with an XTi and a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 and an XT with a Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 as backup. My only advertisment was word of mouth and each year I would be turning customers away because I had plenty of work. Made enough money to upgrade to a 5D and 2 Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L's. Its not who has the most expensive high tech gear that takes the best photos. It is knowing your tools and using them. A 40D + Tamron AF 17-50 mm 2.8 is a great tool for taking great wedding photos. Before shooting weedings, practice, practise, practise. Know your tools and how to get the most out of them.
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The camera that this person is looking to buy is a first DSLR. You had two DSLRs for your wedding work. If this person is doing wedding work for a fee and their one and only DSLR should fail, they will have no spare DSLR unless they have rented a spare. That was my whole point, as evidenced by the "safe" reference and the movie quote which referred to redundancy in another setting.


Hopefully you'll notice that none of my comment relates to expensive high tech gear, and none of my comment relates to skill and/or practice. Expensive gear can fail (my 1D Mark III did, 16 shots after a trip to Canon, and it needed a new mirror box), and there's no amount of photography skill or practice that can fix a failed or broken camera.


You're right about knowing your tools, at least with regard to knowing that your tools can fail.


I shot a wedding once, for free, with a single camera. I knew that I had a battery "issue", which turned out to be yucky off-brand batteries, but the camera did freeze on me once. I shouldn't have done the gig with one camera, period.