Wow, have we been keeping busy! This NEXT week is going to be awesome… taking a little trip to Virginia Beach for one wedding and then to the mountains for another!

Recently someone asked us, “So what is a RAW file anyway and what makes it so much better than JPEGs? Do you give RAW files to your clients?”

When you first turn on your camera, it’s almost always set to automatically take pictures in .jpeg format.

Lower end, consumer cameras only shoot photos in .jpeg and only give you the option to choose the quality of the .jpeg you want to produce.

DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, and some higher end point-and-shoots have an option to shoot RAW rather than JPEG.

When we are shooting with our digital cameras on jobs though, we shoot RAW. No exceptions. 

The image on the right was initially overexposed… from one moment to the next, the sun came out from behind a cloud so the light coming from the window became much brighter. Shooting RAW allowed us to save the exposure and the highlights when Allie gave us this gorgeous smile, so that it looks no different from the image on the left which was exposed correctly. 

What is a RAW file? 

For a lot of people, it doesn’t matter what it is. Not everyone “needs” to shoot RAW. It’s basically a little folder of uncompressed, or “RAW,” data. It’s information that hasn’t yet been turned into an image (or image file). That’s why when, if you ever try to shoot in “RAW” mode on your DSLR and then transfer your images to your computer, you cannot open them to view unless you have a special editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom.

Because it’s “raw” and uncompressed, it retains all of the information that reached your camera’s sensor, making it very easy to save highlights (or the bright areas) in post processing. That’s our favorite part about shooting RAW – being able to maintain greater “dynamic range,” which is basically the scale of different shades of light from white to black. Finally, RAW files maintain their quality and can be edited and re-edited without a loss of quality. JPEGs lose information each time you edit them – even if you rotate them, I’ve heard. RAW files are through and through just far more flexible.

So while not everyone “needs” to shoot RAW, if you’re a professional or even a serious amateur, you can see why it’s the better option.

Shooting RAW DOESN’T mean:

Shooting RAW does NOT mean not paying attention to your exposure settings. Do not, do not, do not go on a serious shoot and say, “Well, I’ll fix that later.” You should try and do everything to get your exposure right in camera. As flexible as RAW files are, it’s still possible to lose your highlights or underexpose, making either a harsh, white image with tons of lost information or a dark image which can be corrected but get’s extremely “noisy” (noise = ugly digital grain) in the process. Also, trying to get your settings right “in camera” eliminates tons of time in post which could be spent doing better things! Like watching soccer, eating sushi or getting out in the real world (what we like to do in our free time).

Look at it this way: 

A raw file is bigger, clumsier, takes more time to transfer, cannot be printed directly, usually looks slightly flat and needs a bit of sharpening. But that’s because it is what it is – it’s an unfinished product, and a far superior file than a .jpeg. It gives you more creative control with which to produce the final result.

That’s also exactly why, although we offer “digital negatives,” we don’t offer our RAW files. If someone sees our photos and loves our style, but wants to have RAW files to edit themselves, then they’re not really getting our style are they? You wouldn’t go to a restaurant, order the house special, but ask that it be brought out for you to prepare yourself, right? What was the purpose of going to the restaurant then? 

We hope this helps!

<3 xoxo, Michael and Carina

PS: If you have a question about photography, please leave a comment, send us an email at info@www.michaelandcarina.com or drop us a line at our Facebook page.

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

]]> http://www.michaelandcarina.com/q-a-thursday-raw-vs_jpeg_virginia_wedding_photographers/feed/ 0 http://www.michaelandcarina.com/hampton-roads-wedding-photographers-allie-and-aaron-michael-and-carina-photography/ http://www.michaelandcarina.com/hampton-roads-wedding-photographers-allie-and-aaron-michael-and-carina-photography/#comments Thu, 10 Oct 2013 18:47:21 +0000 michaelandcarina http://www.michaelandcarina.com/?p=7217 Aaron and Allie approached us roughly a month before their wedding…

And luckily, that Sunday was still open!

Lucky for us anyway…

Because this couple was SO much fun getting to know!

Aaron is so much more than the tallest guy in the room… he loves dancing. I mean, loves it. Hardly a moment of the reception went by where he wasn’t out on the dance floor.

Allie was so calm on her wedding day… and when she looked up at new husband, and stood up on her tip toes to kiss him, their eyes sparkled.

The reception went late into the night… and we loved every second of it.

Thank you, Aaron and Allie, for inviting us to photograph your special day!

Thanks to our trusty assistant Seth for helping us!

film: fuji400h / developed by Richard Photo Lab

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

But sometimes not everything goes as planned…

What they originally expected was perhaps more traditional…

But what they experienced was something small, beautifully intimate and perfect.

This Middle Peninsula couple met us the morning of their wedding at Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg. “I picked out this room just for the window light!” Alicia said. Too perfect, right? Alicia and her mother were up to their necks in flowers and flower stems… she had been up since 5am making bouquets with her mother.

Their ceremony was held at Lee Hall Plantation near Yorktown, Virginia. The ceremony was quiet. The breeze was the only thing you could hear, moving through the trees, other than the minister’s voice. We all heard them say “I do,” though.

Afterwards we met up in historic Yorktown on the riverfront, or “Riverwalk.” The clouds had moved off and we had some perfect late-evening sun for some glowing portraits on film.

Their intimate reception was held in the Riverwalk Restaurant.

Alicia and Josh, when you booked us last year it was the encouragement we needed to stay in the United States and stay the course, pursuing our photography dreams.

Thank you so much for inviting us to document your big day!!

Vendors:

Dress – Maggie Sottero “Jenna”

Venues – Lee Hall Mansion & Kingsmill Resort 

Reception – Riverwalk Restaurant 

Hair and Makeup – Robbie Miller Master Paul Mitchell Makeup and Hairstylist

Flowers – DIY purchased from Norfolk Wholesale Floral 

Officiant – Jim Gilley

Cake – Gourmet Bake Shoppe

Odds & Ends / Bridal Hanger – Wish Upon A Starfish  

Cake Topper – DIY

Invitations – DIY

We are in LOVE with primes.

All of our lenses are prime lenses. A prime lens means that it is a fixed focal length, or “not a zoom.” You can still zoom with them, you just have to use your feet.

Zoom lenses aren’t bad. They can be extremely useful, especially for their versatility, and Canon for example makes some tack sharp zoom lenses such as the 70-200mm 2.8 L IS II lens, a “a must have lens” of most wedding photographers.

What’s so great about primes then?

Primes can have huge apertures, meaning they can basically suck in light in situations where zoom lenses would struggle.

This also means you can achieve a super-dreamy depth-of-field effect by shooting “wide open,” with an aperture of f1.2-f2. You just have to really know what you’re doing to make sure that your images are in focus – with some lenses, such as the Canon 85mm 1.2, shooting wide open leaves you with a field of focus as shallow as the length of an eyelash!

Also, even cheap primes can be tack sharp if you find the right f-stop or “spot” with a bit of practice.

Finally, prime lenses are lightweight and comfortable… which can make a difference when you’re shooting a 10-12 hour wedding. That Canon 70-200 I mentioned earlier… it can quickly give you a backache!

To get back to your question, what lenses do we recommend for portraits?

There are a lot of nice portrait lenses that are out there; choosing one should be based on how it flows with your shooting style.

The 85mm 1.2 is an all-around epic lens but carries an epic price tag. Still, we’ve used it before and it was made for portrait photographers. It is, however, a little slow to focus. But for portrait photography, you can take more time with shooting than you might need, say, in the spur of a moment at a wedding.

The 135mm L f2 lens is one of our favorites and it’s a great portrait lens. Sharp, great in low light, and great for candids because you can stand off in a corner, using it’s extended, zoom-like focal length to get up close to subjects.

The 35mm L f1.4 lens is great for environmental portraiture, that is, portraits where you want to include some of the environment. It is a bit contrasty though and because it’s a wider focal length, it tends to distort if you get too close.

Our favorites though… hmmm…

Probably a toss-up between Canon’s 50mm f1.2 L lens for Canon dSLRs and the Zeiss 80mm f2 (I’m not linking to it because it’s hard to find by itself) lens for the Contax 645.

Both have a similar focal length, as the 80mm on a medium, 645 format camera equals roughly 50mm on a standard 35mm-format dSLR.

The 50mm 1.2 is just so versatile. It’s definitely our everyday lens. With an aperture of f1.2 we can shoot in just about any kind of light. We can also achieve that dreamy depth of field that we love so much in all of our photographs. It is also extremely sharp. I mean, make-sure-you-keep-your-Band-Aids-handy sharp. It’s what stays on our digital cameras most of the time. It gets a great, shallow depth of field but you can also back away a bit and get a nice, environmental portrait using elements of your surroundings.

It has some distortion, (distortion disappears around the 85mm focal length), but not much. Since it mimics the viewpoint of the human eye, we find it also creates a feeling of intimacy whereas longer lenses tend to add a more formal atmosphere to photographs. Granted, it can get a little close-up sometimes in small rooms, but with a little creative composition, we feel getting close-up just creates more sense of connection in photographs. A photographer once said, “If you feel like you’re too close, get closer.”

For our film work, our ultimate favorite is the 80mm Zeiss Planar T* lens. It’s just… hard to describe. It’s sharp, but the depth of field on medium format is just something else.

I hope this helps! Please note I wrote this from the perspective of a Canon full-frame/Contax shooter. If you want to buy any of these lenses for a “cropped sensor” camera (Canon 7D, Canon Rebels, etc.), just remember the multiplication factor!

And while all of the lenses I’ve mentioned are somewhat pricey, there are plenty of cost-effective alternatives! The 50mm 1.4 for example is a fantastic lens for photography on a budget… just don’t bump into anything with it
Enjoy these samples! 

Zeiss 80mm f2


Zeiss 80mm f2


50mm f1.2


50mm f1.2


50mm f1.2, no editing (straight out of camera)


Zeiss 80mm f2, no edits, straight scans


Zeiss 80mm f2


Zeiss 80mm f2


Zeiss 80mm f2

film: fuji400h / developed by Richard Photo Lab

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

Hope this helps guys!

Please send your requests for Q & A Tuesdays to info@www.michaelandcarina.com or visit us on Facebook.

This falls into the category of something we don’t often do, except on the rare occassion…

And Alicia and Josh are very special to us for booking with us back when most people thought we were crazy for moving to the US and going full-time photographers at the same time.

Monica is an absolutely beautiful young lady who’s full of big ambitions.

She loves video games (something we have in common), especially The Sims. She doesn’t just like to play them, she finds them inspirational as a creative outlet…

She wants to design them and develop them, too.

Her big dream is to work in California at a video game company.

She was perfect in front of the camera and Alicia did a fantastic job on her makeup, too!

Monica, hope you enjoy your all-film senior session and Alicia and Josh… see you soon at your wedding!

These were photographed on Fuji400h film and developed by Richard Photo Lab.

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

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They just got engaged in June… and they’re getting married this September… as in, correct you are, this month!!  

But, like us, they totally embraced the idea of still doing their engagement session before!

We loved the chance to get to know them a bit better.

And it was such a special day to celebrate…

Not only are they going to be married in just a few weeks…

Not only were we able to document their engagement…

But they also just purchased their first house!!

They were so happy and it just showed in every picture.

We met in Yorktown and showed them some of our favorite spots, where the light in the evening is just magical.

But they didn’t need any help posing… they were just naturals.

Even though Aaron is a little taller (okay, quite a bit taller) than Allie, they just knew exactly what to do to make their photos look gorgeous and natural.

Oh, and let’s just stop here and say:

We LOVE what they wore! 

Perfect photoshoot outfits!

We are so looking forward to your wedding, Allie and Aaron, and we are so happy that we could still book with you on such short notice – we’re the lucky ones!

Enjoy your engagement photos and we’ll be seeing you very soon!

We love it when we ask the guys to whisper “sweet nothings” in her ear, and he leans over and starts literally whispering “sweet nothing, sweet nothing, sweet nothing”… classic!

Don’t often end on a black and white photo but ahhh… just love this quiet moment between the two of them in b & w… just lovely <3

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

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We were so excited to send Julie and Tim their photos via PASS while they were still on their honeymoon! 

 As soon as we started off for Richmond to meet up with the inspirational Katelyn James and her husband Michael, along with other photographers from around Virginia, we knew it was going to be an awesome evening. The back of our little, delightfully fuel-efficient Prius was filled with other Tidewater area photographers who squeezed in to make the trek with us (making it all the more enjoyable in the process)… by the time we got to Richmond we were all good friends.

The purpose of the meeting was officially the first of its kind in Virginia, and one we were happy to be a part of.

Photographers from Fredericksburg, Harrisonburg, Richmond, Norva and Hampton Roads came together because of the common idea of how their businesses should be run… to embrace a business ethic based on service rather than selling products, and to support each other with that goal in mind.

It also gave us reason to kind of “announce” on our blog something about our business which has in fact been true of it ever since we started.

Basically before we knew the term, we were “shoot + share” photographers.

When we were still spending long nights burning DVDs, before we’d been introduced to PASS, (well, before PASS existed) we were kind of scratching our heads at the idea of selling 8x10s for $50.

Now that’s not to say that it can’t work for some people, but… It’s not how we want it to work for us.

We are thrilled not when we’re selling individual images after you’ve booked us, but when we can deliver your completed wedding images before you ever expected!

We love it when our clients share our photos on Facebook… and we’re really not sticklers about logos.

Our clients know who took their pictures and our clients love their pictures.

If anyone asks who took them, they tell them!

Simple enough for us, right? Isn’t word of mouth the best advertisement there is?

That’s what we’re about. That’s what we’ve always been about… to be called a “shoot and share” photographer… if the shoe fits, right?!

What we’re not saying is that products are bad.

We still sell albums, etc., and you can still order prints with us. Professional photos are meant to be printed.

Albums and canvas prints especially take hours of extra work & preparation and can naturally mean an investment.

But that’s not what we concentrate on.

50% of your experience with us will not mean sitting down and going over which images you can afford to buy.

It’s our dream that when you book with us, you’re booking us for an all-encompassing experience, one that includes all of your images, and that you’re free to share your photos with your friends.

It’s an idea that’s still new to the industry…

Photographer Trevor Daley, one of the leading “shoot + share” photographers in the United States, described it as a “disruptive innovation.” 

…and we’re still new to the industry.

And this certainly isn’t to challenge any other photography models out there.

It’s just what we love.

Our clients love it too.

And lastly, it works for us.

Thanks so much to all of our clients and fans for embracing this idea with us!

And thanks to Justin, Amanda and Ashley for keeping us company on our trip!

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

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]]> http://www.michaelandcarina.com/virginia-wedding-photographers-shooting-and-sharing-what-that-means-to-us/feed/ 0 http://www.michaelandcarina.com/personal-blog-post-our-all-film-portrait-session-with-tara-liebeck-photography-michael-and-carina-photography/ http://www.michaelandcarina.com/personal-blog-post-our-all-film-portrait-session-with-tara-liebeck-photography-michael-and-carina-photography/#comments Fri, 30 Aug 2013 19:40:44 +0000 michaelandcarina http://www.michaelandcarina.com/?p=6440  Wow… the past few weeks have been unforgettable!

The time spent with Jonas just went by too fast… but it was all well spent…

He arrived back in Munich today, so we thought we’d put this up now as a surprise!

One of neatest things we got to do with him was spend the afternoon hanging out with one of our favorite photographers, Tara Liebeck.

She’s a Chesapeake-based hybrid shooter like us! That is, she shoots a mix of film and digital like us.

For this shoot though, she photographed all film…

We adore her style of shooting. It’s laidback, easygoing and natural…  just what we aspire to be, and she makes it seem so effortless! 

She’s a real inspiration, and she was kind enough to give us permission to publish these on our blog!

Thank you so much, Tara Liebeck Photography! <3

And THANK YOU for the extra mini couple session you threw in, too! The pics are amazing!!!!

These were all shot on fuji400h and developed at Indie Film Lab / Richard Photo Lab.

Tara’s Website: http://www.taraliebeckphoto.com

Tara’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tara-Liebeck-Photography/

We wanted to wait until we received their film scans to share this blog post…

But we couldn’t…

Morgan and Wade are an amazingly in love couple.

He’s a sailor in the US Navy… she’s a meteorologist, raised on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and currently based out of Milwaukee.

Like we’ve said, we seem to always find those couples who have their love tested by a long distance relationship… just like us…

They are soo perfect for each other… and so hilarious! Such a cool sense of humor, laid back and easy going…

Their favorite restaurant? Chuck E. Cheese.

They were constantly throwing insider jokes back and forth…

We loved hearing how he asked her to marry him <3

But ever so often the perfect quiet moment just… happened.

And the whole evening was beautiful.

The Norfolk Botanical Gardens were the perfect setting… but more perfect was the energy they just shared.

They’re currently planning their wedding on MD’s Eastern Shore…

We know it’s going to be even more breathtaking…

Morgan and Wade, thanks so much for inviting us to document your love story!

Film scans coming soon-

Thanks to Carina’s brother, Jonas, for assisting us!

If you like our work, please like our Facebook page here.

Film scans coming soon!

Yorktown Wedding Photographers | Virginia Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

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