You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but then I look often look at 6mp group shots printed at 8 * 10 with amusement (and revulsion), especially compared with MF film print from the "old" days.
The amount of detail per face is ridiculously low for a good print, and the cheaper lenses just make this worse.
Digital resolution also goes out the window as you stop down due to diffraction limits at the sensor (well, and the glass), so your 16mp camera ends up with 2MP of data. Now, about that group shot with 100 people...
Great points, James.
Your opinion is based on outstanding experience and not theory. Sharing this is generous.
Rhys,
I’m not a professional wedding photographer. So follow James first.
I still can give solid leads to achieving your objectives to join the ranks of pros who deliver what’s needed and earn a good living doing so. Weddings are perhaps the most stressful for any way of earning a living as hopes and dreams are on the line and everyone is nervous, excited and you still have to perform under stress and with things going wrong.
My advice to the photographer intending to make weddings part of his/her professional life, is to work assisting an established pro. This
is like brain surgery. However, because there is no regulation for standards for photography, no careful apprenticeship is required. So there's nothing I know to prevent 6MP DSLR owners from doing weddings as a kindness. Well people have very different financial resources, so there is a market for the weekend warriors who just do what they can.
Still I'd strongly recommend spending time and effort to master some principles.
A 6MP camera is perfectly fine for a portrait printed at 8x10 if the entire face uses the 6MP. However, the aperture probably shouldn't be small, such as f8 or f11. Why? Because the pixel pitch is tiny and that really defines and reveals the small aperture-distortion of the waveform of light the way the focus of any point is delivered past the metal aperture blades. This is just physics. Now let's go further. We must think of pixels per detail one needs to define. As soon as one devotes that 6MP to a group of people or to a brides dress and veil, one is challenged to really write sufficient detail into an image file.
Fortunately for the weekend warrior, many brides and their mothers have no idea about photography and seeing the pictures and smiles, they will treasure your prints anyway. However, that doesn't let us off the hook. That's where professionalism and ethics come in. We should be using the best technique.
So what to do? I'd suggest getting a film camera, a Hasselblad or other MF film camera that can be rented for the weekend for group shots. Professional Film labs do know how to process film perfectly well. There is no block to doing this as one can rent the equipment and be comfortable with it well before using it on a real wedding. A 1DsII is also good. But remember that 16MP is not a lot for a large group. The reception casual shots can easily be covered with a 6MP DSLR, as these are not required to be high resolution.
Cover the important bridal and group shots with both MF film
and your 6MP digital. Even just 20 good formal MF film pictures will provide a major improvement in what can be delivered. Anyway, one needs at least two cameras.
You have only one life on this planet. Don't waste that precious time doing things at the lowest acceptable level. You will be thrilled by aiming higher. I'm very serious about people doing weddings since there are dreams and magic to deliver and get into a book for memories. O.K., you might manage that, but you need to be realistic about what you get for that.
Any idea of being happy with $88 is really not serious, unless one just wants to donate one's time to poor people. Think of yourself then as a small electronics storeowner who wants to sell his 60" monitors for $88 because he got them cheap. That's an exceptional kindness however, it's not business. If you want to just be kind to people then that's a fine gesture. However, it has nothing to do with earning a living and being a wedding photographer.
I have taken a plane up to Northern California to do help in a wedding but paid for all my own expenses as this came from my heart and getting money would degrade my own generosity. Separate acts of charity from earning a living! Think of $2000 being just about the floor for your weddings.
Asher