Last night I went up to Grand Rapids to attend their launch party and finally open the magazine myself. Wow, they really did an awesome job! It has helpful articles about choosing a photographer, trends, and real weddings. It, of course, has tons of great photography. Oh, and it’s capital-eff Free! Go get one at a Michigan bridal show or directly from their website, and look for my ad and my photos featured with their section describing photojournalistic wedding photography.

Wow.

Sigma’s 200-500mm f2.8, which retails for a cool $24,000, chump change compared to Canon’s equally ridiculous $100,000 1200mm.

I can’t even imagine a scenario that would be useful for wedding photography. In fact I have a hard time thinking of anything to use it for… on safari with a beefy tripod bolted to the truck maybe?

(found via Pixelated Image Blog)

Prints purchased through Brett Maxwell Photography receive individual retouching and optional artistic effects upon request, including those seen in this video! (Warning, PG-13)

Capturing the lighter side – I love capturing in a documentary way the fun and goofy things that often happen at a wedding (many call this wedding photojournalism). Sometimes it’s the bride and groom making subtle faces at each other during the ceremony, and sometimes it’s a surprise prank by the groomsmen at the reception. As discussed in the article, this also included non-traditional posing for the formal portraits. Here’s a personal favorite from my most recent wedding:

Boudoir Sessions – These portrait sessions are a great idea, but out of respect for my wife I will not be offering them. You can read the article to learn more about it and if anyone is interested I could likely refer a local photographer to do them.

Proposal Photography – Read my recent post; I would love to see every couple I work with do this!

Photo Booth – I love providing photo booths! Not only do you get a ton of fun photos to remember the big day, but it also provides hours of entertainment for guests. You have got to see this shot, it’s currently my favorite photo booth image ever (rest of that photo booth set here).

Day-after Shoot – This opportunity for another photo shoot after the wedding day is sometimes called “Trash the Dress” because they often involve getting wet or dirty in their tux and gown. Some brides figure they won’t wear the dress again, so they might as well retire it in style! Certainly some brides aren’t willing to trash the dress, and for them a day-after shoot doesn’t need to, but they will typically put the newlyweds in scenery not typical of a wedding day like a field or urban setting. Visit trashthedress.com to see all kinds of day-after shoots.

While working on new banner images for the top, I did a new edit on this photo from a September wedding. This photo was already one of my favorites, but now with the new edit it might be my favorite wedding image of 2008. (The original can be seen here).

The original 5d was a revolutionary camera, bringing a full-frame sensor to the pro-sumer market, and still an industry favorite after an unusually long run of 4 years without a successor. Now that successor has arrived… and wow. Megapixels are almost universally over-emphasised, but the 21mp of the new MkII will probably be very useful considering the full-frame sensor. The ISO is impressive as well, up to 25600, and I suspect it will do it with less information loss than the Nikon D3. It also follows close on the heels of the Nikon D90 in offering HD video capabilities, but offers more length and simultaneous still shooting.

I need to find a way to afford one of these… guess I’ll be shooting more. I try my best to not get caught up in gadgetry, and it can definitely be hard for me, but this is more than that; these features are ones that can really make the difference between getting the shot and not. The only disappointment to me is that it seems the auto-focus only got minor improvement. Canon likely wants to reserve their best auto-focus systems for their $8,000 1Ds MkIII, but I won’t be buying one of those any time soon.