Techie Talking Points
If your initial questions are answered satisfactorily and the pictures seem to be up to par, the next thing you want to know is how this person works. In this day and age, you should be hearing some sort of digital answer. Some photographers use a combination of film and digital cameras, but most will agree that digital photography has come a long way in terms of quality in just the past few years, so much so that some picture-takers have gone completely digital.
Why Digital?
You may be old-fashioned at heart and think, “I hate technology. Give me film!” Well, consider this: Digital cameras let the photographer see how well the pictures have turned out on the spot. All you have to do is ask someone who's been married for at least ten years whether some of their most desired poses turned out badly (because of blinked eyes or someone shifting in a group photo), and they'll tell you: Do the digital.
E~ssential
Digital photography is less expensive in the long run for you. Film is simply more expensive to work with — it's less forgiving in the sense that pictures have to be developed before they can be evaluated. You're paying for that film, whether the pictures are acceptable or not.
When you sign a contract with a photographer, you'll choose how many pictures you want in the end; the photographer will tell you how many proofs she'll take. The proofs are the original pictures that haven't been enlarged or retouched. You might end up with three times as many digital proofs as film proofs to choose from.
Important Digital Facts
What do you need to know about pixels? Well, they're the tiny dots that make up digital pictures. The more pixels, the better the definition of the photo, especially when the picture is enlarged.
Photographers talk about pixels in several different ways. They may say that a picture is 2000 × 1800 pixels, or they may say that the picture has 3.6 million pixels (this is the same thing; the latter measurement is just the earlier numbers multiplied). They also talk about dots per inch (dpi) or pixels per inch (ppi). The higher the number, the better, as a higher number means the picture will appear crisper and clearer.
You'll choose digital pictures off a CD-ROM (
Another option, aside from going with film-only, is doing a combination of digital and film. Why would you want to do this? Well, some settings and colors just naturally respond better to film. Where pixels might have a meltdown in front of a sunset, for example, film can step in and handle the job. For this reason, many photographers still tote their old handy film cameras around.
