Most of what I write about is targeted at brides, grooms, and photographers. But a question from a bride got me thinking about bad wedding guests, so I whipped together a list of What Not To Do As A Wedding Guest.

A shot from Kristen’s senior portrait session.

I was looking through the latest edition of Bridal Guide magazine and I noticed an article on how to save money on your wedding. I love this type of article, because they’re usually filled with bad ideas.

Well, they didn’t let me down. According to them, you should negotiate a digital photographer down because his expenses are lower. My original draft of this post called this ’stupid’ but let’s be charitable and call it ‘ignorant’.

First of all, only one of a digital photographer’s expenses is lower: film and processing. A film photographer has to keep in mind that every click of his camera just added one or two dollars to his expenses, which is one or two dollars less profit. The digital photographer doesn’t have to worry about this.

On the other hand, wedding-day expenses are only a tiny part of a photographer’s expenses. Advertising, hired assistants, office space, etc are all exactly the same no matter what kind of camera system you’re using.

And let’s look at where a digital photographer’s expenses are higher than a film photographer. Nikon’s top-of-the-line film camera, the F6, costs around $1,700. Compare this to Nikon’s best digital body, the D3, at $5,000! Add on the required computer, software, and other digital-only needs and a digital photographer’s equipment costs are easily five times as much as a film photographer. If you get into medium-format cameras, now you’re talking a $30,000 difference between a film vs digital camera.

Over time, it gets even worse. The useful lifespan of a film camera can be 10 or even 20 years. Digital cameras are outdated in as little as five years. And we all know that computers need to be upgraded every few years and software is often every year.

I think it’s pretty clear that not only are a digital photographer’s cash expenses not lower, they’re actually much higher. But let’s look at other factors.

After the film photographer shoots a wedding, he bundles up his film canisters and sends them off to the lab. That’s it, a few minutes and he’s done, he just sits back and waits on the proofs. Contrast this to a digital photographer, who must download all the memory cards, import the images into his image management system, review all the shots, and then do basic color corrections, etc. We’re talking hours of work and whether the photographer does it himself or hires someone to do it, it’s a big expense. And, with this kind of workload difference, a film photographer can shoot two or even three weddings per week while a digital photographer can only shoot one.

You may be thinking, why bother with digital? The answer, in a word, is quality. Whether consciously or not, the film photographer is always thinking about that one or two dollars every time he clicks the shutter. He’ll take far fewer shots than a digital photographer because he knows he’s burning money with every shot. Consequently, he’ll miss a lot of images completely or the shot won’t be quite right. He won’t bother with shots of the flower girls playing in the aisles. He’ll take three or four shots of the first kiss, where the digital photographer will fire off 10 or 20 frames and he’ll get that exactly right shot instead of the almost-right shot of the film photographer.

So, to summarize, when you factor in costs for equipment and software, a film photographer’s expenses are actually lower. Plus, he can shoot more weddings, so he doesn’t need to make as much on each one. Therefore, film photographers should be cheaper, right?

WRONG! This whole argument is silly. The production cost of photography is irrelevant to the value. We’re not dealing with ham sandwiches here. We’re talking about creating a unique, personal, irreplaceable memento of one of the most important days of your life. It has a certain value to you. Photographers produce various levels of quality. If a photographer can create the photography you want at a price you can afford, great. If you can’t afford him, I see no reason you shouldn’t try to get his product at a lower price, but film vs digital shouldn’t be one of your arguments.