A wedding photographer returned home to make a grim discovery: the images from the wedding she had just spent the day shooting had two lines running throughout them. Upon doing some research, she found the lasers from the dance floor lighting had caused the damage, meaning she had to spend hours removing the lines in Photoshop and buy a new sensor.
Brittany Bay, who runs Bay Productions in Dallas, Texas, had had a successful day shooting a wedding. But towards the end of the day, she reveals in a Facebook post, she noticed two prominent lines that she was previously unfamiliar with. Hoping it was simply an issue with her LCD screen, she was frustrated to return home and find the all of the images were displaying the same issue.
She has now released an image from the wedding in question, adding arrows to illustrate where the lines across the picture. In her post, she also linked to this article which better explains how and why it happens.
In future, Bay says she will “absolutely NOT” take pictures at wedding receptions that have lasers, although luckily, it’s something she says she rarely encounters. A replacement sensor is costing her around $1,000, not to mention the many hours she has had to spend removing the lines manually in Photoshop. Ouch!
If you want to learn more about wedding photography, be sure to check out our very own tutorial, "How To Become A Professional Commercial Wedding Photographer."
Images: Brittany Bay.
Overall, this is a good group. You'll notice a majority of the gripers and whiners are the people with no profile pic and no photos in their portfolio. Trolls are gonna troll, no matter what the site or subject.
Yes, it's pretty normal. But if you want a real eye opener look at Dpreview or Petapixel. It is interesting that the worst offenders rarely show their work.
DPreview, wow I’ve quickly learnt just how poisonous that ‘community’ is, it’s pretty much just spec sheet gearheads with zero creativity arguing about sharpness and detail and generally being nasty.
Truth.
THIS. I've been a full-time professional for more than a decade and I wouldn't have my first thought to bash the photographer above. I feel sad for her and hope it never happens to me.
"It is interesting that the worst offenders rarely show their work."
However not at all surprising.
Another pretty good rule of thumb if someone is criticizing a way of working, it's because they have no talent at that skill, so they go on the attack. The classic one in photography is 'straight out of camera images are what a real photographers presents, the rest are digital artists'.
Personally I am impressed by those who are good at anything. And in art it's the end result, not the process that ultimately matters.
She thought it was her LCD? Seriously if she was a Pro, she must verify it right there at the event. I'm not pro but I'd always try to confirm if any unwanted element is actually on the photograph or just on the LCD. It's quite easy. Just view the photo in playback mode and use the Zoom in/out feature, drag it around to check that unwanted element moves along or stays on the display intact.
Give the sexism a break, would ya !! Only inept photographers use sexism to prop themselves up.
I didn't see anything sexist about this comment that he made. I saw him questioning her "Pro" status.
Yeah, I'm sure they'd have paused the entire wedding celebration so that she could investigate the issue.
First thing I thought of when I saw the line was I thought her film negative was scratched because that's what it looks like. Then i saw it was a digital sensor. Well, she's doing the right thing and getting it fixed. It sucks but repairs are a business expense.
It could have happened to anyone. People suggest ways it could have been verified on location, but it's so small, it would be easy to overlook. I could see myself making the same mistake even though I know how to zoom into the image. But I wouldn't be forced to fix those lines. Lots of online companies could fix that problem quickly and easily. As far a card failure, I never seen one, even after renting out my gear to shooters hundreds of times. You have to be REALLY unlucky for that to happen. On the other hand, I've had rental customers dunk $30,000 camera rigs in the ocean, so yeah, that ruined the card too. Although a back up would have saved the footage . . . .Oh, wait, no it wouldn't!
I've never had a heart attack, but I wouldn't claim they do not happen. Your personal anecdote is not data. I did an informal survey in a pro photography group and around 50%, had had an issue at some point. It wasn't a massive data set, but still undermines your claim And there is a pretty much a straight line correlation between how many photographs you take and seeing card failure. Which is a completely unsurpring statistic.
Card failures with consumer cards [which includes so called 'pro' versions] supposedly run at around 3%. This was widely advertised by Hoodman some years back and not contested by Sandisk. Lexar etc, which they would have if this was in fact untrue and thus libelous. Military, industrial and medical grade cars are far more reliable, but hard to come by. But they are needed less these days with dual slot cameras being more common for pro cameras.
On a documentary shoot we had three cards fail in one week. Three different types in three different cameras and no extenuating circumstances, just bad luck . Had plenty of other issues over the years, including recalled cards.
Online photography commenters “Pro’s don’t chimp”
Also online photography commenters “Stupid woman didn’t chimp”
Pros do chimp. People who deny it just don't know.
Yeah thats why i put the 'online photography commenters'
Why is that a surprise? 🤔 The sensor is like the eye! 🤣🤦♂️
There seems to be a lot of comments that show some Photographers to have inflated egos. I think it's a shame when people only want to show how knowledgeable they are and make put down remarks at someone else's mis fortune.
I noticed there are other Photographers that did not know about the laser issues on the sensor.
I find these comments unhelpful and unnecessary.
Makes absolutly no sense to waste hours in Photoshop to remove them manually.
If the lines are in every picture the same spot, which I'm sure they are, she could simply create an action for it. Basic Photoshop knowledge. Select the lines, hit content aware fill, safe the action, run the folder with every picture in batch. Finished.
Investing time in education can safe you so much time later on. Whether it is about lasers and sensors, or about Photoshop.
I'm an amateur photographer. I have shot friends weddings before. 1 camera, 2 lenses because that's what I have.
I didn't know about disco lasers causing such damage so this is useful information.
Weddings are chaotic if you have limited gear and experience. I am always upfront as an amateur that I will capture what I can but that a pro is essential for capturing events that can't be repeated.
Although I do agree it's a terrible thing to happen, and I appreciate the article bringing more awareness to the potential hazard of laser lighting, I have to say that I also agree that the photographer should have noticed that it was not their LCD. Also, this is actually a relatively simple fix that definitely shouldn't take hours; just create a selection of just the lines and create an action that uses content aware deletion of the lines, then run it as a batch operation on all affected images. 15 minutes, tops.
Even if the photographer HAD noticed the lines, there's nothing that could have been done about it. Damage was done and permanent. Switching cameras was the only solution for the rest of the wedding.
Shoot film
I didn't realize this was a thing, but as I read other articles online it sounds like this is more often a problem with video because the shutter is continuously open. This Vimeo was interesting -- https://vimeo.com/13450755
According to the readers of Fstoppers, the person holding this camera has a vagina.
According to one commenter here, it just requires "situational awareness". In other words, predict where the laser will point at every moment of the event, and be faster than the speed of light to avoid it.
What is the deal with all the condescending comments on this article? I thought it was notable and relevant.
Some of the "photographers" on here have very small lenses and feel they need to compensate.
Good that it wasn't a video.
Jeezus, the misogyny and snark around here are fking depressing.
BULL !!
It's possible she noticed these lines only when it was too late. We all make mistakes - and we should be thankfull this photographer is talking about what happened - so we can all learn from it.
These lines where so thin it's possible she didn't notice it when that happened.
I knew about the dangers of lasers - due to another incident. That's why it is important to talk about these issues and not to slam the door on the person who's talking about the mishappening. We'll see this issue returning - and it's a good thing these warnings are repeated.
It might be a good idea for wedding photographers to put in the contract that they need to be warned when lasers are used - and that the photo-sessions stops immediatly when this is occuring.
Everyone is all "how did she not notice?" - you don't really notice when something is not a common failure
Based on the observational evidence of my immediate peers; most people know more about Lightroom and/or Photoshop than their own cameras. Even among us few old coots that shot film for years only a couple of us actually have a technical depth of knowledge of our DSLR's. This is not an indictment against Brittany; this is the fundamental nature of current DSLR photography. A modern DSLR is a computer with a built-in camera. Many people stay safely in 'P' and simply don't know how to deal with weirdness.
I kinda like the lines. Maybe they're not leading lines, but lines none the less and could be sold as artistic to the client. All part of the process. Techy gear are our tools of the trade. If you don't know the dangers of: water, moisture, fungi, inertia from drops, electromagnetism, dials and switch changes at your hip, contact points, over heating, going from cold dry to hot humid causing condensation, file storage limits, failure rates on magnetic storage, ease of redundancy, focal plane, sunny 16, pixel density, circle of confusion, order of operations, and many other cool concepts that apply to being a professional photographer, you might want to read up in your spare time. One case in millions doesn't warrant a cry that the sky is falling. Yes, light gathering solid state computers are sensitive to lighting conditions.
Congratulations, once again we get to see the worst of the worst displaying their arrogance and self-proclaimed superiority. I love the world of photography but we sure do have a lot of snooty and just plain mean people in our community. So she didn’t know about the dangers of lasers hitting her sensor, so she didn’t know to zoom in on her LCD screen - well now she does! It’s called learning, folks. You didn’t know everything from the get go either! And all of us have had to learn the hard way at times unfortunately. And the comments about her being a woman? Seriously, get over yourselves.
Needless to say this "Forced hours of Photoshop" is clearly do the the inexperience of the shooter... Laser problems were happening when the Canon MarkII came on to the scene.... if you as a "Photographer" ( term used lightly) do not know the limitations of "Yourself" or your equipment this ( the story) is precisely what happens..... so the "remedy" is to never shoot another event where there are laser lights... LMAO...... why not just hit "auto correct" in PS and have everything be perfect......
Isn't it odd how the worst offenders in the comments sections don't show their work?
So these lasers are powerful enough to instantly permanently damage a camera sensor, but they are perfectly safe to use around human eyes at a wedding reception?? Hmmmmmmm ....
Well, compare the size of a lense on a camera to the lense on our eyes.
And lasers can and do damage eyes. Why do you think it's illegal to point lasers at airplanes ??
But it's perfectly legal to use eye-damaging lasers at wedding receptions? That's not a wedding reception I want to be at.
Even the Geico caveman guy knows about lasers and sensors....
It's totally OK to shoot in an environment that includes lasers. Don't face the laser projector. Situational awareness, and understanding how your equipment works, are both part of the job.
You are joking right? Or do you just jump out of the way of these lasers ... because you are faster than the speed of light? Always concentrating on the lasers instead of the subject you are photographing?
Right! Don't face the lasers, or anything reflective which is facing the lasers. It other words, don't face anything when a stupid, irresponsible DJ is at work.
How about DJs are not to allow lasers to face people or anything reflective? It is right there in the laser manual. The responsibility lies with the DJ, not the photographers, nor the wedding guests, to protect their eyes and cameras.
why is there an arrow pointing to the bride's genitals?
You would have to read the article.
is anyone else wondering how lasers powerful enough to do this would be safe to use at a party? to burn a stripe of pixels down the sensor would take a fair bit of power, and wouldn't it also be damaging peoples' retinas?
Also, does anyone wonder why the lines seem to be exactly horizontal and vertical, most disco lasers sweep out patterns, not orthogonal lines.
Yup, wondering that myself. These lasers sound like a major health hazard. Should be banned faster than poo in food.
The reason they are exactly horizontal is because knocking out a single pixel prevents the entire line from being read out properly.