what equipment is necessary to have for weddings?
what equipment is necessary to have for weddings?
Depends on a.) Your definition of "necessary" b.) Where you live (ie sunny part of the world or somewhere where it rains 11 months of the year) c.) Indoors or outdoors d.) Your shooting style e.) Your budget :P
Personally I would say BARE MINIMUM a solid flash (I'd go with something Canon, a 580 if you can do it) with some sort of a dome diffuser (the Gary Fong Lightsphere if you don't mind the goofyness of it is pretty good if you don't have the $$ for a proper bracket), fast lenses (Brian's lens recommendations are definately good ones), and I personally think at least one of the x0D bodies... the rebels don't really cut it if you're looking to do it for a living IMHO. I personally think every wedding shooter should have a 50 f/1.8 in their bag - considering that it's a $100 throwaway lens - or the 1.4 if you have the $$....
I've got the 16-35, 24-70, 70-200 all 2.8 and the 50 1.4 as well.... a fisheye lens doesn't hurt but for how often you use it it can be a hard purchase to justify. If you're shooting with two bodies (makes life WAY easier) and you have the $$ to spend you can put the 16-35 on a 5DMK2 and the 24-70 on a x0D or a 1D (not s) then you effectively have a 16-100ish (depending on the second body ) range at f/2.8. Having said that, some brides want you up in front flashing shots left right in center during the ceremony (they like the "pure" looks of emotion that happen during the ceremony the first time around) while other want you to stay out of the way, in which case you're not gonna use the 16-35 unless you "recreate" the ceremony afterwards so as not to interfere with the guests' experience. I've personally found that around here a lot of younger brides want you up in their faces (so to speak) and would rather spend the time afterwords getting their couples shots done versus some of the "older" or "more traditional" brides who don't want to see or think about you until the ceremony is done (or not at all in some cases :P)
Originally Posted by Emma
I do Internet Networking for a living, and everyone wants their Internet connection to work, 100% of the time. I often conduct redundancy tests, where I take something out of service and watch to see if the network is able to handle typical peaks within reason.
You should have enough equipment that you can conduct a redundancy test, and take any one piece of your gear "offline". You should then ask yourself "would I be OK without this piece?" or perhaps "will the client notice that I didn't have this piece?".
I shot a bicycling event recently, along with my girlfriend. We rented a bunch of gear so we could shoot completely independently (we didn't see each other for 6+ hours, so exchanging lenses wasn't an option). Part of that rental plan involved seeing if any one piece could fail and not impact us (significantly). That meant at least 2 bodies per person, at least three lenses, and some lower-grade gear in the vehicle as a fallback. For a wedding, you don't have time to run out to the car, so you have to be ready.
Most folks start with zoom lenses. You'd want a wide (16-35 or 17-40), general (24-70 or 24-105 or 28-135), and telephoto (70-200). You'd want two bodies, with the general lens practically glued onto one and the wide or telephoto on the other. With primes, I wouldn't want to show up unless I had the 14 or 24, 35, 85, 135 or 200, and I'd want three bodies. You'll probably have the 35 and 85 mounted 100% of the time, and the wide/tele would change as needed.
We're a Canon/Profoto family: five cameras, sixteen lenses, fifteen Profoto lights, too many modifiers.
Emma,
The last two posters cover the camera, lenses, and a strobe very well but I find that a simple strobist setup with 3 stands two umbrellas and a honl snoot to be indespensible. My wife and I do weddings on the side. We have 3 bodies, 2-40Ds and a 5D.
Pre and during service: I shoot telephoto and UWA with a 40D 70-200 f2.8 combo on a tripod and a 5D 17-35 f2.8 or 28-70 f2.8 combo hand held. My wife uses a 40D with 28-135 f4-5.6IS. We both have hand-on-top flash brackets with dedicated flash. She shoots E-TTL I shoot full manual. We use flash 90% of the time, even outside during the day. Most of the time your inside.
Post service: We use a 3 light setup with Vivitar 285HV's and cactus triggers to do the formals immediately after the service. We found quickly that it is a ton of work to setup our Alienbee 800 studio lights. The Vivitars do fine. You will have to deal with 4-6 sec recycle times depending on the type of batteries you go with but so far we've been OK with that.
Reception: same as pre-service
If you want to know more about using inexpensive flash heads off-camera like studio lights go to www.strobist.com
Never pray for light to show up, fabricate your own.
Hope this is helpful,
Chuck
If you ask me it depends completely on your own personal shooting style. Some shoot available light only and documentary style with very wide angles, others shoot more posed and traditional and use the 70-200 and such. So it really isnt a simple matter of 'what do you need for a wedding' the only real answer to that is: what do YOU want to do?
My favorite photographer, Jeff Ascough, for example, shoots very different from a lot of photographers yet he is in the global top 3 of best wedding photographers. He has a lot of interesting pieces on his blog about how he works. Also what he uses.
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