Wedding Lenses

[jamsus]

Hello everyone.

Yesterday one of my best friends called me and asked for shooting at his weeding (24th June 2017)! He doesn't want a professional photographer for many reasons (price, hate for posing for photo etc).

I'll be with another photographer girl friend, and we will mostly have to take pictures to pretty everything with no claims on quality etc, just to take some good memories of the event.

Actually my kit is not tuned for a weeding, i got a:

60D + 18-135 IS STM, 50 F1.8, 35 F2, 100-400 L IS USM II

I was thinking (also out of the weeding) some pieces to improve my gear, in particular:

Samyang 8mm f3.5 CS II < i want this one for many reason, for sport, funny travel\landscape pictures and now i think i can use it also for fun pictures during wedding!

An external flash (430 EX II maybe, i'm not experienced with it!)

My real doubts are:

1) I will need a second body, but i'll probably take another body - personally i prefer APS-C not for the price of the body, but for the lens price & the fact that i use APS-C with 100-400 for wildlife shooting. I'm not a professional and i won't be a professional so i prefer to stay in budget but be more versatile.

I'm looking in the future for a 70D \ 7D Mark II (if price went down) and my kit could became

Eventually 70D\7D Mark II + 35 f2(for details) or 18-135 (in open spaces) + Flash

Second body 60D + Fisheye ready for everything

The other photographer will take care of what i don't cover

An alternative could be find the 17-50 Tamron f2.8 (not stabilized) which has a good price for the quality, and use it instead of 35f2 \ 18-135 for general lens and pictures with parents & friends!

If you have some suggestions, i'm here (and i got a year to study!)

[peety3]

Yesterday one of my best friends called me and asked for shooting at his weeding (24th June 2017)! He doesn't want a professional photographer for many reasons (price, hate for posing for photo etc).

Strictly my opinion, but "hate for posing for photo" is perhaps the absolute worst reason in the world to not want a professional photographer. A highly experienced photographer will have the savvy necessary to create the poses that look great while instilling confidence that the awkward position is worthwhile for the end result. Our wedding photographer had my wife all twisted up at one point and she absolutely could not understand what he was going for...the finished image explained it all.

Actually my kit is not tuned for a weeding, i got a:

60D + 18-135 IS STM, 50 F1.8, 35 F2, 100-400 L IS USM II

I was thinking (also out of the weeding) some pieces to improve my gear, in particular:

Samyang 8mm f3.5 CS II < i want this one for many reason, for sport, funny travel\landscape pictures and now i think i can use it also for fun pictures during wedding!

An external flash (430 EX II maybe, i'm not experienced with it!)

Again, my opinion, but fisheye is rather highly overrated. Get a traditional wide angle lens instead. You need something in the 10-22 range, or maybe a 10-18. That's comparable to a 16-35 on FF, or 16-29 if you pick the 10-18. Master it well, and then consider buying a fisheye.

On the surface, I'm a huge believer in owning a midrange external flash, so whatever is current (430 of some form???) is the right thing to get. As long as it can be a slave, you can move it off-camera later. However, for wedding use, you need to figure out what you need from a light. If you're indoors, you may need to rely on the flash as your main light source (if the venue will allow it), so you might bounce it off the ceiling if it's white/neutral and not too far up, or you might get it off-camera and shoot through a softening modifier, such as an umbrella or softbox. If indoors, absolute flash power isn't a necessity, but having enough power to still get the shot without having to crank your ISO too high is what matters. I'd suggest a lot of practice, as I've felt that some of my more aggressively flash-lit shots at ISOs I wouldn't otherwise think were high end up extremely grainy. If you'll be outdoors, unless you're doing nothing more than relatively tight half-body shots, power is key, since the flash will need to be back far enough to be out of the shot, ought to be off-camera, and you'll have to stay at sync speed so you can avoid HSS (HSS is a great technology, but inevitably you lose effective power when compared to traditional sync, and you therefore have to bring the flash in closer to compensate). You may want to look at renting/borrowing a Profoto B1 or B2 if you'll be outdoors; the much higher power will buy you enough margin to be able to use a better modifier to improve the look of the pictures.

I'm looking in the future for a 70D \ 7D Mark II (if price went down) and my kit could became

Eventually 70D\7D Mark II + 35 f2(for details) or 18-135 (in open spaces) + Flash

Second body 60D + Fisheye ready for everything

The other photographer will take care of what i don't cover

An alternative could be find the 17-50 Tamron f2.8 (not stabilized) which has a good price for the quality, and use it instead of 35f2 \ 18-135 for general lens and pictures with parents & friends!

I think you're absolutely crazy to go into a wedding with two bodies and to plan to keep a fisheye on the second body full-time. I'd be looking at 17-50/2.8 on the first camera and maybe a 100 Macro on the second camera, so you have wide/normal ready on one and tight/details ready on the other. You could swap the 100 Macro for a 10-18 for large group shots, keeping the 17-50 handy if there's a magic moment and you want to get something tighter than what the 10-18 would give you while not being limited by a 100mm prime.

I guess in a sense my bigger theme is to take this seriously, or don't (and if you're not going to take it seriously, treat it as a random day of shooting for which you're not going to influence your purchases whatsoever).

[jamsus]

...

Hey Peety3 thank you for you opinion!

I understand what you are suggesting but i'm not a professional photograpther and more less a professional wedding photographer, me and this girl are both friends of the couple and passionate photographers, but i will not buy things "only" for the wedding or for the purpose of doing weddings. What i will "build up" in a year probably will be in the perspective of using it for the photography that i use.

I won't get a 10-18 because personally, for traveling - i don't like that effect and i don't use it - i'm really fine with 18-135.

The fisheye will be in for fun pictures and because the classic ultra-wide angle will probably be covered by the other photographer. Okay, maybe it will not be on the body full-time, but i need to organize that with the other photographer

The 17-50 is an idea in general, so i will keep an eye on it.

[HDNitehawk]

1) I will need a second body, but i'll probably take another body - personally i prefer APS-C not for the price of the body, but for the lens price & the fact that i use APS-C with 100-400 for wildlife shooting. I'm not a professional and i won't be a professional so i prefer to stay in budget but be more versatile.

I can see your reasoning, the advantage of APS-C is price and on the rare occasion when you are out of focal length you can gain a small resolution boost.

But versatile can be subjective. I could see how having fewer lenses because of price would give you less focal length. But the things you can do with a full frame make it more versatile in my opinion. Aside from the body itself having more resolution when a subject is fully framed and improved ISO for low light, you can also take full advantage of the creative side of many lenses. For instance the 35mm f/1.4 and its narrow dof. Personally if I were rebuilding my kit with limited funds, I would go FF and have fewer select lenses. Even if it were a used 5D II or 6D and last generation lenses.

[peety3]

...Aside from the body itself having more resolution when a subject is fully framed and improved ISO for low light, you can also take full advantage of the creative side of many lenses. For instance the 35mm f/1.4 and its narrow dof. Personally if I were rebuilding my kit with limited funds, I would go FF and have fewer select lenses. Even if it were a used 5D II or 6D and last generation lenses.

Bingo...a big +1 on this. I can't believe how many lenses just make more sense on FF than they did on APS-C/APS-H. I had a 50/1.8...never made much sense. Now we have a 50/1.2 and I love using it. Bought an 85/1.2 when were a mixed FF/APS-H/APS-C family...I can see the magic more on FF. Picked up a 35/1.4 and took it to photograph a neighbor singing in her trio at a nearby restaurant...spectacular. But from a perspective of a few select lenses like HDNitehawk said, I can easily see skipping the 85/1.2, perhaps a 35/1.4, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, and 135/2.

Nowadays I just can't imagine trying to work with a 17-55 on APS-C instead of 24-70 on FF, or even a 16-35 on FF. The optics are so much better than the 10-22, and I wouldn't want the limited range of 10-18 even if the optics were as good.