Light-hearted Wedding Photography Question

[brad b]

Let me say first of all� I�m not a wedding photographer. I�m not

about to do a wedding for my cousin/brother/grandma/best buddy (at

least no one has asked me to) and I�m not even sure I�ll ever shoot a

wedding (I know what�s involved and it�s kinda scary)

 

But, just for fun� do you think it would be possible to shoot an

entire wedding (not a huge one) with one digital SLR, a 50mm f1.4 (or

maybe a 35mm f2 � to give the effective angle of a standard 50mm) and

a good speedlight (for some good bounce flash, of course) Keep in

mind, I�m just asking this for fun.

[fotografz]

Yes. Probably the 35 would be best on a cropped frame digital. May miss some tight quarter

shots, and depending on the size of the wedding party, the formals would be a challenge

(nothing moving back and having one other accessory ... a ladder... wouldn't solve.

 

It would not be without risk ... but mostly due to not having back-up in case of failure ...

which would be neither fun nor funny.

[todd1664878707]

Of course! It will force you to be creative. In fact I'm sure that some people here (although they probably won't admit it) have shot a wedding under those circumstances. Maybe they were just starting out and didn't know what they were doing. Maybe that's all they could afford. Formals with a large group might be an issue with a straight 50, but it could work if it had to.

[fotografz]

Did it once when I left all the CF cards sitting at home after reformatting them, then drove for

1.5 hours to the wedding. Had one 1 gig CF in the camera and that was it.

 

Had the trusty Leica M and a 35/1.4. Stopped at a drug store between venues and bought all

of their Kodak Gold to supplement the B&W I had with me. Client loved it all. : -)

[laurenm]

I think the only REAL scary part would be no backup equipment. Other than that, "what Marc and Todd said"

[al_kaplan1]

I guess one other advantage of film over CF cards is that it's bulky enough so you'd be likely to notice that you didn't have it with you. Not that long ago I'd have been afraid to shoot bridals with Kodak Gold because of the relatively high contrast and bright color rendition. In reality it probably has a lot more exposure lattitude and ability to hold both highlight and shadow detail than digital capture. One of the chain drugstores was selling 4 packs of 24 exposure Gold 200 for $4.99 this past weekend. It's pretty hard to worry about film-as-an-expense at that price.

[conraderb]

Brad - of course. back in the day, entire weddings would be shot on two 120 rolls and a 80mm lens on a two and a quarter camera. if you know what you are doing, you can have great results.

[brad b]

this is fun...

 

I asked this question for the precise reason that I think it would be great to be 'forced' to be creative and original be limiting yourself to minimal equipment (sometimes). I think people envision the wedding photographer with 80 lbs of stuff hanging around his neck and on his shoulders, but wouldn't it be fun to just spend the day firing off shot after shot and just enjoying the creative process. Yeah, the 'no back-up' thing is the one issue that lingers in the back of my mind. But hey, life is all about taking risks, right.

 

If someone asked me to do a wedding, I would be really tempted to try the minimalist aproach.

[wedding-photography-denver]

I have shot with the 35 on a body and the 50 on another before. If memory serves me, the day was mostly shot that way with the 135 used during parts of the ceremony and for a few formal portraits. It does make you see things with more intentionality as you have to plan shots more than accept them (as you would with a zoom). The big down for me was that there were shots I had to grab when I was to far back and conversely, too close that would have benefited from the zoom. Its not that you miss the shot, just that you don't cover it with the composition/framing you might have chosen with a zoom. I like my primes, but I use my zooms just as much. The planning of shots works for about 80% of shots, but I don't like to make do with some shots that would look so different if the zoom were available.

 

 

I see many portfolios where the angles and framing are varied and carry a sense of intention that sells me the work. Many of these shooters are using zooms and then others use just a couple of fixed lenses for the whole thing. Taste and preference seem to be the only real driving factors to either approach and those who claim one or other is better are simply in their own world, and happy with what they do.

[phil vaughan - yorkshire u]

I didn't think I was that old but 'back in the day' I shot entire weddings on 2 rolls of 120 with a Bronica ETRS and std. lens.

 

I probably did 35mm weddings as 'uncle joe' with just a 50mm before that, didn't understand the risk, couldn't afford more equipment anyway. Now I go to weddings with enough kit to unbalance the steering on my car - and there's still some around here who make me feel like I'm going under-equipped.

[brad b]

Phil.. that's hilarious

[timcorridan]

i saw a show on PBS last month where the gent built a whole cabin at twin lakes, alaska, lived there for 35 years, and did it mostly with a sharp axe. i also know tiger woods could kick my butt with just a 7 iron.

[ShunCheung]

Marc, it is about time to get rid of those 1G CF cards. 4G ones are merely $200 or so in these days. If you somehow has only one 4G in the camera, you can probably cover the entire wedding with it, especially if you are willing to shoot some JPEGs at the reception.

[mike_hodson]

Tim, you must mean "One man's Wilderness" An amazing thing to watch.

 

I'm guessing that shooting a wedding "minimalist style" is more common than we know. Just think of how many posts there are here, from people (non-pros) being asked to shoot their friend's wedding. A lot of the time they probably say yes, no matter what we tell them...and there are probably many more that don't bother to come to P.net to ask the question.

 

I was taking a metering class, a few weeks ago. There was a girl in the class, who had one camera, one lens and a flash. She said that she had done two weddings for friends who could not afford a pro. She was very nice, but I had to explain basic exposure and how to use her shiny new 20D, to her because she hadn't taken Photography Fundamentals, that was next week.

[pavelp]

Brad, you can do a lot with just one lens and it's very refreshing to do that. Just last month, I managed to kill my principal zoom lens and found out how much I hate my backup zoom (I really need something better), so I ended up using 50mm/f1.8 lens on a DLSR for about three weeks. Surprisingly enough, even though that translates to 75mm effective focal length, I've got all the shots I needed, loved the added quality of a prime lens and now I have 24mm/1.8 lens in mail (just to have some shorter fast prime as well).

[lovcom_photo]

For grins and giggles, imagine if one shot an entire wedding with a Lens Babies v2.0. It's an artsy lens kind of like a helga or diana camera. One might provide amazing results....or get sued.

[kchayet]

Shun--

I disagree. I would not want to put my eggs all in one basket. What if something happened to that 4g card? I would much prefer to have a handful of 1g cards.. But that's just my personal opinion :)

 

To the OP:

I agree with most of the other commenters on this thread :)

It would just mean a lot more moving around on your part, because of your fixed focal lengths making you frame every picture by moving yourself into position each time.

[jennie farnsworth]

Kristina -- I totally agree with you on the cards. Jen

[karenco]

Yep. I do it all the time. I shoot a Canon 20D with a 50mm 1.4 and a 20mm 2.8 (and sometimes an 85mm 1.8). I have second cameras and backup cameras, but those are my primary lenses and I use them 90% of the time.

 

In fact I'm second shooting this weekend and that's exactly what I'm taking - 20D body, 50mm, 20mm, 580EX. I'll have my backup gear and additional lenses in the case of course, but I don't plan to pull them out.

 

And this will be a HUGE wedding. 450 guests. :)

 

Karen

[KenPapai]

<i>"Kristina -- I totally agree with you on the cards. Jen"</i>

<p>

For sure, I agree; why stop at a single measly 4GB card? Shooting RAW with a 16MP FF camera you get only 210 images on the card. Go with a super freaking CF Disk of 16GB and REALLY push the envelope (and your luck). Too subtle for you I think. -Ken

[steve_levine]

I've shot my first 100 weddings with a 50mm for everything that it would work on, and a 35 for groups, and an 85 for close ups.

 

And before that I assisted with a man that shot a pair of Bronicas, both with only normal lenses.

 

I would go with the 50 over the 35 though. It's one thing when you can't get far enough away with a 50 for a group. But it's a whole other issue when you can't get too close with a WA lens. And make no mistake a 35 is a WA lens.

[fotografz]

A 35mm is the equivalent of a 50ish mm on his camera Steve ... assuming Brad is referring to

the ubiquitous cropped frame DSLRs ( 1.6X on Canon and 1.5X on Nikon ).

 

Shun, the 1 gig WAS the biggest card then. It held more images from the D30 than does a 4

gig I now use with the 1DsMKII.

[35mmdelux]

I did couple dozen weddings w/ H'bld and standard 80mm lens. Yes you must be creative...and maybe nuts too. Then I switched to a M5 w/ 35mm Summicron. Much better. Yes I am nuts!

 

The bare min I would tackle a wedding these days is w/ 35mm Summicron and 50mm Summicron (2 cameras). The 35 for most everything and the 50mm for the BG vertical portrait.

[brad b]

exactly.. 35 being, like you said, around 50 and a 50 giving you 75-80 depending on your brand. It's such a toss-up between the 35 and 50, but I think I would finally have to come down on the side of the 50 only because it's just the tiniest bit faster (even if it is only in my mind) and probably sharper and the '75-80' angle would be better for portraits.. you'd just have to move back more for the wider stuff. I think it would be do-able.

 

and by the way, my preference for CF cards would be (in my dream kit) between 4 and 8 2GB cards - depending on what type of assignment I was on (4 would probably always be enough) - as it stands I have (2) 1GB SD cards for my little wee Nikon D50 and that's plenty

[ShunCheung]

Kristina and Jennie, that "not all eggs in one basket" conventional wisdom is, unfortunately, wrong. Joseph Wisniewski explains it very well in the following thread:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FOgS

 

See his post from 24th February, 2006 at 4:19pm.

 

I have been shooting digital for 4 years and have yet to have one failed memory card. Therefore, the chance of failure is low either way. However, by using a lot of small-capacity cards, you are increasing the chance of failure as well as the chance of accidentally losing or misplacing a card, which I have witnessed people do in the last 4 years.