Photography Tips and Tricks

As a wedding photographer the choices available as to which lenses to attach to their camera during the course of a wedding ultimately impacts the creative ability to document a wedding.

The photographer has a decision to make when storytelling – to shoot a wide angle or close-up. The composition and the message that results can be conveyed completely differently with the simple choice of lenses chosen for the unfolding photographic story.
There are obviously advantages and disadvantages, some technical to shooting wide or tight.

Overall, there is a preference among wedding photographers to shoot wide angle. A lens under 24mm will capture a real snapshot of any scene, not only incorporating the main point of interest but much of the immediate atmosphere, reactions, and surroundings. The ability to add interest to an image with a wide angle lens is proven. On the technical side, a wide angle lens means you can work in tighter spaces, closer with crowds and using slower shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. However, most wedding photographers will stop short of using a fish-eye lenses during their coverage – these extremely wide angle views exhibit unflattering distortion of people in particular.

An added benefit of the wide lens remains that when mounted to a high resolution camera, the wide angle lens also offers the photographer the ability to crop-and-zoom in post production, providing an opportunity to crop a variety of compositions from a single wide shot.

Many wedding photographers continue to carry a telephoto lens despite their use being generally more restricted. Longer focal length lenses need more space to use, but the photographer doesn’t have to move as much – providing access to discreet and intimate photographs. For candid shots and portraits a telephoto lens is hard to beat. Of course, such lenses do a super job of isolating a subject from their background with bokeh, providing attractive backgrounds where none may exist. While they may be awkward to handle a long lens will capture detail and emotion and focus attention when needed.

When it comes to portraits and posed shots, a long focal length is preferable to avoid facial distortion and provide compression to the background (particularly in outdoors scenes). Together with scenic compression, long lenses also have the benefit of rendering more obvious bokeh, such images take on a very three dimensional feel to them and work very well for bride and groom portraits.

Ultimately, there is rarely a right or wrong choice in shooting wide or narrow for the majority of typical wedding images. A mix of both focal length extremes compliments the storytelling ability of any wedding photographer.

Often the difficulties of deciding on lenses can be more mundane, such as finding the right time to change lenses and if you wish to carry a second camera body to enable you to flip between wide and narrow shots without a lens change. Similarly a zoom lens is usually decided on as a compromise of speed over quality and low-light ability.

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One of the reasons why photography has become such a great hobby for many people is that photography is very casual. Modern cameras make photography as easy as pressing a single button, and the result is instant. It’s easy to blame the equipment as modern cameras have become very sophisticated indeed in automatic mode.

Regardless, there is no photography without such equipment so it does not make sense to be dismissive about it.

In the wedding photography industry , there are many who are fairly self-confident but who deliver images that have no artistic merit to them – they are simply just snaps. A lot of photographers enjoy twiddling their dials and pressing buttons but fail to understand the relationships.

Driven by clients who demand more and more pictures, many wedding photographers have become snap happy and have a very itchy finger when it comes to what they photograph. Such intuitive photography results in delivering an immediately good or bad picture, but rarely with any understanding why. If the photographer can invest time in understanding composition, then they can evolve as artistic individuals and gain an advantage.

As a photographer, it’s important to realise that what remains important is the image itself and why you take it in the first place.

Because so much ‘magic’ can be achieved in digital post-production thanks to amazing software, there is tendency – even a habit – to engage in photography with the care free attitude of fixing any problems after in software. In fact, the opposite should be true because so much can be achieved with the composition in the first place, that more consideration needs to be given at the point the shutter clicks.

In photography there are principles in how you arrange the elements seen through your camera. Of course, these are not hard rules, but best practice for composition. While you might argue that only a trained eye will see ‘art’ in photography, the human brain interprets visuals in a certain order and this can be used to emphasis the ‘story’ of every image.

With photography, unlike advertising, an image that delivers it’s meaning slowly is rewarding. There are many compositional elements that can be employed to make a picture more interesting and ‘time-consuming’. You may be familiar with the use of curves and diagonal lines to lead the eye, and their relationship with straight lines and where they intersect each other. Triangles are also helpful shapes to find in a composition regularly. Circles lead the eye inward and rectangles assist in dividing a frame. Further to this foundation one can employ motion, perspective, focus, colour, texture and pattern, and delving deeper you can use scale, shadows, reflections, motion and exposure to tell a story.

The point is, whatever your style of photography there are compositional elements that the human brain appreciates. Mastering the application of such approaches in your repertoire will help you create memorable and engaging photography.
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The majority of wedding photographers do not work with an assistant. For these people this means the use of flash photography can present real challenges. Why? Because controlling an off-camera flash rig can be cumbersome and time consuming when trying to concentrate on your framing and roaming between guests and locations. The goal of course is to create soft light from your small camera strobe unit – to make the light softer you need to make it bigger.

Without doubt the best quality option is to get small lightweight lightstand and use your speedlite on this with an umbrella. A shoot-thru umbrella is preferable because it can get closer to the subject and so become a bigger light source. When moving about you can also close the umbrella quickly to form a compact unit. If you are taking group shots you can then use the umbrella in reverse for a bounced effect giving a larger spread of light. The disadvantages of the umbrella are that it does naturally waste some lighting power through spillage (compared to a softbox ) and on a windy day, they can prove impossible to use outdoors.

Of course, in tight or crowded indoor locations popping open an umbrella may not be practical and even dangerous, so many photographers without an assistant tend to stick with on camera flash. However, all is not lost because in this configuration you still have the option to bounce your light off walls and ceilings (if available – so no use outdoors). As an alternative you can also use a good diffuser like the Lightsphere2 or the Lastolite Micro ApolloXL – with the later proving more versatile for outdoor use too. What’s important with people photography is to remember to soften your light source to produce flattering photography at a wedding – direct flash is a no no unless in bright sunshine or used from far away.

You will probably also be aware that on camera flash introduces another problem of orientation. If you turn your camera vertically for a portrait shot the flash is now off centre and will produce shadows or red-eyes. The solution is to use a camera bracket which allows you to rotate your camera while leaving the flash static above the camera.

Another point to consider is how you are going to trigger your flash. In a fast moving situation like a wedding you don’t particularly have time to calculate the manual flash power or use a light meter. This is why many wedding photographers may prefer to leave the camera and flash to do their automatic flash ETTL metering. Pocket Wizard offer their MiniTT1 radio signal transmitter kit which now allows you to maintain automatic flash metering over hundreds of feet, giving you the freedom to situate your flash as you wish. If you prefer to keep your flash unit mounting on the camera with a diffuser, just make sure the ETTL transmitter of the flash is not blocked by your choice of diffuser or you will not benefit from automatic metering.

In winter months you will find your batteries do not last as long as the cold weather sets in. The solution is to use an external battery pack for your flash. Not only will a battery pack give you increased hours of usage, but you will also benefit from much shorter recycling times (how long you wait before being able to take another flash picture). Finally, only use NiMH rechargeable batteries by the way – they recycle much faster.

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A wedding photographer should – always- ensure that they have some private allocated time with the couple on their wedding day. No matter what style of wedding photography the couple wants, they will always expect some pretty great shots of just the two of them. Ideally, you only need around 30mins of their time, but it means you can really compose your shots and lighting with care and attention and have their full attention.

What tends to happen when you start walking off with the happy couple for a private session is that people follow. It really doesn’t work if other people are hanging around and distracting them. Even worse, is that guests assume that because you are taking pictures of the couple they also have a green light to join in. In this situation the bride and groom will undoubtedly be caught looking at their friends rather than you, the jokes will start flying and the session is ruined.

A good photographer needs good people skills and crowd control. Be firm and polite and explain to disrupting guests this is a private session. If they do not listen, hopefully the bridge or groom will get the message across for you.

It’s a good plan to shoot the portrait session right after the ceremony and upon reaching the reception venue. Just ensure the bride and groom have agreed when to do this – there will never be a good time to do this otherwise, particularly at larger weddings where old friends continuously fight for a moment with the bride or groom.

Hopefully, you have some knowledge of the venue in advance in terms of photogenic locations, lighting and so forth. Equally, be prepared with your equipment, particularly your lens choice.

There are certain lenses which are often referred to as a ‘portrait’ lens. What defines a portrait lens is primarily the focal length. Anything above 85mm produces a pleasing perspective without distorting facial features. The preference by pros is generally between 135mm and 200mm – this also keeps the photographer at quite some shooting distance to help relax the subjects. For taking portrait shots at wider apertures than F2.8 then you need to use a prime lens instead and the Canon 135mm F2L is an excellent choice. If shooting Indoors, you might prefer the 85mm focal length for portraits due to working space considerations.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you’re looking to get the sharpest image from your lens, you need to stop it down 2 stops from its widest setting. So for example, a F2.8 lens is crisper at F5.6. For the inevitable group shots later, not only will F8 give you top performance from a lens but it also gives you the depth of field needed to keep everyone in focus .
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As the principle wedding photographer dealing with the ceremony and the customary ‘list’ of required shots – there’s no doubt that these alone can be stressful even for the seasoned professional. However, for larger bookings – there is the more enjoyable side of wedding photographing to come in the form of the reception party.

With the serious part completed, the wedding party is a time for everyone to relax and have fun. Photographic opportunities are more candid, informal and fast paced. Guests are more relaxed and usually co-operate happily. Even so, a good photographer still has to keep agile and think smart in terms of the technical challenges.

Lighting will typically be very poor, not just the amount of light but the quality of light. There’s probably going to be mixed light sources too such as candles, coloured spot lights and whatever default lighting is at the venue. You should be sure to photograph in RAW mode as this will give you huge benefits in correcting for lighting issues during post-production.

Given the party atmosphere, photographic subjects are less likely to be still, so a faster shutter (in low light!) is helpful to avoid blur – unless you want that effect of course. (TIP: keep your flash sync on second curtain if you do by the way). Not all venues of course are also going to be attractive, so you might have added difficulties in finding backdrops that are not distracting or plain unattractive.

With so much going on, it’s a convenient time to blend in. The benefits of being able to roam without restriction and use a flash give you interesting scenarios for some winning shots. Regardless, it remains important to know the agenda of events, which are most likely running a little late and maybe even rearranged without notice. With noise levels high, events such as the cake cutting can even be easily missed. Some photographers prefer to mock the cake cutting while the couple are fresh at the venue and guests are not so distracting. Remember, it’s up to you to know what is taking place and when to have your camera ready and braced. If you want to use off-camera flash for example you need to calculate set-up time and maybe a little testing time in advance. Make sure your memory card is not about to run out of space too.

As with the traditional cake cutting, the other key moments are going to be the speeches and the first dance.

For the speeches a telephoto lens should be your weapon of choice, keeping you discrete while permitting close-ups of faces and wide shots of audience reactions. Look around you for family members (you know who they are right?) and capture their mood – the couple will find it rewarding to later see the reactions of family they may be missing while giving speeches. Using a wide lens aperture with a long focal length to isolate faces is a traditional method used to candid shots during a reception.

Try not to forget to photography the band or entertainment – they are all part of the event and help relive the feelings of the evening. If you’re too focused on the couple you will miss many great shots.

Most likely, your last scheduled event to shoot will be the first dance. As the photographer, you should avoid getting in their faces during what is for them a tender moment , so be mindful of your distance and choose a lens accordingly. With constant moving of your target you are well advised to flip your camera into continuous focus mode and try to ensure you mostly position yourself side-on, not only does this capture both faces but permits easier focusing. Complimenting this, it is also a great time to play with perspective. As with pop-videos, varied camera angles deliver a sense of excitement and solace. Holding the camera above your head or getting down low will provide a dramatically different feel to the dance sequence.

All being well you’ve captured the best of the proceedings and actually enjoyed yourself too.

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