There is nothing more exciting and terrifying about being in uncharted waters. Exciting because doing something brand new usually indicates growth. And terrifying because, well, you might not know what the heck to do! One of our favorite business quotes we’ve heard and held onto is from Sir Richard Branson. He said, “If someone offers you an amazing opportunity, but you are not sure if you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.” It’s a favorite of ours because it contains so much honesty and truth. If you wait to be an expert in your field before you start to pursue your dreams, then you’ll never actually start.
So in our Educational blog posts, our goal is to share the knowledge that we have learned, either from others or on our own the hard way, to help pave the way for others like you. One of the biggest questions we see people struggle with is knowing which lenses to use in which situations. Or, in other cases, which lens should I purchase first since I’m on a budget! We’ve taken an example of a wedding day below to discuss some of our favorite lenses and give detailed examples of when and where to use them!
A Classic Portrait Lens
If you asked us today for advice on which lens you should purchase first, we would hands down tell you that a 50mm portrait lens should be your first buy. The 50mm lens is the equivalent to a 35mm on film. It’s the industry standard. The faithful go-to. And it’s an agile workhorse that can be used in a ton of different situations. It’s a good teacher too, which is why we’d suggest that anyone getting into photography start there first.
On a wedding day, we have a 50mm strapped onto a camera body for the majority of the portrait photos. First look, bridal party, bride and groom sunset photos…the faithful 50mm is there to capture them all. As a prime (fixed focal length) lens, it is tack sharp. Additionally, the lower apertures available on a 50mm allow for great use in low light situations. We personally use a Canon 50mm f/1.2L USM, which has an extremely wide aperture that allows for ridiculous amounts of ambient light to pour in. That low aperture also adds to creativity. A low aperture is what gets you the ‘blurred background’ in a photo. It’s what we photographers call bokeh, and it adds a tremendous amount of interest to a photo.
Total Flexibility
Another lens that gets a lot of center stage time on a wedding day is the 24-70mm. We love this lens for times where we may need the flexibility of changing a photo’s composition quickly by zooming in or out to create a different look or capture a particular moment, especially when we are in a smaller more limited space. A perfect example is the bride’s getting ready room. Unless you are shooting at a designated wedding venue, you may find that the getting ready room is less than ideal for photos. Often times, weddings at a church will utilize a choir room or nursery for the bridal parties to get ready in. We’ve found that tiered choir risers and Noah’s Ark murals don’t compliment photos, but tend to distract from them! In that case, we would want the flexibility of the 24-70mm to shoot close, tight photos that don’t allow animals walking two-by-two to photo bomb the image! But then let’s say that the bridesmaids all gather around the bride, we’d want the ability to snap that photo back to capture that moment for her. We use the Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM, and have found it to be an absolutely reliable piece of gear.
It’s All in the Details
We have a ton of fun on wedding days. We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to work with the clients we have. Every single one shares a similar trait – they’re just fun to be around! We love working with our couples and bringing out all of the emotions that make for great photos! But one of Erica’s favorite things to photograph on a wedding day actually puts her alone with a white board and a 100mm Macro lens. Styling wedding details is one of Erica’s passions, and she thinks of it as her time to ‘play’ on a wedding day. We use a Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM, which is a really long way to say it’s a lens that shoots even the smallest details in a huge way! It will take a wedding ring and bring so much depth and detail to the image that you can see every careful cut the jeweler made to form the diamond! Macro lenses can focus on a detail even when it’s very close to the lens. A 50mm creates beautiful bokeh just like the 100mm Macro, but it just won’t focus up close to the ring, and it won’t fill the entire frame in the same way that a Macro will.
One very important detail to pay attention to with Macro lenses are the two letters ‘IS’ in the description. It stands for Image Stabilization and it’s crazy important for shooting very close detail shots. When you shoot something so close, any movement at all – even from the shutter clicking – can result in an out of focus, blurry photo. A Macro lens with built in Image Stabilization works to combat those slight movements to create a perfectly sharp image, which is exactly what you want when the detail is the most important thing in the photo!
A Second Shooter’s Best Friend
If Erica had an emergency and Jon had to shoot a wedding by himself, the three lenses we talked about above would be the tools in his bag. But since that has never happened, and since we always get to shoot together as a team, Jon has another lens he spends most of his day with. If you are a second shooter or want to have a lens that lets you reach down the wedding aisle and ‘touch’ your clients, you need a 70-200mm. Jon loves the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM for two main reasons. The first is obvious, the telephoto lens allows him to take photos from the back of the ceremony and pull them in nice and tight. The other reason he likes to shoot with a 70-200mm is because of the compression that it brings to the foreground and background of a photo. Compression is actually a type of distortion in a photo, but one that is pleasing to the eye. Essentially, it makes objects in the background look closer to the subject of the photo than they are in real life.
To see this in person, go out to your driveway and stand one foot away from your passenger side mirror and look at yourself. Now, walk to the driver’s side and stand an equal distance from the mirror. Do you see the difference? The driver’s side mirror made you look closer to it than the passenger side, didn’t it? So think of lens compression like the difference between your driver’s side and passenger’s side mirrors. Most passenger mirrors actually have a disclaimer on them saying ‘Objects in mirror are closer than they may appear.’ The driver’s side mirror acts like a 70-200mm by pulling everything in closer, even details in the background, and making them seem a little larger than they may be in real life. It brings more detail into the image and creates a beautiful photograph.
Now, the last thing we’d want you to walk away from this thinking is that you can’t shoot a wedding until you have these four lenses. Remember, if you wait to have everything perfect and be an expert to start, you’ll never start at all! It’s all about taking things one at a time. We wanted to detail the uses for these lenses to help educate you when it comes time to make your next purchase. Ask yourself, which of these do I find myself needing the most often? Which will help me add variety to my photos and be prepared for situations that come up in order to better serve my clients? Take it one step at a time, and see what works best for you!
**Note, we are not compensated in any way for promotion of Canon products. The links provided are for your benefit only! 🙂
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