To those of you who’ve tweeted, emailed, or fb’d us questions… thank you for being patient… we are now ready to start posting FAQ’s! For clients… this is mostly intented to help out fellow photographers, but you may find some of the posts interesting as we will do some informative posts in the future directed toward questions clients have asked, but if this one bores you just scroll past to some image prettiness.
First, we thought we’d share the commonly asked “What’s in your bag ?” or “Check out my Shootsac!” (As Derek wanted to title this post…yes we do use shootsacs and love them!) Anyway, Hopefully we provide you with some helpful tips as well as just sharing what equipment we use. And, if you are a bit more advanced, please don’t be offended by the simplicity of anything we share, as we are trying to help friends out their who are new to the photog world too.
Ok, now Derek will be talking for the rest of this post…
Cameras
Canon 5D Mark II and the original 5D. Both have full framed sensors, meaning true to the original 35mm film format and not a “cropped sensor”. The 5D Mark II is kind of the gold standard for wedding photography. At 21 MP, it’s file sizes are huge, but it captures amazing details. We always shoot in RAW format and Manual Mode.
Sandisk flash cards- we’ve had nothing but good experiences so far. Quick tip- I would recommend periodically erasing your cards in disk utility on your computer and reformatting them for each camera you intend to use them with. This will help you reduce the risk of corrupting files as well as mysterious storage space loss. One time I had an 8 GB card that would only let me shoot 4 pictures on it. After erasing and reformatting I got back my space.
Lenses
In this section we will be posting images that have been taken all at the same wedding, to give you an idea of how we utilize each lens throughout a typical wedding day.
35mm 1.4- We just picked this lens up a few months ago and it is quickly becoming our favorite and most important lens! We like it for it’s way of capturing full body shots without having to be way back and crop the picture in post. It’s sharp all over and very quick- also great for low light situations. Any time we’ve gotten a new lens, it causes us to rethink composition, angles, and posing- this lens allows us to do some things that the 50mm doesn’t quite do. We use this for all of our family formal portraits, any other wide shots that we need, and dancing during the reception.
50mm 1.4- This is hands down the best valued lens that Canon makes. It’s fast and accurate, plus it’s really light, which does make a difference by the end of the day. Sarah definitely has the 50mm 1.2 on her “next to buy list”, but the 1.4 is a great portrait lens that gets the job done and creates beautiful images for us.
85mm 1.8-
This lens is a great portrait lens. It creates really shallow depth of field, while still maintaining sharpness and good seperation between subject and background. In our experience this lens is faster and more accurate with focus than the 1.2, and not too mention a 3rd of the price.
70-200mm 2.8 IS- This may be Sarah’s favorite lens. I know this is going to sound cheesy, but it takes breathtaking pictures. There’s just something about it; the pictures are so smooth, and that particular focal length let’s you get up close and personal without being up in their face- especially during the ceremony. We really strive to capture all of the intimate moments- the groom first seeing the bride walk down the isle, the emotion of reading the vows, and of course the first kiss- and this lens lets us get there. Sarah will also use it on occasion for portaits. The only drawback is that it weighs 3 pounds, so you might need to ice your wrist after a long day of using it!
TS-E45mm 2.8- Ahh, the tilt shift. With great power comes great responsibility- this is a fun lens, but it can get over used really easily; and while creating a cool stylized picture, it cannot be a substitute for a good prime lens, hence we try to use it sparingly. The tilt effect is great to really draw you in to the parts that are in focus and it’s fun to use for different angled shots, details, etc. Quick tips- I would recommend shooting with the tilt-shift at 4.0-5.0.
100mm 2.8 Macro- We’ve found that this is an important lens to have for every wedding. When it comes to ring shots and other smaller details, this is the lens. It has a minimum focusing distance of about 1 foot allowing you to get really close to the subject- it’s also sharp as a tac. We’ve found it to work really well during the wedding ceremony as well.
Flashes
Canon Speedlite 580ex II- We use one 580ex II as the master and another as the slave for off camera lighting- we’ve used both Pocket Wizards and Alien Bees for triggering- jury’s still out between the two. We’ve also used Canon’s built in IR controls, although we would recommend using the pocket wizards for being more consistent- we’ve had issues with it when there is no direct line of sight. 5 quick tips for 580ex II users-
1) If you use an external battery source for your flash, by changing function 12 on the custom function menu, you can have the flash recycle with just the external battery source and not a combination of the in-flash batteries and external batteries. The in-flash batteries will only power the display screen and your recycling time will be cut into a fraction.
2) On a 5D Mark II body you can access, control, and set up your flash controls directly from the camera instead of messing with the back of the flash- way quicker and easier to navigate!
3) For most of our reception shots we have the flash pointed directly up instead of facing towards the subject. That way it gives more of an ambient light look by bouncing the light off the walls. Watch out for the color of the walls though, as it may effect how the reflected light looks (red walls, redish tint, etc.). We also leave the white bounce card up for most of our shots. Try it. It will make the faces and eyes of your subject pop a little more as well as fill in the bottom half of your pictures wilth more even light.
4) If you don’t already, try using your 580ex II in manual mode. We’ve found that just like using your camera in manual mode, you have much better control over your lighting.
5) Count clicks. We count clicks when changing our focus boxes, and we also do it with our flash in manual mode as well. I sat down and practiced one day, taking the same picture adjusting the flash one stop at a time to see how it affected the subject. If there is a situation where the subject is moving from a further distance to a closer one, it helps to know ahead of time approx. how many stops you will have to change the flash, and be able to do it by feel rather than having to look at the back of the flash.
Computer
We won’t get into the hardware at home, but for weddings… 17” Macbook Pro- Throughout the day, we load in all of the flash cards as we fill them, and have a slideshow ready by the middle of the reception. This way our clients can get to see some of the shots we took rather than waiting until after their honeymoon. On any given wedding we will fill up 50-60 GB of pictures, so we use a portable external hard drive to store the images.
So that’s the overview of our gear! If you have any thoughts, tips to add, or questions, the comment box is open!
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