The GORGEOUS dress!!

Getting ready.

Awesome flowers were done by Art with Nature Floral Designs.  I loved the grey leaves in the bouquets.

The “First Look”

Love this shot of the girls

And here is the beauty of doing a first look… plenty of time for Bride/Groom images during prime light!

Some sweet ceremony moments

The reception was held under a tent at the picturesque Oak Creek Golf Club. Catering and coordination were done by the fabulous Allison Robbins and the Regency Caterers by Hyatt. And yummy cupcakes were done by Sprinkles!

Let the party begin!

Such a cute first dance, especially with the bridal party onlooking.

Michael McNeil with Ovation Entertainment did a GREAT job keeping the party going all night!! This crowd loved to dance, which made for plenty of fun pictures!

To see more from Elise and Alex’s day be sure to check out the slide show below! Congrats again you two, may you have a blessed life together!

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.

ISO 200, 1/500th, 3.2

ISO 100, 1/6400th, 1.4

ISO 500, 1/25th, 1.6, with flash

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.

ISO 320, 1/400th, 2.0

ISO 100, 1/2500th, 1.4

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.

ISO 100, 1/1000th, 2.0

ISO 100, 1/1000th, 1.8

ISO 800, 1/200th, 1.8, with flash

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!

ISO 200, 1/800th, 2.8

ISO 200, 1/500th, 2.8

ISO 320, 1/125th, 2.8

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.

ISO 250, 1/60th, 4.5

ISO 100, 1/640th, 4.0

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.

ISO 500, 1/100th, 2.8

ISO 100, 1/1250th, 2.8

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!

More to come soon!

This wedding was Lori & Geoff’s second each, and without getting into too much of the details, both had experienced quite a loss before meeting eachother.  Their theme verse is Isaiah 61:3 “beauty from ashes”, so for both of them their wedding was not only bringing 2 families together, but representative of the restoration that God was bringing to their lives.  I had the all-star Katie Neal second shooting with me; here’s what the day looked like:

The awesome Jen Bueno did Lori’s hair and makeup.

The beautiful bride.

The handsome groom.

The florals were beautiful- check out Blue Lotus Design’s handiwork!

These are Geoff’s twin 5 year olds- they were such cute flower girls!

Way to go Katie for snapping this awesome shot of Geoff…

…and this one of the proud father.

The estate they were married at is in Rancho Santa Fe- absolutely gorgeous home and property.

Every time I shoot a wedding I usually try to stop for a minute and really take in what I’m a part of.  Here, each member of their family (including their 5 kids) shared a bible verse with Lori & Geoff and it’s meaning for their lives.  This was probably one of the MOST emotional weddings I’ve been a part of.

Even though it was about 90 degrees, the afternoon light was gorgeous!

Cake by VG Cakes

The first dance.

Lori & Geoff- thank you for asking me to be there for your amazing wedding!  It was truly an honor to see your love for the Lord and eachother- you guys are beautiful people!

To see more of their day, check out the slideshow below:

Howdy partner!

Heidi said this is what his wife someday will call his “sexy workin’ cowboy” look.

Love him.

The bottom right picture is Jessica putting on her grandmother’s wedding ring- so sweet!

One of my favorite shots of the day…

Derek was off in San Diego shooting another wedding (which will be posted soon), so I had the amazing J. Shipley shooting with me for the day! Jeff thanks for helping out SO much, you rocked! Here’s a great detail shot by him.

The ceremony, out in the bright CA sun!

Another great capture by Jeff.

Grandpa was just the best!! He was out on that dance floor tearing it up… SO cute!!

He’s just TOO much pudgy adorableness!!

And here’s a few cute family moments…

Boys will be boys!

Oh, love his sweet face!

Congrats again Bethany and Kevan, on another gorgeous addition to your family!!

Lori & Geoff are a rad couple.  Yep, pretty much rad.  They actually got married a few weeks ago, but since they had a very short engagement we did their engagement shoot after their wedding.  I’ll have their love story and full wedding post up very soon!  Now on to the lovebirds… I love this series:

Fierce.

Geoff asked me where his pitchfork was.

So, I have to say, doing the engagment shoot after the wedding adds a whole different love dynamic- the difference between knowing that you are going to be married and knowing that you are married.

Congrats again you guys- can’t wait to post your wedding pics!

Getting ready details.

Kelsey, you were glowing all day!

The handsome groom.

Their first look was really a very touching and cute moment!

We got this expression from Kelsey a few times through out the day!

Nathan wrote a song for Kelsey that he played and sang for her during the ceremony… tissues please!

The reception area was really pretty.

To enjoy more images from Kelsey and Nathan’s Malibu wedding click play on the slideshow below.

So here are some highlights from the shoot.

Jen- you nailed the sexy, serious look!

Love the glowy light in these next 2.

And this series is my fav!!

And stay tuned for 3 weddings and a few other shoots coming soon! Happy Thursday all!