Shooting Weddings with the Sony Alpha system

[KevinBarrett]

Thank you, Darren, for understanding the prompt rather than arguing with it. I think your solution is a very good one, a fast lens and light on demand. The F58 flash gun has a lot of power, versatility, and manual control, too, to give the budding photographer plenty of growing room. What would you say to someone who suggested a compromise on speed? Let's say the photographer in question gets a 35/1.8 SAM and a 50/1.8 SAM instead of a 50/1.4.

[darrencf]

Hi Kevin. A F1.8 lens is a lot more affordable so if you are on a really tight budget, thats the best way to go. The reason why I recommended a F1.4 is because you don't just sacrifice speed, you also limit yourself from being able to achieve a thin depth of field (DOF) from a distance. This effect is ideal for candids, ring exchange, kissing etc.

Also, the wider your lens, the thicker your DOF is from the same distance. This means, if you were using a 35mm, the DOF at F1.8 is hardly noticeable unless you shoot your subject at a pretty close distance.

Therefore, a 50/1.4 will actually provide you with the most obvious benefits as compared to a 35/1.8 and 50/1.8 for your budget.

[williamporter]

First, let's say you're desperate for experience and have a friend in need. You have an APS-C camera, 18-55 or 18-70 kit lens, and you can convince your wife that $1000 more in the system will some day pay for itself. How could a "volunteer" wedding photographer best spend $1000 to whip his kit into shape?

My quick reply to the question as asked would be to say, spend that $1000 USD on a fast lens or two, a decent flash, and ideally, a second body. The Sony 30 f/2.8, 50 f/1.8 and 85 f/2.8 primes are ridiculously inexpensive: you can pick up all three for about $500. Or, for about the same price you could get the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8, or the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8. The Metz 48 flash is about $200 (from Amazon, here in the USA).

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If you want to shoot a wedding AND you want to try to do a pro-quality job, you need the following:

1. Two camera bodies. Shooting a wedding—a once in a lifetime experience, at least in theory—with just one body constitutes professional malpractice, in the view of many wedding pros (including yours truly). Cameras break. WHAT cameras you take almost doesn't matter these days. You want something, I think, with at least 10MP and good low-light/high-ISO performance.
2. Fast lenses that can cover the range from medium-wide to medium-tele capably. The Tamron/Sony 28-75 f/2.8 is a nearly perfect wedding lens for this reason. Wish it were a little wider (20-75 would be perfect). Of course, you may want to go wider; and you very likely will want to go longer, esp during the wedding ceremony, where you might find yourself positioned at some distance from the couple. I don't take a lens longer than 105 (i.e. roughly 160-e) to weddings but many wedding photographers swear by their 70-200 f/2.8 lenses.
3. TWO good shoe-mount flash units, preferably ones that both tilt and swivel so you can bounce freely. Equally important, you need to know what to do with these tools. Flash photography is a place where many inexperienced wedding photographers fall flat on their faces.
4. A good tripod for using to take the formal photos, and ideally a remote control shutter release for your camera.
5. Plenty of fresh batteries, storage cards, and more of these little items. These are important too! You MUST have a spare battery for your camera and you should carry more storage than you can imagine using. I take about 30GB of storage with me to a wedding; I've never used anywhere near that much, but the last thing you want to do is run out of storage or get confused. It's good to be able to change cards way in advance of the urgent need to do so, since the urgent need never occurs at an opportune moment.

A few words more about the bodies and lenses.

First, on the subject of backup cameras. If you are shooting a wedding for free for a friend, then it's up to you to decide whether you want to gamble on your one camera not breaking. Obviously, the chances are, it won't break and you'll get through the event with one body just fine. The problem is, no digital camera is 100% reliable. The odds of a malfunction or failure—not to mention simple breaking, say, from dropping the camera—those odds are small, but they aren't zero. If you are taking money from the bride and presenting yourself as a pro, you MUST have a backup body, and you need to figure out how to work so that the backup is handy if you need it. The way most of the experienced wedding photographers I know do this is, they shoot with 2 bodies.

Now, on to the question of "which camera?" As far as I can tell, there are basically NO bad DSLR cameras on the market today. I'll pass over the full-frame question and assume our hypothetical new shooter is looking at an APS-C system. The higher-priced APS-C cameras don't take better photos (by and large) than the less expensive ones. They are simply better photo-taking tools, with more options, better handling, sturdier build, etc. But someone who knows how to use a Sony A700 effectively could do a good job with a less expensive, less-full featured model as well. And if you can't take good photos with an A100, using an A850 isn't going to help you. As I said, the key thing you need on a wedding camera is fairly good low-light/high-ISO performance (say, ability to shoot cleanly at least up to ISO 1600). Many other features are desirable but not essential.

As for lenses, this is a pretty wide-open subject. I think the key criteria for picking wedding lenses are these: you want fast lenses (f/2.8 or faster at all focal lengths), and you want to be able to cover the key focal lengths between 30 and 70mm on an APS-C system (45-e and 105-e).

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I'm switching from Pentax. I haven't made my move completely yet because I have to have two bodies (see item 1 above) and I want my second body to be the new A580. Since the A580 isn't available yet, I'm hanging on to one of my Pentax bodies and some lenses for the time being. So, here's what I'll be taking to the wedding I'm shooting in 2 weeks:

• A Pentax K20D (can shoot pretty well up to ISO 2000) with several primes: 21mm, 35 f/2.0, 40 f/2.8, 50 f/1.4, 70 f/2.4 and 105 f/2.8.
• A Sony A550 (can shoot pretty clean up to ISO 3600) with a few more primes: 30 f/2.8, 50 f/1.8 and 85 f/2.8.
• A Metz 58AF for the Pentax body and a Metz 48AF for the Sony body. I'll probaby bring along several Pentax flash units as well, for possible use with radio triggers when I take the formals.

I expect that during the ceremony, depending on where I'm positioned by the church rules, I'll use the 105 f/2.8 on the Pentax body (or the 70mm lens, if I'm able to sit pretty close to the action), and the 30 f/2.8 or 50 f/1.8 on the Sony A550. In the church, I work with 2 bodies. I'll take 6 Pentax K-mount lenses but I almost certainly won't use them all. I might use the 21 for a wide shot of the church.

At the reception, unless I acquire another lens before the wedding, I'll probably work with just 1 body and 1 lens: the A550 + Sony 30 f/2.8 + Metz 48. NOTE that I prefer to shoot with primes. This is a matter of personal preference and experience. I have a Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 here at the moment. Very good lens but I just don't like it as much as the primes, so it's probably on its way back to the dealer. But for another shooter, it would be a very good lens, esp if you had a longer lens to complement it. When I started, and was still using zoom lenses, I shot with an 18-50 f/2.8 on one camera, and a 50-135 f/2.8 on the other.

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I would not recommend trying to shoot a wedding with a kit lens (say, 18-55 f/3.5-5.6). It's not so much image quality that is the problem as the lens speed and the exposure headaches you'll have to deal with as your aperture changes while you zoom. You COULD shoot a wedding with the kit lens. It's been done, no doubt, many times. It's just not a great idea.

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A final note. The most important thing a wedding photographer brings to the wedding is not equipment, but experience and skill, experience shooting weddings, ideally, but also experience handling a variety of challenges. Wedding photography is very challenging. It involves a variety of photographic challenges. You work under a lot of pressure. And you can't afford to screw up, because it's difficult or impossible to redo the shots. Knowing what to expect is critical during the event. Anticipating your equipment needs is very important, by which I mean, you need to know that you'll need a wider lens for shots in the dressing room with the bride before the wedding, and you may need your flash, too; but in the church you'll need longer focal lengths and wider apertures; etc. Knowing how to use flash, in particular, is tremendously important.

Will

[David Kilpatrick]

William, thanks for a very detailed post indeed and welcome to the forum!

David

[Dr. Harout]

You can say that again, David. Indeed, a wonderful "entree".
Welcome to the forum Will.

[redsim74]

Have to agree, a fantastic first post. Look forward to hearing more from you, Will.

[jonathanh]

Thanks for the post Will very good advice, but I would like to add my own which would be until one has the experience that sticking to Fast zooms means less changing of lenses so less possible problem with dust on sensor, fewer lenses to carry, less to think about in the pressure of the moment.
I personally now only use a monopod and this tends to be in the church, everything else is shot hand held and with the 900 you can get away with down to 1/20 and still be sharp with practice. I would recommend the following book which will provide more advice than once can do in a post as one of the really good books on wedding photography being Captured By the Light by David A Ziser.

I completely agree with Wills advise on memory cards and batterys I have over 75 gb in cards when I shoot weddings but this is on an A900 at full throttle. And for those who do not think cameras break I was assisting at one wedding where we had three cameras break but the bride never knew and we had to go to the pub afterwards to recover. I will never shoot a wedding with out at least two spare bodies. Just remember that planning and visiting the venue before hand will make your life easier and agreeing a timed shooting schedule so the couple know what to expect will also help.

Hope this helps

[Dusty]

It good to look this over once more, since it's now an active thread again. So time appropriate!

Tonight I go to the rehearsal and dinner for the wedding I'm shooting Friday night.

I'll do most of the shots with my 28-105 on the a350, and if needed I'll drop down to the kit lens for wide group shots.

I'll shoot the processional and recessional very wide so I can crop it either way the customer wants. (I sure miss that square MF).

I'll have a borrowed Nikon D700 w/ a 24-105 and several film bodies as B/U. Hopefully I won't need them. The proceeds from this one may put me over the top in getting a a580 by Christmas. I wish I could afford an a850, but with another little one on the way I just can't justify it at the present.

Dusty

[KevinBarrett]

My quick reply to the question as asked would be to say, spend that $1000 USD on a fast lens or two, a decent flash, and ideally, a second body. The Sony 30 f/2.8, 50 f/1.8 and 85 f/2.8 primes are ridiculously inexpensive: you can pick up all three for about $500. Or, for about the same price you could get the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8, or the Tamron 28-75 f/2.8. The Metz 48 flash is about $200 (from Amazon, here in the USA).

Fantastic advice. When I created this thread, Sony hadn't yet released the "easy choice" line of lenses in its completeness. The 30/2.8 Macro, 35/1.8, 50/1.8, and 85/2.8 all make the kitting-out process much easier for Sony users. Lots of people don't think to look outside the system for compatible flash guns, too, so pointing out the Metz units as an alternative to Sony guns was very helpful.

As for the rest of your post, it's all bears repeating. Thank you for your input!

[williamporter]

Thanks for the post Will very good advice, but I would like to add my own which would be until one has the experience that sticking to Fast zooms means less changing of lenses so less possible problem with dust on sensor, fewer lenses to carry, less to think about in the pressure of the moment.

The prime vs zoom question is a very basic and, I think, somewhat personal one. The advantages that Jonathan mentions for zooms are real and worth considering.

One of the things I liked about the Pentax system was its selection of excellent small primes. I'm liking these new Sony primes that I have: the DT 30 f/2.8 SAM and the 50 f/1.8, both ultra-light (due to plastic framing). I don't have a scale handy but I think that these two lenses combined weigh less than the excellent Tamron 17-50 zoom. And they have their advantages. The Sony 50 f/1.8 prime has a 1+ stop advantage over the Tamron zoom

But in the end it's a pretty personal decision, with no absolute wrong answer. Primes and zooms both have advantages — and disadvantages. So there's an upside and a downside no matter which way you choose to go. The thing that makes the most sense is to find what you feel most comfortable working with, and use that. But that takes experience (and probably takes money, because you may have to buy or borrow lenses and work with them before you realize that you don't like them that much...).


Will