Over the next week or so I will be posting a series of articles aimed at both potential customers and fellow photographers who are being just a bit nosey and who to my blog. The articles will range from an in-depth explanation on documentary wedding photography, through to some questions that I frequently get asked by clients. I will be starting off with an explanation on what equipment I use to produce my documentary style wedding photography.

I hope you find these articles of some use, please do leave comments or ask any questions you like.

Now, before I start on this, I want to make a couple of points, first of all, I am totally NOT a camera geek, secondly, an amazing camera is not the number one must have item to produce amazing imagery. There is an old saying out there in camera land that only “amateurs can afford professional kit”, whether you think this is true or not is up to you, but it is definitely food for thought don’t you think?

Every genre of photography might have it’s own set of ‘equipment requirements’, for instance, if you are a sports photographer, you might have a series of long lenses with a camera that can take a billion frames a second, if you are a portrait photographer, you might have a camera body with a thousand megapixels and one of two fixed length prime lenses.

Wedding photography is no different; however, a word of warning, not all wedding photography is the same. You have wedding photographers out there where they might use a long lens to ‘pick’ people off from afar, thereby loosing all context around an image, they might well be almost remote from the wedding itself, preferring to stay at a distance to grab close-up ‘mug-shots’ with a big old lens. If this is the way you shoot weddings, then fine, but for me, I prefer to get in nice and close with a short focal length lens, mingling amongst guests and actually being part of the wedding day. This enables me to tell the story of the wedding from a very intimate position (please note, that’s not to say I spend the day quaffing champagne and nibbling on your canapé’s!).

Let’s look the definition of the word ‘documentary’:

“Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter”

So from that we can see that documentary wedding photography is wedding photography, without fiction. So, real, not made up, shot as it happens, for me, this cannot be done by standing afar and picking people off with big lenses like some sort of sniper. Sticking to the point about fiction, let me just say something about flash, flash is not real, it’s not natural, off course, it can help out in situations where there really is no light of any sort, but it is something I try to stay away from 99% of the time. I prefer to shoot my images using natural light. Whether this be in the church, in beautiful woodland, or in a cosy reception venue, I will do everything I can not to use flash. Flash can be very unflattering to the human face, when set up properly, and when time is taken to set it up properly it can work, but I would prefer to spend the time taken to set up a complicated light set-up to continue documenting your wedding as it happens.

Being part of the wedding enables me to get shots like this

Now onto what equipment I use at a typical commission.

Camera bodies

My main camera body is the Canon 5D Mk1. This camera is a proper good workhorse, its high ISO capabilities are top notch, it’s very, very reliable, and produces images that are consistently of an amazing quality. Its rugged and built to last, I don’t really treat my cameras with kid gloves, they get bashed, dropped and generally abused, having a camera that can stand up to these rigours is vital to me.

I also have a back-up camera body, this is a Canon 20D, again, rugged as you like and perfectly capable of taking high quality photographs.

Between them, these two cameras are ultra reliable, and as I’ve been using them for years, I know them inside out, meaning I spend no time fumbling for settings and missing shots.

Lenses

I use only 3 main lenses for wedding photography; they are all prime lenses and are perfect for my style of documentary wedding photography.

Canon 35mm L F1.4
This lens is the one I use most on my wedding commissions; its focal length is perfect for my style of wedding photography. You can get close to the action, without the distortion of wider angle lenses. It is just fab, even though I am not a camera geek, this lens is just the best!

Canon 50mm F1.4
Together with the 35mm, this is the lens I tend to use most when shooting weddings. It produces buttery smooth images with amazingly warm colours. It is not the most advanced 50mm lens out there, but I love it. It’s very small, and having it on my camera makes it feel almost like using an old school Leica camera of the past.

Canon 85mm F1.8
This is the lens I use least of. It normally comes out if I cannot get close to the ceremony it’s self. It is also a cracking lens for informal bridal portraits; it produces rich earthly tones and reproduces skin tones to excellent effect.

That is pretty much all I take, I have a 24-70mm zoom lens that I occasionally use in church services where it sometimes might not be possible to move around as much. Having a small selection of lenses and kit is a real blessing for me. I really would have it no other way, wandering around with masses of kit is not my idea of fun; neither does it make me inconspicuous when photographing your wedding!

I hope that served as an explanation on what kit I use and why, if you have any questions or want to add anything, please feel free to comment.