Wedding Photography Tips For Those With Limited Lenses

WWedding photography tips here on ImagesByCW – you are probably thinking right now with a big, fat question mark?! Well, I have done some in Europe, but not here in the US. Hence the wedding photography tips will be given by a fellow photographer who volunteered to share her knowledge with us in this guest post. A word of caution before you may be venturing into documenting that one, very special day in somebody’s life: Besides lenses and camera/settings there are a ton of other things you should check into. But now, please enjoy the wedding photography tips by Georgia, photographer / marketing executive and part of the team behind Bristol based wedding photographers Love-in-Focus

~ All photos by ImagesByCW Claudia Willison ~

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One of the major challenges of covering weddings is that they are mostly crowded, and you have too many important candid moments to cover. In such a case, you would ideally want to use a wide range of lenses, so you can quickly get the right shots with correct aesthetic value. However, sometimes, you don’t have so many lenses in your kit, especially if you’ve just recently started investing in your gear.

So what do you do when you have limited lenses?

1. Check your limitations

Check what lenses you have. Ideally, you should have a kit lens of about 18-105mm, which helps you to have a decent variety. Some people also like to have a variable lens of up to 200mm. Apart from that you must have at least one prime lens of 77mm or something similar, for portrait shots. If you don’t have these, then you should consider renting them for the day you need them.

2. Shoot on aperture priority

If you have fast lenses, then quite a lot of your problems get sorted. However, if you have moderate lenses, then you should ideally work on aperture priority for you to save time and get best results. There will be a certain maximum aperture that you’ll be able to touch. Beyond that, you’ll have to play with the ISO. When you go with the aperture priority setting, the camera takes care of a lot of things on its own, while you can focus on compositions.

3. Remember to move

When you keep standing at one place, you don’t really get to capture everything. So remember to move around a lot, to compensate for what your lens can’t do. If your lens is not tele enough, move closer. If it’s not wide enough, move back. You’ll have to adjust yourself as per the composition that you are trying to achieve.

4. Always shoot in RAW

Most people say that RAW is their savior to compensate for situations where one doesn’t have too many lenses. If you’ve managed to get the frame right, but a little lighting issue was caused because of your lens’ incapability, then maybe some post-production work or image re-touching will help. However, this can only be done correctly when you shoot in RAW. So don’t forget to do that.

5. Try and get another camera

So if you have two lenses, and you know that you are going to be at a wedding with lots of people, you can save time on constantly changing the lenses and the settings on your camera, if you have another camera with you. Borrow a friend’s camera, or rent one if possible. That’ll come in handy when you need to switch quickly to get candid moments. And that way, you won’t miss out on special moments because of lack of lenses.

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~ All photos by ImagesByCW Claudia Willison ~

So the next time you are covering a wedding with limited lenses, keep these points in mind, and you’ll be able to get great shots.

 

4b676b71-66d6-4299-9844-42bcf3496a0eThis post is authored by Georgia Perry. She is one of the finest photographers and loves writing about the same. She feels that the best photos are the ones having natural expressions rather than fake smiles. To know more about her work, Bristol wedding photography, visit their website.

1 thought on “Wedding Photography Tips For Those With Limited Lenses”

  1. Great ideas! I am not a wedding photographer, but I shoot almost everyday and I use a 50mm lens almost all the time. It takes some getting used to, but when I do what you recommend it seems to work out – mainly MOVE around to find the best shot! I don’t use aperture priority…usually I use manual but you are totally right, it could save me a lot of time! Great idea.

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