 shannon |
New Lenses for Shooting a Wedding I am preparing to shoot a wedding for a friend. I have a Nikon N80. At this time the only lens I have for this camera is a Quantary telephoto. What lens would you suggest for me to purchase to either replace or upgrade this lens? I also just inherited a Pentak K 1000. It has a 50 mm lens. Any suggestions to upgrade or replace this lens? Thank you!
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doug Nelson |
A telephoto is a specialized purpose lens. Get a 50 for the Nikon. You camera MAY take manual focus AIS lenses. If so, you'll save some money. The 50 will give you the best possible optical quality for this important responsibility you've taken on. See keh.com for reasonably priced 50's. Alternatively, you could use the Pentax with the 50 you already have. Practice with the 50, being sure you know how to focus accurately. No upgrade is necessary. Pentax never made a bad 50.
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shannon |
Thank you! A friend that I have spoken to suggested a 17 - 28. Would that be a good lens to get?
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doug Nelson |
That lens may be good for interiors and landscapes, but one of the worst choices for a wedding. The edges of photos shot with extreme wides show bowing outward, making egg-shaped heads of folks on the edges of groups. Zooms, unless they're state-of-the-art, show more distortion than single focal length lenses (primes). Shoot some film of small groups with what you're going to use, and let us know of problems that may show up.
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Maynard McKillen |
Dear Shannon: Doug hit it on the mark about the 17-28. I can imagine one specific way to use it that will likely produce a saleable image. Use it to photograph the bride and groom alone. Keep them in the center of your viewfinder so they will not be distorted, and compose the photo to keep large and/or brightly colored objects away from the edges of the image, where they will be distorted and might compete for attention with the bride and groom. This might work for an interior photo, or for an exterior, but I'd spend some time looking through the viewfinder to find a locale where background elements really help make the photo by leading the viewer's eye to the center, where you've placed the wedding couple. If you put good lens shades on those 50mm lenses, and leave them there, you'll minimize flare and improve image contrast. Is the Quantaray zoom something on the order of an 80-200 f/4-5.6? If so, and you shoot at about f/8, it can probably produce some good head shots, head and shoulder portraits, and head to waist candids. A powerful flash is often the one item missing from the bag of a newer wedding photographer. That and a decent source of power for the flash like a quantum turbo battery. A high percentage of wedding photos, even (maybe I should say especially) the outdoor ones, can be improved with fill flash. A flash with a guide number of 120 in feet for ISO 100 film is probably the bare minimum, and a unit with a guide number of 160 or higher with ISO 100 film will be even better, especially if you have a large wedding party to photograph.
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shannon |
Wow! Thank you for your answers! It is really great that you are willing to share your knowledge and experience to help others who are just getting on their feet! Have a WONDERFUL Day!
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John A. Lind |
Maynard has given some sound advice. If you have never done a wedding before, and your posting reads as if you haven't, see my :Wedding Survival Guide http://johnlind.tripod.com/wedding/ It's intended for friends/relatives of bride/groom who find themselves committed to doing one. It's *not* intended for those who want to get into the business of being paid to do them. It does discuss some of the things Maynard wrote about. Although I use a lot more equipment for a wedding, you can do one with minimal equipment if you know how to use it properly. Don't underestimate film and battery requirements. Running out of either is catastrophic. Think also about how you will recover and continue shooting if something quits working properly or is accidentally damaged . . . and plan what you will do in advance. One of the secrets to successful wedding work is planning, preparing equipment for it beforehand, and thinking ahead about what will happen, what should happen, what *could* happen instead, and how you will react to things. It's rare that a wedding goes exactly as planned from start to finish (including reception). Flexibility to "go with the flow" when things depart from the original plan for a while is important. For the inexperienced, it's also getting some doing similar types of things with camera, lens and flash . . . both with portraits, posing people and making groupings of them, and with photojournalistic type shooting that requires anticipating events before they unfold so you can "be there" and then timing the shot at the "decisive moment." A couple comments about auto-focus cameras that I don't believe is in my tutorial. Auto-focus systems on consumer cameras with slower lenses (narrower maximum aperture) can have a devil of a time in the very low light often found during the dancing at a reception. I recommend you **test** the ability of your AF camera to focus in low light with the lens you plan to use for this! If it has real trouble, learn how to use and focus the Pentax with its fast 50mm and likely much brighter viewfinder, and think about using that in low lighting. BTW, I've done entire weddings with nothing but fast 50mm standard lenses and "shoe leather" zoom. Requires a little more work, and occasionally some "fancy dancing" with composition (if one cannot work, use imagination and do something different), but photogs did it for decades before there were zoom lenses. Good Luck,
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Ben McDonald |
Just a follow up to the first response... Your N80 will NOT meter with manual focus lenses, stear clear of these. Ben McDonald
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