What Is Wedding Photography?
Wedding photography is a photography niche that focuses on capturing the events of the wedding day. It also often includes an engagement photoshoot, boudoir photos, and the wedding preparations.
The photoshoot itself lasts from the beginning of the ceremony until the end, often until the middle of the night.
Recording the couple’s happiest day is truly motivating and uplifting. At each wedding, you get to experience a different love story and capture the couple’s love for one another.
At the same time, it is a quite stressful and demanding job. This is a once in a lifetime event for the couple, so you cannot afford to miss a single important moment of the day. You have to be everywhere all the time and provide quality service the whole day, with barely any time to rest.
But the result is totally worth the effort. Not only will you be able to capture such an important day, but you will also learn new skills – both technical and practical- that you will later be able to implement in various areas of photography.
Camera Equipment
Having the best camera equipment is very important in being a professional wedding photographer.
You need a full frame DSLR or mirrorless system that can handle everything this type of event can throw at you.
There are many different styles and locations you will photograph. The camera you will use may need to change at a moment’s notice.
That means offering the ability to work in high ISO and full frame sensor size. Having great focusing points will also help.
Shooting in RAW is a necessity, as this will give you more play when it comes to editing. Your system needs to be able to deal with different lenses too. You will need to use a wide variety of primes, or fast zoom lenses with great resolving power and extended focal range.
Also, having a backup camera (or two) will make sure that you are covered if something happens.
Having three cameras isn’t unheard of, as two cameras can operate while one serves as a backup.
The two-camera method is beneficial as one can sport a prime for portraits. The other one can host a zoom for unexpected moments.
How to Choose the Best Camera for Wedding Photography
Wedding photography requires several features that combine the advantages of sport and portrait cameras.
The camera has to be able to perform well in low light, have fast autofocus, has to have a variety of lenses compatible with the brand and the body.
This is our extensive list of what digital cameras are great for shooting weddings.
What’s the Best Lens for Wedding Photography
Lenses are the most important pieces of kit you will need.
It is completely possible to shoot a wedding ceremony with one lens (great example), but that lens will need to be a zoom.
Ideally, you’ll want to have at least a few lenses to make sure you’ve covered all your bases. Owning more lenses will allow you to capture moments in a cramped church as well as outside in a brightly lit park.
There are a few focal lengths and features that are standard for every professional wedding photographer. This article gives you seven of the best lenses to use for a complete wedding package.
Which Tripod Should You Choose for Wedding Photography
Better to have a tripod and not need it than the alternative. As far as wedding photography tips go, you will benefit greatly from having one around.
In situations where group photos are taken, the tripod is a secure place to keep your camera.
It lets you use both hands when directing the excited family. Or tinkering with the flash units.
Also, it will keep the view perfectly still, getting the guests to pose in the frame, not trying to work around them. It reduces camera shake due to the mirror flick up.
More importantly, it will give you a chance to shoot remotely with your second camera.
Wedding Photography Accessories
There are a ton of accessories designed to make your photographic life easier. Some are a necessity, such as camera bags, a lens cleaning kit, and memory cards.
If you don’t have all these add-ons, you can still capture amazing wedding shots. You’ll get them next time.
You don’t have to buy all the accessories at once, but you will find that the more of these you can afford, the easier your wedding photography workflow will be.
13 Essential Wedding Photography Accessories For Better Photos
There are a few important things you need to think of wedding photography in Bucks. The more kit you have means the more accessories you need.
Some accessories, such as rain covers and extra batteries will make your work during the wedding day a little easier.
Some, on the other hand, are an absolute must. You definitely don’t want to get into wedding photography without having a reliable flash and tripod.
While these accessories can provide to be really helpful, you need to calculate them into your budget.
Read our list of important accessories and see which you and your wedding photography could benefit from.
21 Wedding Photography Props You Should Use
To make your wedding photos even more outstanding, there are some props that you can use for special effects.
There are many ideas that are not breaking your budget but still improve your photos significantly.
Some of the tips in the article include using a bouquet for ring close-ups, adding bokeh to the photo with fairy lights, and creating a foreground by using the bride’s veil.
For more tips and tricks, make sure to check out our article!
Best Memory Cards for all Photography Budgets – CF | SD | MicroSD
These are important, as they will be saving all of your beautiful images. At the actual wedding, your camera might be set to photograph in rapid succession.
This is called burst mode or continuous high-speed mode. Photographing many images in a short space of time will put your card under stress and pressure.
You don’t want a slow memory card in these circumstances. Here, the camera might stop and need time to go through the 15 images you just shot.
This is the area you can’t save money on. Get the fastest, best memory cards and they will reward you with amazing images.
Wedding Photography Lighting
Huge lighting setups like what you have in the photography studio are not an option as they distract the wedding and get in the way.
Using lenses with a fast aperture means getting the most light out of the scene.
Some areas, you might find you can’t use any lights. Generally, off-the-camera flashes such as Speedlites are fine and can be used simultaneously. In other areas, reflectors might help bounce the light back into the image.
Find out what you can and can’t do at the wedding and go from there
12 Wedding Photography Lighting Tips
This extensive article looks at lighting an entire wedding. Going from the dressing to the end of the wedding reception (party! ).
There are many different locations throwing different temperatures at you. They will need some thought.
The best way is to scout beforehand. Here, you are looking for light and settings that you need to capture powerful images. You also need to check the weather in the case of an outdoor photo session.
Natural light is a great way to illuminate your subject without too much gear.
Windows are very handy as they add a soft, spread out feel. This light will also be abundant with the outside shots, where you might want to use reflectors.
Speedlites will help fill in dark areas, and freeze motion when people are dancing. Utilize the light, and add where necessary.
How to Use a Flash for Wedding Photography
Whether you have to photograph in the middle of the day or at night, flash lighting is a great help to your wedding photography.
Using your flash during this time may help you to fill in light. You can also use a flash to add a more creative flair to your photos
They can be placed on your camera’s hot-shoe, and on a camera bracket. Or even handheld for fast adjustments. You can even sync many flash units at the same time.
This is great for different lights hitting the same scene from different angles. Go through our article here for all the information you will ever need.
How to Use a Wireless Flash Trigger
To use these Speedlites or any off-camera lighting system, they need to connect to your camera. A wireless flash trigger allows you to trigger the flash without any physical connection to the camera.
Wireless flash triggers consist of two parts, a receiver and a transmitter. They work on transmitting the information to the flash unit that has a receiver attached to it.
To learn more about how to use a wireless flash trigger, read our article!
How to Use a Photography Reflector for Perfect Lighting
Reflectors are super useful for portraiture and wedding photography. They are great because they don’t need batteries or cables and they fold away into small, pockets.
They are pretty inexpensive too and can have dramatic effects on your photography. Basically, they bounce and re-direct light back into the scene, thus soften harsh shadows.
These are great to add a fill light as if there is more than one light source. You’ll find they are flexible enough to bend and further shape the light and where it needs to go.
Read this article and you might find yourself modifying them into shoot-through reflectors soon enough.
How To Shoot Weddings
How to Master Your Wedding Photography Workflow
Gear is secondary to your approach, portrait posing, and composition.
From finding and communicating with the happy couple to the handing over of the images, photographing weddings is a lot of hard work.
Writing time your workflow will give your clients an example of all the steps involved in wedding photography.
This also helps you understand where your time goes. Which could help you explain why you charge $2000+ to capture such a special event.
Wedding Photography Checklist
Photography checklists are a great way to help you see what images are expected from wedding photography.
The list will help you know what to look for when it comes to researching and location scouting.
By all means, use our article for inspiration and a handy guide of what you should be photographing.
Going through our wedding checklist will allow you to focus on the next image.
25 Tips for the Amateur Wedding Photographer
These tips are designed to help you capture the best images at the wedding.
The initial communication is important, as you will find out about the couple’s ideas and wishes. This day is all about them and what they want to have captured.
Do as much research and scouting for light and settings as you need. This ensures you are prepared and confident on the wedding day. You are not a guest or a family member, you are working, so focus on the day at hand.
Read through a few more of our tips on how to ensure the day goes according to the plan.
A Wedding Photographer’s Secrets for Capturing Details
Capturing the small details is a very important area of wedding photography.
The wedding rings are the most important part of the ceremony. There are many ways photographers have captured these bands over the years.
Other details like close-ups of corsages, flowers and all the small parts that add flair to the wedding. Looking at the features of the clothing, for example, the shoes or even jewellery.
The small elements add to the overall scene and are a nice way to break up the wider shots of the guests and the location.
Which Wedding Photography Style Is Best for You
As every niche of photography, wedding photography also has its various approaches. When a couple chooses their photographer, what they first look at is the style of their images.
This is why it is super important to have a consistent, high-quality style that you can promise to deliver to your clients.
The approach you take to capture the big day is the thing that will determine how your photos look. You can choose to take pictures in a photojournalist’s way, but you can also experiment with the area of fine art photography.
