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Mamiya Lens
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Regardless if you are an amateur or a professional photographer, if you commit yourself to a wedding you must have top notch photo equipment. Countless times I've seen wedding photographers shooting a wedding with less than standard equipment. This is not only very unprofessional, but it is also very risky; if something goes wrong with your amateur camera, go tell the bride that you can't finish the job.

What is an adequate photographic equipment for a wedding photographer? Simple: the top, the best, the most expensive. No way around it. It is useless for me to list camera models here, because especially with digital photography, cameras evolve very quickly and before long this article would be dated. Instead choose a brand among the world's five best (Leica, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Canon, Nikon), look at the top 3 most expensive cameras... and pick one. That is the camera you will be expected to use at a wedding. Anything less will not be top notch photo equipment.

What are the lenses you need for a wedding? The more the better. Each lens gives you a different point of view and a different prospective. So why limit yourself... get as many as you can afford. Each different lens will open new possibilities by enabling you to get new ideas. As a rule of thumb, you will be expected to carry at least three lenses: a wide angle, a normal lens and a telephoto lens.

Because of the several moving optical elements, zooms are not very good quality wise (unless you spend really a lot of money) but they are commonly used at weddings when the photographer shoots using the reportage style.

What about the flash? Flashes are an integral part of your photo equipment. Believe it or not, I have encountered people that intended to shoot a wedding without a flash... simply because they didn't have one. Were they mad? No, they were just amateurs and unfortunately the market is filled with those. Most of a wedding day takes place indoors and you must have some sort of light aid, or most of the photos will obviously be improperly lit. Once again, only buy top notch flashes, yes I said flashes, because you need at least two of them: one to use and one as backup. There are two main brands for flashed: Metz and Quantum Instruments. Regarding Metz, I advise you not buy the latest Mecablitz 76 MZ-5 as in my opinion is a poor flash.

As a professional photographer, I am always looking for the very best performance in a flash, as well as in all my photo equipment. My wonderful old Metz 60 CT-4 was getting old, so I thought it was time to update. I got this new digital flash thinking it would have been just better than the previous one, but I was wrong. I used it once and sold it!

My first disappointment was when I realized that the recharging time is longer than the 60 CT-4... I imagined that the compact battery, as a result of technological development, would have performed at least like the one on the old 60 CT-4, but instead it's just a smaller/less powerful battery. On a wedding job I usually rotate the head of the flash all over the place all the time. This new Mecablitz 76 MZ-5 flash has a locked head; to rotate it you have to press a button in the back, which is not that easy and/or comfortable to do and it got me stuck a few times, causing me to miss that special shot.

I was in a quiet church when all of a sudden the newly installed cooling fan at the bottom of the head turned on... it is relatively loud and some people turned around to see what it was. To me it sounded like a vacuum cleaner and I simply cannot go around churches with photo equipment that gets people turning around... the job of a wedding photographer requires discretion. This fan stayed on for a long time, causing me some embarrassment...it just wouldn't stop! The ready flash beep is also very loud and it also gets people turning around, other than really bothering my hearing and nerves. There is no way to lower the volume. When using it in manual it is not as straightforward as the old 60 CT-4; you have to change the f/stop by pressing a few buttons on the control unit... when things are happening fast in front of you there simply isn't time to go through these electronic menus, that require me to put some extra thought and attention into them... nothing beats the old 60 CT-4 with clear manual dials that you can change without even looking.

In the whole I believe this is the worst flash Metz has ever produced. The only positive thing about it is that you can change the power of the small fill flash by operating a little dial on the site. As a result of this sad experience, I bought another old 60 CT-4, still king of flashes.

Used photo equipment is often very cheap, but make sure you get it from a proper dealer that took the time to test it and refurbish it. Professional equipment is usually worn out by the time it is sold, so make sure you are not throwing away your money.

Michael Valeriani
www.find-a-wedding-photographer.com

Independent free advice to find a wedding
photographer in the UK, USA, Canada AND
plenty of advice on countless wedding issues.

What kit do you need to photograph a wedding?

Unfortunately there’s no one answer to this.   It really is tremendously varied.  Plenty of photographers I know demand the latest, fastest DSLR and as far as they are concerned, nothing else will do.  But that is not how we were working a few years ago.  High speed autofocus is relatively new and some photographers are now rebelling against that and paying a small fortune for lenses designed with manual focus in mind, as they once always were.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was being told by many professional photographers that digital will never compete with film and was therefore a waste of time.  At that time I had a Mamiya 120 roll film camera and an early Olympus digital in the camera bag.  I ignored the advice of those photographers, who told me that there was no future in digital and showed pictures to my clients and my potential clients.  Back then there was a bit of an argument going on and so many photographers were writing articles about digital quality being nowhere near as good as film.  When I was asked whether I would shoot their wedding digitally or on film, I answered that that was their choice and showed them the results of my work from both cameras side by side.  100% chose digital 4 megapixel over medium format film.  I never looked back.  Curiously I have recently found myself defending friends who have chosen to stay with film.  What they do works for them and whilst I wouldn’t do it myself I can see why it is good for certain business models and certain photographers.  Digital is not necessarily easier or cheaper than film.

My personal opinion regarding cameras is that most mid-range and top end digital SLRs are more than capable of providing you with the basic tool to photograph a wedding.  I don’t want to talk right now about what you need to know to photograph a wedding successfully because that subject is not one essay.  The short version is a good few seasons of wedding photography.   Then there is processing, digital imaging, album design, presentation, wedding service promotion.  The book will have to come later.  

So let’s do this simply and pretend that greys are actually black and white and I am going to talk a little bit more about my personal preferences now and how I would build a camera bag from scratch, if I just had money and my knowledge but not the great stack of equipment I presently carry.  I guess for this scenario to work, we have to envisage some kind of event where my camera bags and kit is burned away and I have an insurance claim to start again.  The thought of that fills me with dread but if it did and I were, here’s what I would probably do:

First get a hammerhead flashgun and batteries – Metz or Quantum
Then a few camera bags – a big one for lugging a full day’s kit around together, such as a Lowepro Commercial AW or similar.  Also a smart rucksack, such as a Bilingham or Lowepro and then also some well padded satchels, such as the Billingham Hadley or one of the Tamrac shoulder types.  
Tripods and monopods from Manfrotto.  One really big tripod, one standard and a monopod.

All of the above is fairly straight-forward but now it stars to get complicated.

Lenses.  I would want a variety, from fisheye up to about 300mm, a macro and a lensbaby for fun.  I wouldn’t necessarily take every lens with me to every job.  It’s going to vary depending upon what the location offers.  The macro is unlikely to be with me in the evening.   There is a strong argument for prime lenses but lenses are heavy and one does have to think about how useful you can be once carrying several of them, so perhaps one prime lens for low light level  photography and differential focus, make the macro a prime and also the fisheye focus and then the rest on zooms or we are going to be like a broken camel.  

I am personally very keen on the new 18-200mm zoom lenses.  When you are working fast, you can do so much with one of these.  You can be in a small area arranging a family group picture at the 18mm end but then if you find yourself waiting for one person to complete the group, you can make head shots of everyone with the same lens zoomed in to 200, whilst you are waiting.  

Camera body:  Whatever works.  Something nice that fits in with all of the above, talks politely to my flashgun and has a good feel to it.  

Then some cards – probably CF of some professional range with good reviews, rescue software and a 24hr helpline.  

After that it’s really just toys.  I am particularly fond of remotes and autometers at the moment.    I also have a silent top-end snap-shot camera and between the autometer and the silent camera, we have made some pretty good pictures in churches where pictures during the service were not allowed upon the basis that clicking and flashing can be a distraction.  Since the silent camera neither flashes not clicks, we think we are doing good by the church and the couple, as they get a good record of events, where they were told there would be none.  

What do you carry with you when you are photographing?
Or what would you take if you were starting from scratch or building your fantasy camera bag?

About the Author

David Day BA(Hons) LBIPP is a professional photographer and business owner based in Nottingham

fish eye lens for older mamiya/sekar 1000 DTL camera?

wondering if there was a good lens that I could use on this older camera :

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/mamiya/mamiya_1000dtl/1000dtl.htm

thanks!

It uses a screw mount for lenses and therefore any screwmount lenses that would go on older Pentax, Yashica, Mamiya,Ricoh, etc willwork on it. there is no shortage of glass for them.

Try www.keh.com

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Adobe released the final version of its Camera Raw 6.1 update on Wednesday, three weeks after the latest beta was released. The 62MB update is only for Photoshop CS5, Photoshop Elements 8.0, and Premiere Elements 8.0 users.

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