There are usually four kinds of photography lenses that every wedding photographer must have in his or her gig bag:
* Wide-Angle Zoom
* Wide-to-Telephoto Zoom
* Image Stabilized Telephoto Zoom
* Prime/Portrait Lenses
Wide-Angle Zoom: Wide-Angle zoom lenses are one of the most critical photography lenses that every wedding photographer should have, usually 17 mm to 35 mm in length with a fixed aperture of f/2.8. They provide a huge depth of field, making it simple to have foreground and background in focus. They are a vital wedding photography tools which allows flexibility in confined areas like a small banquet room or crowded dance floor. While shorter photography lenses allow you to capture more details, wide angle zoom lenses permit you to capture more reactions and atmosphere to tell a better story.
To explain further, wide-angle zoom photography lenses enable you to shoot a wider perspective of moments happening around the major subject, thus offering a greater picture of the entire event. For example, wide angle pictures have the capability to tell "stories inside a story", letting you reveal more of the story behind the shot. This is crucial for a good photojournalistic wedding photography. As events around weddings are extremely time sensitive, good photography lenses will allow you to capture as many actions or emotions in the quickest time as possible.
When used in a venue like the church or ballroom, wide-angle zoom photography lenses also magnify the grandeur and spaciousness of the area, which encapsulates the artistic feel for a photojournalistic wedding photography.
However, you have to be selective of the scenes or actions using wide-angle photography lenses, as a caveat to shooting wide is that it makes some body distortion, particularly when a subject is photographed close-up. Usually, people often look heavier and shorter on the edges, while arms can look huge. The last thing you want is to have the bride cursing you for making her look like she has put on ten pounds! To go around this problem, you should as far as possible avoid putting the bride and groom at the edges of the wide angle distortion. Additionally, wide angle photography lenses may also introduce distracting or undesirable elements into the frame, which could otherwise spoil a picture-perfect moment.
Wide-to-Telephoto Zoom: Wide-to-Telephoto lenses are the most crucial photography lenses that a wedding photographer cannot do without. They should ideally be lenses which cover around the 20-70mm focal length range with an aperture of f/2.8. This ideal range enables you to get wide enough to take a group picture and close enough to capture facial emotions in your candid shots or a three-quarter portrait of a couple without the undesirable effects of wide angle perspective distortion. They also double as good lenses for portraits. Given just this lens, you would be able to catch most of the shots essential for a wedding decently well.
Image-Stabilized Telephoto Zoom: Image Stabilized telephoto zoom lenses are also crucial components of your wedding photography tools checklist. The 70-200mm focal length is an important range for wedding ceremony pictures. It allows you to give your subjects more room in situations where you do not desire to obstruct. As you'll sometimes be photographing down the aisle from the back of the church, image stabilized telephoto zoom lenses will come in really handy. 200mm is good enough to be able to take 3/4 length images of the wedding couple exchanging their vows while staying at a fair distance away from the action and 70 mm is wide enough to take in the bridesmaids or groomsmen as a group without switching photography lenses.
A good point to note is that while using this kind of photography lenses, great blurred background could be achieved with highest wide apertures of f/2.8 and long focal lengths of 200mm or 300mm, whether you're using a full-frame or a small sensor body. This enables you to isolate the subject from its background, and to focus attention on the image as the main subject you desire to portray. Such photography lenses are specially useful for shots where you're unable to get in close and for personal and private moments, where you want to be an unobserved stranger at a distance. Some examples include a mischievous grin, a kiss, a stolen glance - the details that are effectively conveyed by the emotions. Image Stabilized telephoto zoom photography lenses therefore play a vital role in capturing those moments.
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