As a wedding photographer the decisions one makes on which lenses to attach to their camera during the course of a wedding ultimately impacts the creative ability to document a wedding.
The photographer has a decision to make when storytelling – to shoot a wide angle or close-up. The composition and the message that results can be conveyed completely differently with the simple choice of lenses at key moments during the festivities.
There are obviously advantages and disadvantages, some technical to shooting wide or tight.
Overall, there is a preference among wedding photographers to shoot wide angle. A lens under 24mm will capture a real snapshot of any scene, not only incorporating the main point of interest but much of the immediate atmosphere, reactions, and surroundings. Photographing with a wide angle lens enables the capture of more visual energy. On the technical side, a wide angle lens means you can work in tighter spaces, closer with crowds and using slower shutter speeds without introducing camera shake. However, most wedding photographers will stop short of using a fish-eye lenses during their coverage – such lenses render such super wide angles that they exhibit unflattering distortion of people in particular.
An added benefit of the wide lens remains that when mounted to a high resolution camera, the wide angle lens also offers the photographer the ability to crop-and-zoom in post production, providing an opportunity to experiment with different crops from a single wide shot.
Many wedding photographers continue to carry a telephoto lens despite their use being generally more restricted. Longer focal length lenses need more space to use, but the photographer doesn’t have to move as much – providing access to discreet and intimate photographs. For candid shots and portraits a telephoto lens is hard to beat. Of course, such lenses do a super job of isolating a subject from their background with bokeh, providing attractive backgrounds where none may exist. Despite their build and weight a long lens will capture detail and emotion and focus attention when needed.
When it comes to portraits and posed shots, a long focal length is preferable to avoid facial distortion and provide compression to the background (particularly in outdoors scenes). Images created with a telephoto lens deliver more obvious bokeh, such images take on a very three dimensional feel to them and work very well for bride and groom portraits.
Ultimately, there is rarely a right or wrong choice in shooting wide or narrow for the majority of typical wedding images. Many wedding photographers successfully opt to use wide and telephoto lenses as this compliments the storytelling ability of any wedding photographer.
Often the difficulties of deciding on lenses can be more mundane, such as finding the right time to change lenses and if you wish to carry a second camera body to enable you to flip between wide and narrow shots without a lens change. Similarly a zoom lens is considered to be a compromise of speed over quality and low-light ability.
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