Today we’re talking about how to choose the right gear for wedding photography.
As a wedding photographer, one of your biggest business expenses will likely be your camera gear.
Weddings are high-pressure, high-stress, one-chance-only events where it’s expected that we have reliable, durable, versatile, high-quality gear.
Additionally, we need to have a backup of everything because there’s no excuse for missing the moment.
In this article, I’ll talk through how to determine your priorities for your equipment, how to set a realistic budget, and then specific criteria for selecting the items in your kit.
After over 13 years of photographing weddings, I’ve learned the essential equipment that helps the day go smoothly so that I can deliver exceptional images of unforgettable memories.
How to Choose the Right Gear for Wedding Photography
There is so much photography gear out there that it feels impossible to determine what we need.
And as wedding photographers, we have to be able to do it all, so sometimes we feel like we need to have it all.
But the reality is that there is such a thing as too much gear.
Your photography gear needs to help you capture epic and memorable wedding photos.
It doesn’t need to get in your way or slow you down.
As we discuss how to choose your wedding photography gear, I will encourage you to approach things with a minimalist mindset.
Quality of gear is more important than quantity. The gear you use is more important than the gear that you pack and carry around without using.
Choosing the right gear is sometimes about making sure we don’t choose the wrong gear.
Gear that takes up space in your bag but isn’t ever actually useful is the wrong gear.
Oh, and gear that you don’t even know how to use is definitely the wrong gear.
The gear that makes your bag so heavy that you can’t keep up with the wedding schedule is the wrong gear.
The wrong gear is gear that breaks your budget and keeps your business from being profitable.
Avoid those common traps and instead, let’s figure out what photography gear wedding photographers actually need.
What Photography Gear Do Wedding Photographers Need?
I think it helps if we break a wedding day into the various aspects of the timeline.
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The thing that makes weddings so fun and so hard at the same time is that we have to shoot a variety of styles of photographs in a variety of conditions.
We might start inside with candids of getting ready, but eventually, we’re shooting portraits in harsh light before we head inside to deal with low-light conditions.
Sometimes we’re posing our couples and sometimes we’re anticipating fast-moving subjects as they move around a venue or bust moves on the dance floor.
In addition to the variety of skills that wedding photographers must possess, there’s a variety of gear required.
As we walk through the different parts of the wedding day, I’ll help identify the different gear that you need.
Then, we’ll put the puzzle together to see if there are some items that can play double duty.
Getting Ready
When you first show up at a wedding, you’re often shooting getting-ready photos of the bride and groom.
This might include details of the dress and rings, but we’ll talk about that in a later section.
Getting ready photos are often about candid moments that the couple is spending with their friends or family in anticipation of the wedding ceremony.
Sometimes couples get ready in spacious and nicely lit homes or hotel rooms, but there are many times that I’ve captured these photos in a dark, cramped cabin.
At the very least, I know I need a fast, wide-angle lens that will allow me to work in tight corridors.
I usually prefer a 35mm lens with a low minimum aperture so that it will perform well in low light.
A decade ago, I used to also regularly need a flash to handle dark indoor conditions.
However, with a camera that has good low-light performance, that’s no longer always necessary.
You might still want a flash set-up for creative purposes, but it’s less of a need here and more of a bonus.
Let’s move on to the main wedding day event – the ceremony.
Ceremony
The main event of a wedding day, the reason we’re all here, is the ceremony.
In fact, if a couple is only able to hire a photographer for a short period of time, the ceremony is likely one of the most important parts of the wedding day to cover.
Now, I will say from personal experience that despite the ceremony being the reason for a wedding, some couples don’t actually put that much thought into it.
But the ceremony is supposed to be the important moment when a couple commits to each other and commits to their marriage.
Ceremonies are easy to photograph in some ways and extremely difficult in other ways.
For one, they’re fairly predictable.
Wedding ceremonies usually follow a logical order that a photographer can anticipate.
Additionally, there are certain consistent important moments such as exchanging vows, exchanging rings, and a first kiss.
There’s also a processional, recessional, and often some music or audience participation.
Let’s talk about what this all means about what gear wedding photographers need.
These are important moments that only happen once; you only get one chance to get the shot.
This means wedding photographers want reliable camera gear.
For me, this means a durable, high-quality camera as well as a backup camera.
Then, you want lenses of the right focal length to help you capture the ceremony.
Having a 35mm and 85mm are a common pairing, while some photographers prefer a zoom lens for flexibility.
(Read more about zooms vs primes here.)
For midday outdoor ceremonies, you’ll likely want polarizing filters to deal with glare, whereas for indoor ceremonies, you need fast lenses to deal with low-light conditions.
I also generally ensure I have fresh batteries in my cameras before a ceremony starts, so having extra batteries is a must.
Lighting a ceremony, in my opinion, can be disruptive and obtrusive as well as impractical.
However, there are times when I use an off-camera flash to create something specific or end up using flash out of necessity because a venue is so dark.
Portraits
Let’s move on to wedding photography gear needs from another portion of the day.
This is probably the second most important part of the day: the portraits.
I am referring to couples portraits, bridal party portraits, and family portraits.
When it comes to lenses, different photographers have different focal length preferences for portraits.
It’s common to want something in the 85mm length because it’s very flattering for portraits.
However, you’ll also want something wider, like 35mm, for group portraits so that you can fit everyone in the frame.
While I prefer to shoot portraits in natural light because it’s more efficient and pleasant for the subjects, it’s important to have a plan for lighting portraits.
I’ve had a wedding day get so delayed due to traffic that we shot portraits in the dark.
Or on another one, the lighting was so bad I had to have fill light to avoid everyone looking like raccoons.
And there’s more than a few times the couple wanted portraits indoors at the ceremony site and the lighting needed to be supplemented.
Many photographers also use light modifiers for their portraits and, again, polarizers for outdoor conditions.
Details and Scene Setting
Another portion of the day that it’s important to think about is capturing the details and scene setting.
While I personally would rather photograph all the people than all the stuff, I’ve found that couples want at least some detail shots.
It makes sense, after all, because they spend so much money on the venue, flowers, food, centerpieces, dress, shoes, invitations, and more, that they want it all immortalized.
Capturing details is different than other parts of the day.
Some photographers might use a macro lens for something like a ring shot, but I tend to do what I can with a low aperture lens where I can get nice bokeh.
Scene setting is also crucial for telling the story of the day and my favorite way to do this is to have Marc fly our drone for epic landscapes of the venue. (I’ve written more about drone photography for weddings here.)
Where drone photography isn’t allowed or practical, then we include some landscapes and landscape portraits.
This is one of the reasons we love our 16-35mm lens.
Reception
Now, finally, we’ve made it to the reception.
And if we hadn’t worked hard enough already, we’re about to work even harder.
The lighting conditions at wedding receptions can be very challenging.
At outdoor weddings it gets dark, at indoor weddings you might have weird color temperatures or shadows.
For wedding receptions, I think it’s important to have a variety of lighting gear to help with all the different situations you might encounter.
This might mean on-camera flash, bounce flash, off-camera flash, light stands, sandbags to keep your light stands from getting knocked down, grids or other light modifiers, a video light, and plenty of batteries for everything.
From a lens perspective, I like having fast lenses for these potentially low-light conditions.
I also like having a variety of focal lengths. While a 35mm is more versatile for working in tight conditions, having a nice 85mm shot of a speech can be wonderful.
Other Wedding Photography Gear Considerations
And now that we have all this gear, how do we carry it around?
We need a camera bag to transport our gear and then a separate bag for any reception-specific equipment.
Keep in mind that the more gear you have, the more you have to keep track of.
I suggest simplifying your gear list as much as possible and making sure each item achieves more than one purpose.
Then, we need a camera strap, holster, or some other way to carry our cameras and lenses.
Different photographers have different preferences for how they work and what they have with them at all times.
I know I always want to have extra batteries on my body because I can’t stop the show to run and get one.
I also like having a tripod for night shots or waterfall portraits.
And lastly, we need a computer, editing software, and back-up drives for dealing with the post-production workflow.
I suggest that you walk through an entire wedding day.
What are the different parts of the day and what are your specific needs from a gear perspective?
How do they match or differ from my own?
That will help you put together a gear list of things that you need to photograph a wedding.
Setting a Budget for Your Wedding Photography Gear
Now that we’ve put together a gear list of things that we need to photograph a wedding, it’s time to accumulate all that gear.
But, as I mentioned in the intro, it’s important to buy the gear that you can afford.
When you’re just starting out, you’ll keep your gear as simple and affordable as possible.
You want your business to make more money than it spends on gear.
As a husband and wife team, we have the advantage of being able to share gear and work together.
We collectively have a lot of lenses and are able to share the lenses between us.
You may decide that you’re going to make do with two lenses, and that’s a great decision if it’s an intentional one.
In order to set a budget for your wedding photography gear, you need to get a handle on your overall finances.
How much are all of your business expenses? How much income does your business make?
Using that information, you can set a reasonable gear budget for your photography business.
If you’re just starting out and only making 10k per year, you might only spend 1k on camera gear.
Alternatively, if you are making 100k per year, you might spend 10k on camera gear.
The good news is you won’t spend that much money every year.
By selecting durable gear, you’ll be able to purchase gear one time that lasts for a very long time.
And then, we sell old gear that still has value in order to buy upgraded gear.
Criteria for Selecting Gear for Wedding Photography
Now that we have a gear list and a budget, how do we select the actual specific items that we’re going to use?
I’ve separated this into three categories: cameras, lenses, and accessories.
Below you’ll find some tips and ideas for how to choose what gear to buy.
In general, I think good gear has to have value.
That means it helps you make more money than it costs you.
Good gear also needs to be durable so that you don’t have to stress about babying your camera gear while you’re running around at a wedding.
And finally, good gear performs its duty.
This means that your camera is reliable, with fast autofocus and good low-light capabilities, your lenses produce good image quality, and your accessories make your images better or make doing your job easier.
Let’s dive in.
Selecting Cameras for Wedding Photography
When it comes to selecting cameras for wedding photography there are a lot of opinions out there.
Each wedding photographer likely has their favorite camera and reasons behind it.
So how do you narrow it all down?
It’s time to go back to the list of requirements we made at the beginning of this article.
What does a wedding photographer’s camera need to be able to do?
As I mentioned, durability is key.
Battery life is another factor since your camera needs to be able to capture fast-moving critical events from sunrise to sunset, or thereabouts!
You have to carry your camera plus a backup camera around with you all day, so size and weight are other attributes to consider.
Your camera should be compatible with the lenses and flash system that you plan to use.
It needs to fit in your budget, of course.
And finally, your camera should be of a certain level of quality that your clients come to expect.
So, as you dive into all the potential camera options out there, you’ll want to consider all of those factors and, most specifically, the ones that are most important to you.
(For specific recommendations, check out our guide to the best cameras for wedding photography.)
Selecting Lenses for Wedding Photography
Next up, you’ll need to select lenses for your wedding photography business.
You’ll consider all of the factors already mentioned when it comes to cameras such as being in budget, durability, size and weight, and compatibility with your camera.
Then, beyond that, you’re likely choosing lenses based on your preferred focal length.
Do you want to shoot a 35mm and 85mm prime lens? Or would you prefer a more versatile zoom lens?
How many lenses can you afford and what focal lengths are a priority?
From there, when you’re comparing two lenses of similar focal lengths you’ll want to compare value and performance.
Is a more expensive lens going to perform well enough to justify the extra cost for your business?
Lenses can get very expensive and be a quick way to blow your budget.
You might want to focus on getting one or two lenses of higher quality rather than a handful of crappy lenses.
Here are some gear guides that can help with which lenses to check out:
Selecting Accessories for Wedding Photography
Finally, it’s time to select accessories.
Hopefully, by now things are getting a little easier.
You’ll look for accessories that are in your budget, durable, compatible with your other gear, and of reasonable size and weight.
Some accessories will be personal choices, such as if you want a trendy camera backpack or a waterproof and indestructible one.
Do you want a camera strap or a holster, or do you have another preferred way to carry your camera?
Others will take less insight since you need to clean your gear but the exact cleaning kit might not matter as much as the gear that it’s cleaning.
Some accessories will push you toward making a quality choice, such as memory cards and batteries.
Since a poor battery life or a failed memory card could quickly ruin your day, you must go with a reputable brand for those two items.
Summary of Choosing Gear for Wedding Photography
In summary, wedding photographers might have a hefty gear list which can result in a hefty equipment budget.
It’s important to think through a wedding day to determine what you need and require of your wedding photography gear.
Then, you’ll want to make sure you set a realistic gear budget based on the actual numbers of your business.
And finally, you’ll want to consider different factors and features when narrowing down the specific equipment that you plan to purchase.
Budget will be a factor that quickly leads us to a cost versus value equation.
Does what something costs make sense with the value that it adds to your business?
From there, you may have your own list of priorities that may or may not include things like durability, quality, compatibility, and size/weight.
Let’s put that into a list of factors to consider when choosing gear for wedding photography:
- Fits your budget
- Accomplishes a specific need
- Provides great value for the cost
- Durability and reliability
- Compatibility with your other gear
And some specifics to help you create your own wedding photography gear list:
- Camera with good battery life and plenty of spare batteries
- Lenses of your preferred focal length, ideally with great low-light performance
- Lighting equipment and modifiers for the various scenarios you find yourself in
- A way to carry all of your gear both on your body (camera strap) or on your back (camera backpack)
- Reliable memory cards
I hope that helps clarify what gear you might want to consider as a wedding photographer.
My husband Marc writes gear reviews for Shotkit, while I write more about photography advice. While Marc loves the intricate specs of various pieces of equipment, I love what that equipment allows me to do.
That’s probably why our combined perspective is so practical. We love gear, but we want our gear to make our jobs easier!
Wishing you an incredible wedding season and gear that has your back!
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