Pentax Wedding Photography

I thought I'd start a thread so we can explain our choice of Pentax kit for weddings. The subject has been aired a few times, but condensing thoughts into one spot might be helpful.

Sue and I shoot a wedding together, covering different aspects at the same time, for example Sue covering the bride before the wedding and me the groom and best men. Then we shoot the wedding ceremony with me at the front and Sue waiting for bride and groom to exit.

For groups, we get someone to identify who is who and then Sue ushers them about and I shoot the groups. Then we do candids as well, covering whatever we fancy. We also do some experimental shots, depending upon opportunity, just to see if anything special crops up.

Kit is kept to a bare minimum. For me, 18-135mm, 35mm, 43mm and 360 flashgun. The flash is used very sparingly as I prefer to use available light wherever possible. Tripod only for a series of groups, such as guests, where it's a production line of people moving past the camera. Often no need at all for a tripod.

For Sue, 18-135mm and 50mm f/1.4.

And that's it. We shoot in JPEG and usually use four 4GB cards, two each. We rarely have to change a battery of the K-5, but have spares if needed. Likewise, lots of spare cards.

Backup camera is a K20D and a few other lenses are also taken along. A lens can fail as well as a camera, so it needs to be covered. Backup lenses include 16-45mm, 18-55mm, 55-300mm, 100mm Macro.

I tend to take a lot of formal shots, the sort friends and relatives don't get. So lighting is 1 400 w/sec and 1 250 w/sec Bowens heads with stands, soft boxes, refectors etc. 2 Pentax AF400t with Quantum battery pack and 1 AF360FGZ.

Camera bodies are a K20d and a *istDS as backup. Lenses are 16-45 and 18-55 zooms with 85mm f1.4 Opteka and 50mm Pentax F. I'll be taking the Q with fisheye lens in future too.

I started shooting weddings in 1977 with a Mamiya c330f Professional with 55 and 80mm lenses, you would get your knuckles wrapped if you shot more than eight rolls of film - 96 shots including the guests arriving! I still don't overshoot, which is even more important with digital because of the time spent afterwards.

I shoot RAW+ so that I can upload the JPEGS quickly to the client area of my website.

Hi John

That's really interesting thank you for sharing.

I just wondered about why you shoot on JPEG rather than RAW? Also when you're taking candid shots at the reception (first dance etc), how often do you have to revert to Flash rather than push the ISO etc?

Cheers

Andy

I get the exposure right and do minimal adjustment afterwards, so it saves a mass of time and computer space. I know some do batch conversions, but I don't see the point of shooting RAW unless we are going to deal with each exposure as an individual.

As regards the reception, etc., I will use available light and mercillessly up the ISO value as needed, Sue uses flash as she sees fit and we see which approach we prefer afterwards. Belt and braces approach! We often end up using the more atmospheric available light shots.

So you have two approaches so far, both being quite modest on kit used.

Anyone else?

I've only shot two weddings (so far) and have been limited in my choice.
I have a 30mm f1.4, 17-50 f2.8, 100mm macro f2.8 and 70-200 f2.8 and K-7 (soon upgrading to 2nd hand K-5)

I borrowed a 2nd body and would bring all lenses with me but use
certains ones at certain times-
the 100mm is very handy for candid shots at reception- not intrusive. And the 17-50 for reception.
I use the 30mm f1.4 for later in the evening when light is low.
The 70-200 can be good for the ceremony to capture faces in the crowd and details on the bride/groom.

At the last wedding I brought a monopod and (as descretely as I could) went to back of the alter, set camera to timer, lifted monopod up and got a good crowd shot from high up.
I'd use flash as little as possible.

Fran & I don't shoot a lot of weddings, but when we do our kit is: Three K5 bodies, lens wise we use two DA* 50mm - 135mm, one DA* 16mm - 50mm, one DA*55mm. We have started using flash, bouncing it with the blak fomie thing technique. sometimes use a pop up grided softbox on a stick with a Metz Flash trigered wirelessly. Like John I like natural available light. I have just purchased a Lastolite 8-1 Trigrip as I think this is a very versitile peice of kit that can be used for all kinds of lighting. We shoot RAW for numerous resons and use Photoshop to tweak the final images. We have a wedding on the 23rd of this month, and I am planning on trying some new creative ideas, time permitting. We are both still learning about wedding photography and constantly improving our craft. We try to provide people with what they ask for in terms of styles, formal and traditional shots, together with documentry and a creative twist and from the weddings we have done word of mouth works for us and future potential clients. I have not shot weddings with any other brand of camera, as Pentax works for me, it does what is says and I think very well.

Quite a few years ago, a "friend" asked me to take his wedding photos. He was made aware that I was (and still am) an enthusiastic amateur, so not to expect anything that was even remotely on a level with a pro photographer, and we proceeded on that basis. Since he and his prospective wife were on a tight budget, I was only too happy to take the photos as my wedding gift to them both. I thought I'd done not too bad a job with my Pentax SFX 35mm, and had ran off a few rolls of Kodak's Ektar film, and Fuji Velvia for the portraits of the bride, groom, and the bridesmaids. When I showed them the photos, my so-called "friend" went off on one about the quality of the work - I think if he'd got Patrick Lichfield to take them, he'd have picked fault. That severely dented my self-confidence, and questioned my own abilities with a camera, so it's fair to say that I will not be in any hurry to repeat the experience! I can only take my hat off to the guys that do wedding photography for a living - some of the demands upon them can be quite scary!!

Having said that - when I moved away from living in Maidenhead, the cheeky so-and-so's asked me to "give" them the cd-roms of the photos!! In response, they got an abridged quotation from the Holy Bible - you know the one, about "go forth and multiply".. I think you get the idea!

I'll stick to trying my hand at landscape and architecture - at least buildings don't complain although, according to Windsor Davies and Don Estelle, grass has a tendency to whisper quite a bit!

Great story Steven...Hope the mental wounds are healing. I too admire the wedding togs.

Can you share a link to any of the photos?
Here's some from my first wedding (I'm an enthusiastic amateur too).

I'd need to have a serious dig through all my files!! If I can find the cd's, I might re-visit the best photos, and do some PP on them. Whilst it's freezing outside during the winter months, I'll have something to occupy my time, although I dare say my wife won't be best pleased that I'm being a bit neglectful!!

Patrick, you've captured some lovely moments very well there.

and how much you wanna bet these same people pissed off ten or more professionals by calling them up, wasting thier time, telling them "I have a friend who has a nice camera who'll do it for (XXX many cents) then went around crying all photographers are rip off's...
people like this tottally destroyed the wedding industry in my area...
when a couple asks me my price without looking at my work, I tell them I'm booked without asking thier date... let them be my competitors headache, is my motto.

I shoot Linda organises, she has better organisational skills than me so she sorts out a shoot request list from the bride and works from that on the day.

I shoot with two bodies k-5 and gx-20 usually with the zooms attached.

I then use the 50mm 1.4 for the bridal shoots and the 35mm 2.4 to capture the decoration at the venue.

Flashes on both bodies for fill light.

I shoot RAW and do all editing in Lightroom.

Here's a small selection of my wedding work

link

a good plan. my spouse and i used to work it similarly nice to have a team!