Exploring other gear tips

Before we wrap up our conversation about gear, here I want to share with you a few tips, a few things that you might consider when you're thinking about what gear to bring when you're photographing a wedding. Let's start off over here on the right. I have two cameras set here on the table, and I have those two set here for a really important reason. Whenever you're capturing pictures of something important, you almost always want to bring with you a backup camera, because you never know when your camera might not function, and at a wedding, that would be catastrophic. Now if you don't own two cameras, no big deal.

See if there's one that you might be able to borrow, well, of course you could always rent another camera, and even if you don't use it, it'll give you a peace of mind. It'll help you capture better images, because you're not worried about your camera, because you know that you have a backup. Another thing that you might want to consider is having a gear bag. You know, some of us don't have gear bags, and that's fine except at weddings I find having a gear bag is essential. Here's why. You're going to be shooting with one camera and lens, you want to put your backup camera and other lenses somewhere, and you want to be able to tuck those away so that they're safe.

The camera bags that I tend to use are Lowepro bags, because they're simple they're strong, they discrete, and it gives me the ability to kind of tuck my gear out of the way, so I don't have to worry about it. But either way, whatever you decide regards to your own camera bags, choose something that you think will work and fit in the size of your gear so that you can protect and transport your gear in an effective way. Another thing you might want to consider is bringing some water and perhaps some snacks. You know, when you photograph a wedding, you are on your feet, and you are going and going and going, and that might help you out, it might give you a little extra boost of energy so that you're a bit more self-reliant and focused on capturing good images.

Now in regards to capturing the images, you may need something which allows you to perhaps offload or store your images, perhaps if you have a compact flash card in your digital camera, and you don't have a lot of those, you could have a compact flash card reader and a laptop and hard drive so that you could offload and back up those images on location. Last but not least, you want to bring something to be able to clean your gear, like these items over here. I was photographing one wedding, and I was taking a picture of this little kid and he was so cute, he was eating wedding cake, and I was getting really close to him to get a nice close-up portrait and he reached out with cake on his hands and he smudged the front of my lens.

Now at that point I needed to clean that off. I couldn't keep shooting. So just know that that's going to happen. At weddings, expect the unexpected, bring some supplies so that you can clean your gear.