Lens Recommendation For Wedding (Please Help)

[TCampbell]

Oh Robin, come on now. I know you love your primes too, but you can never go wrong with a 70-200L unless you are in a really tight space. Like a box.

Come on... Shooting with one crop camera with 70-200 is not a good idea. Wayyyyy too long. I feel really strongly about this. Everthing will be tight and and the background will be super compressed and blurred.

^^agreed. for ONE lens on a crop frame i would get the 24-70L. i would recommend you get the 16-35L as well, just to have something a little wider.
unless you are shooting in a VERY large area, thats really all you should need. we shoot most of our weddings in churches, and pretty much just use a 17-50 and 28-75.
rarely do we need anything longer than that. even the last beach wedding didnt require 200mm.

The only time I used this lens with a crop-frame body at a wedding was DURING the ceremony where you're limited in how close you can get. You're shooting from the back of the church or far to one side. The rest of the time I used the 24-70mm f/2.8.

Another lens I like for similar situations is the 135mm f/2L. It's too long for regular use at a wedding, but if you're at a distance, during the ceremony, in a dark church... having a long f/2 lens is nice.

As for the need for wide... with a "normal" lens (35mm on a an APS-C DLSR, 50mm on a full-frame DSLR, or 80mm on a medium format camera) if you were to take a photo of the full bridal party at the altar, the camera will need to be back far enough that anyone seated in the first 2 rows of pews (and possibly the 3rd depending on the church) would have the backs of their heads in the photos. If you don't have a wide lens, you'll have to ask that people watching or waiting for the formals please be seated in at least the 3rd (or 4th) pew back or they'll be in the pictures.

I will say that "back in the day" when we all used film and the good studios were shooting medium format with a Hasselblad or a Rollei or some other 2-1/4" camera and no zoom lenses, we had to re-create those shots after the wedding. So before the priest/minister/rabbi disappeared, we would re-create shots such as the blessing of the rings, the lighting of the unity candle, putting the rings on the fingers, etc. These are shots that today you can shoot with a moderately long lens good at dealing with low-light, but back then you'd be getting the shot from the back of the church and everything would be too small to see.

That is to say... if you don't have a long low-focal ratio lens, you *can* re-create the shot as long as you have enough time between the wedding and the reception. The formals will take 45 minutes. Now... before you gasp at how formals could possibly take 45 minutes (only those of you who haven't done this before will gasp... so gasping will give you away), recognize that you COULD, in theory, take all those shots in under 15 minutes... if only people didn't keep wandering off. "Where's gramma? Where's Uncle Fred? Someone go find Uncle Fred... we need Uncle Fred in this next photo." It's like herding cats.

 

[kathyt]

Oh Robin, come on now. I know you love your primes too, but you can never go wrong with a 70-200L unless you are in a really tight space. Like a box.

Come on... Shooting with one crop camera with 70-200 is not a good idea. Wayyyyy too long. I feel really strongly about this. Everthing will be tight and and the background will be super compressed and blurred.

^^agreed. for ONE lens on a crop frame i would get the 24-70L. i would recommend you get the 16-35L as well, just to have something a little wider.
unless you are shooting in a VERY large area, thats really all you should need. we shoot most of our weddings in churches, and pretty much just use a 17-50 and 28-75.
rarely do we need anything longer than that. even the last beach wedding didnt require 200mm.

I was putting myself in his role as a second shooter. Not the primary. He will be further back and maybe not so much in the main action pot. I change my lenses so much during the course of the day, who knows what the hell I use anymore! I need to go to bed. Too many crazies today at the workplace.