Choosing your lens for Wedding Photography

As nice as it would be to shoot with only prime lenses, having 3 cameras around my neck with 3 more lenses attached to my belt isn’t really practical and will only serve to intimidate partygoers. Having a high quality zoom lens makes life much easier and you wont miss any shots messing with your gear. Wide-angle zoom lenses, sometimes also called standard zooms, to the rescue.

I find the best lens for wedding photography to be a lens that covers somewhere around the 20-70mm focal length range with an aperture of f/2.8. This ideal range lets you get wide enough to avoid constantly reaching for a dedicated wide-angle lens and close enough to capture facial emotions in your candid shots. It also doubles as a good lens for portraits. In the end, this type of lens is on my main camera 80% of the day. Again, sorry Canon users but here is a short list for Nikonians to research.

Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 – INR 1,13,950/-

A new lens to Nikon’s lineup, and replaces the 28-70mm lens. It’s compact, very sharp and has a good focal range.

Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8 – INR 99,490/-

The previous standard for this type of lens. Built like a tank, but almost as heavy as one too. Not quite as wide as the newer Nikon lens above, but a great lens.

Nikon 17-55mm – f/2.8 – INR 93,450/-

This was Nikons first DX wide-angle zoom that has the needed constant f/2.8 aperture. Its angle of view is great and versatility unbeatable. Having used this lens and loved it, the only caution I would give is to seriously consider your upgrade path ahead. This lens will be at a great disadvantage when mounted on Nikon’s newer full frame bodies at reduced resolution. If you plan to stick with the DX sensor, and word is Nikon has more coming down the pipes, this is a must have lens.

DV-Studio Photography