Wedding Photography - Camera choices

Ben-BSH

Ben-BSH

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Not another wedding photographer starting out thread!

Please though, hear me out, advice required!

I've got to a point now where I'd like to explore and get into this, the demand is there, and there are enough people saying to me "if only you would take my friends wedding on" etc.

I've looked into a course or two, 1st being the Trained eye package, and the 2nd being a 1-1 3 day Course with local tog Bjorn Thomassen.

To make the most of either (and please recommend a different / better course if you know of one!) I've realised quite quickly it will not be cheap to get setup, with Insurance, registering with the taxman etc. - and the main reason for this thread, my 50d having to take a back seat!

So, the juicy part.

I've currently got a 50d, 70-200f4 (non IS) 50mm 1.8 and sigma 10-20

I'm im full realisation my 50d now will have to become a backup body, most likely teamed with the 70-200. And that i will have to buy something much more "pro" and reliable as a main body, with a good all rounder lens such as the 24-105 L, which in my limited experience seems like a cracker of a lens for wedding photography.

The obvious choice is to go full frame, or is it?

My options are as below, with a budget of around 1.5k for camera and lens, just because I've not yet found the money tree the guy across the road with a new Porsche has!

6d with the kit lens (24-105)
5d mk2 2nd hand then buy the lens
5d classic and buy the lens
7d and buy the lens


Can anyone recommend the route to take? the 6d seems a little too "GPS and Wifi" in the specs, and is missing the cross focus points i would get with the 7d, but obviously has a much bigger sensor, where as the 5d's ISO performance would be a great improvement - plus its a battletank of a camera i hear. finally i could go cheapy cheap and just get a 5d mk1

Hoping someone has been in a similar situation and can advise! i don't want to buy wrong, then have to buy twice! and feel if I've got the correct gear, and the course, its a good enough push to make me ensure i follow through, I've loved the buzz I've got from being a floating tog at a few recent weddings. and have enjoyed it much more than any photography I've ever done.

The End.

for those who couldn't be bothered to read, whats the best canon camera and lens for a guy wanting to shoot weddings with a budget of roughly 1.5k

:D

Thanks a lot in advance, Ben.
 
I think I'd go with 5d3, and some fast primes. Some use 2 bodies, a macro lens can be handy for ring and detail shots
 
5D mk2 ... There are a lot around so if you patient you should be able to pick a good one up at a nice price.
The 24-105 is an F4 and you are going to feel the lack of a low light capable lens, perhaps get a 2nd hand 24-70 2.8 lens, its the bread and butter lens of most wedding photographers.
 
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DewanDemmer said:
5D mk2 ... There are a lot around so if you patient you should be able to pick a good one up at a nice price.
The 24-105 is an F4 and you are going to feel the lack of a low light capable lens, perhaps get a 2nd hand 24-70 2.8 lens, its the bread and butter lens of most wedding photographers.
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Ok, taken on board! cheers :D:D

I'll be keeping an eye on the classifieds
 
on that budget - maybe 6D and NOT 24-105 but 24-70mm f/2.8 and some good primes (i.e. 85mm and 35mm f/1.4 sigma; 50mm f/1.8 may as well go once you see proper ones).
1DsIII maybe worth looking at (way better than 5DII, and in a some ways - all except sensor - than 6d).
Ideally you want 5DIII or 1DX. But first you want f/2.8 or faster glass all round.

And don't forget lighting kit.
 
I'll go slightly off course here and suggest a 1d mk3, I might have suggested a 2N but they are getting a little old now maybe (not sure of price at present of either) as it (Mk3) would offer reasonable low light capability, terrific image quality being a 1.3 crop factor which is marginally not as good as FF BUT you'd have a nice big pro looking body, waterproof, or at least weather resistant which might be usefull if its poor weather, tough as old boots and could belt some Uncle Joe if he got in the way.
Ultimately its got to be a 5D3 - it will save you a lot of pp time and pay back its cost that way, plus its water resistant (whereas the Mk2 isnt) and produces the most amazingly sharp pictures with brilliant colour rendition and gradation. Oh and high Iso is a breeze, which will reduce your relaince on fast lenses and/or flash guns (although you will need something for fill-in work etc).
The 24-70 2.8 does seem the lens of choice (or at least one of them), get a set of extension tubes too, or a macro lens, for close ups of the ring etc.
Lights, extension poles, triggers and reflectors are pretty much a must.
Sorry, your expenditure has just gone up and I dont think £1500 will cover up.
 
MatBin said:
I'll go slightly off course here and suggest a 1d mk3, I might have suggested a 2N but they are getting a little old now maybe (not sure of price at present of either) as it (Mk3) would offer reasonable low light capability, terrific image quality being a 1.3 crop factor which is marginally not as good as FF BUT you'd have a nice big pro looking body, waterproof, or at least weather resistant which might be usefull if its poor weather, tough as old boots and could belt some Uncle Joe if he got in the way.
Ultimately its got to be a 5D3 - it will save you a lot of pp time and pay back its cost that way, plus its water resistant (whereas the Mk2 isnt) and produces the most amazingly sharp pictures with brilliant colour rendition and gradation. Oh and high Iso is a breeze, which will reduce your relaince on fast lenses and/or flash guns (although you will need something for fill-in work etc).
The 24-70 2.8 does seem the lens of choice (or at least one of them), get a set of extension tubes too, or a macro lens, for close ups of the ring etc.
Lights, extension poles, triggers and reflectors are pretty much a must.
Sorry, your expenditure has just gone up and I dont think £1500 will cover up.
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Ouch! they are 2.5k on Hdew. but I could stretch i guess if it will really be an investment i will not need to re-look at.

out of interest, this might be better in the business forum, but If i bought this today, when registered with the taxman later in the year is it possible to claim back the VAT? or do i need to get setup and registered first, then buy the kit. - as I'm guessing a 530 ii and grip will also be required, and then later on a 24-70 (as there is no way i can spend 1.3k on a lens and also get a new body!)

Ta.

Ben
 
The £1500 won't get you in the door unless you go for older crop cameras.

Forget the idea of 'buy once' it's complete boll ox, you'll go through lots of kit finding what suits. More importantly now is that you need backups and to be capable of whatever is thrown at you. That means a backup std lens, backup tele lens and backup wide lens, backup flash, etc.

So if a 50d, 2.8 std zoom, 30mm, 85mm and a couple of flashguns will get you sorted, then if you fancy ff later - save up and do it properly later.

You really have to stop thinking of stretching your budget to buy shiny new things and consider it as a business investment. They're no longer nice cameras and lenses, they're now tools, and you need a full set of tools including a little redundancy.

A shiny new 5dIII will be no use to you tomorrow when you need fill flash, or your main lens stops focussing during bridal prep.
 
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£1.5k won't get you much tbh... A 6D is about £1,250... which leaves you £250 and you won't get a pro standard zoom for that.

7D is crap... I have one, used to be my main camera and compared to FF it's ISO performance (which you need for weddings) is poop!

I'd try increasing your bugdet to £2k and buying the 6D and Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8
 
ajax_andy said:
£1.5k won't get you much tbh... A 6D is about £1,250... which leaves you £250 and you won't get a pro standard zoom for that.

7D is crap... I have one, used to be my main camera and compared to FF it's ISO performance (which you need for weddings) is poop!

I'd try increasing your bugdet to £2k and buying the 6D and Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8
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I'm disagreeing w Andy, there's nothing wrong with getting another crop body - no customer is ever going to complain about the noisy sensor*.

*Providing that your exposures are accurate and the images you're supplying are high quality, the customer will be looking at her expression and whether her bum looks big, she won't give a fig about luminance noise in shadow areas :D.
 
Phil V said:
I'm disagreeing w Andy, there's nothing wrong with getting another crop body - no customer is ever going to complain about the noisy sensor*.

*Providing that your exposures are accurate and the images you're supplying are high quality, the customer will be looking at her expression and whether her bum looks big, she won't give a fig about luminance noise in shadow areas :D.
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True to an extent... but recently I've been shooting weddings at ISO's 5000 and above (up to 10,000) and so that's why the 7D is poor in comparison to an FF body.

From using both I'd say there's a massive difference in what an FF body like a 6D or 5D MK II can produce over a 7D and think anyone buying with so many FF options available should buy FF when doing weddings.

A 7D will do for now, but in the long term it's not a good option IMO. Mine lasted a year before I upgraded to FF and I havn't regretted the upgrade one bit :thumbs:
 
I would be completely happy doing a wedding with 2x D90's (so 50D) with a 24mm/1.8 and a 50/1.8 if the budget allowed I'd opt first a 3rd body combined with a 85/1.8

For me, that would give me better results than using a full frame coupled with a normal zoom.

Personally, I'd have no problems shooting 3200/6400 as Phil says above, they won't care about noise.

I guess my point is, unless I had about £3.5-4k to blow on a couple of 6D's and a couple of decent zoom lenses to match, I'd go for 2/3 older crop bodies and stick some fast primes in front of them.

It's an option for you anyway :)
 
Register with the tax man before buying the equipment ;)

You won't be able to claim the VAT back unless you register for VAT, then you'll have to charge VAT on top of your sales.

FWIW... £1500... 5d2+35/1.4, sell all your current gear and get a 5d+85/1.8 :)
 
Why don't you hire equipment for your first couple of weddings, then you can asses how much interest you are getting for future bookings and then buy the equipment only if it is truly going to be required.
 
^Joe said:
Register with the tax man before buying the equipment ;)

You won't be able to claim the VAT back unless you register for VAT, then you'll have to charge VAT on top of your sales.

FWIW... £1500... 5d2+35/1.4, sell all your current gear and get a 5d+85/1.8 :)
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From the OPs dilemna I don't think it's any time to be registering for VAT (turnover of £150,000 before it becomes mandatory).

Certainly he should register for tax as soon as he's got a paid gig though.
 
ajax_andy said:
True to an extent... but recently I've been shooting weddings at ISO's 5000 and above (up to 10,000) and so that's why the 7D is poor in comparison to an FF body.

From using both I'd say there's a massive difference in what an FF body like a 6D or 5D MK II can produce over a 7D and think anyone buying with so many FF options available should buy FF when doing weddings.

A 7D will do for now, but in the long term it's not a good option IMO. Mine lasted a year before I upgraded to FF and I havn't regretted the upgrade one bit :thumbs:
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I'll do the ... True to an extent...

The Op doesn't have a FF to make a comparison, and the brides aren't faced with a choice, surely startup money is more sensibly spent on a full set of gear and backups.

He can either start up with a load of debt, or wait till he can afford FF, but he can start up with crop cameras now. That's surely more sensible than blowing his budget on a FF body and limiting his other options.
 
Phil V said:
From the OPs dilemna I don't think it's any time to be registering for VAT (turnover of £150,000 before it becomes mandatory).

Certainly he should register for tax as soon as he's got a paid gig though.
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Indeed. The OP suggested recovering the VAT on purchases. Which I corrected him.

I certainly wasn't suggesting he should register for VAT. :)

And it's around 80k for registering.
 
I did my first wedding recently with a 5D3 with a Sigma 24-70 f2.8 HSM on a tripod in the church, a 7D with a 100 f2.8L macro for the ring shots and some portraits after the ceremony and a 1D3 a 24-105 f4L for the bride leaving the house, arriving and leaving the church and other shots.

For the night event I used the 5D3 and 24-105 while the light was decent and the 24-70 and a speedlite 580EX II later on.

The bride burst into tears of joy when she saw the results and that's the first time I've had that reaction to any of my photos so i was quite proud TBH.
 
modchild said:
I did my first wedding recently with a 5D3 with a Sigma 24-70 f2.8 HSM on a tripod in the church, a 7D with a 100 f2.8L macro for the ring shots and some portraits after the ceremony and a 1D3 a 24-105 f4L for the bride leaving the house, arriving and leaving the church and other shots.

For the night event I used the 5D3 and 24-105 while the light was decent and the 24-70 and a speedlite 580EX II later on.

The bride burst into tears of joy when she saw the results and that's the first time I've had that reaction to any of my photos so i was quite proud TBH.
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........and the advice to the op is...get the same setup and see the same results??? Lol

Tbh op, I think you'll always be able to do better, you need to decide what's going to get the best results for the money you have. If you think you'll do the best job with one FF body and an OK lens, do that, if you think you'll get better results from 2-3 older crop sensors, don't dismiss that option because of age etc.

Most importantly, everyone will give you opinions based on what they would do so bear this in mind but always remember, it's a job and you need to use whatever tool gets the best result.
 
^Joe said:
Indeed. The OP suggested recovering the VAT on purchases. Which I corrected him.

I certainly wasn't suggesting he should register for VAT. :)

And it's around 80k for registering.
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Apologies on both counts, I took the wrong figure from the HMRC page and I hadn't seen his mention of VAT.

To the OP, once you're registered for tax your cameras become a capital allowance - up to a threshold you don't need to worry about.

However what probably will concern you is that if you shoot 60 days a year and only 5 of them are weddings, then your kit spending has to be apportioned, you can't claim for it all as business assets (the good news - you can transfer your existing kit in too).

Apropos of that, I'm not a tax accountant, get professional advice. Once you register for tax, HMRC may invite you on a workshop to help with any questions you have though:thumbs: .
 
I'm personally with Phil.

I'd rather have two crop bodies, decent glass and back ups of everything than an old, battered, unreliable FF.

But thats just my two pence worth and I'm not Pro.
 
Thanks all so far! This is really good advice all round! I might look Into a second 50d for now then, and get a 24-105 or similar lens in that range to cover a few weddings (once the course is done etc) and see what I need from that point on.

Out of interest who do you wedding togs use for insurance? As there will be no bookings without that! :)

Thanks again, it's helpful to hear many opinions when so undecided as I am!

Ben
 
me three.

Biased on the base that I have crop bodies yes but I will use 6400 where needed and as Phil says, its only us anal people that actually can SEE the difference between 3200 and 6400, if I asked my brother what I was talking about he would literally look at me like....

 
Ben-BSH said:
Not another wedding photographer starting out thread!

Please though, hear me out, advice required!

I've got to a point now where I'd like to explore and get into this, the demand is there, and there are enough people saying to me "if only you would take my friends wedding on" etc.
Click to expand...

Ben,

My honest advice is that you should book the couples that all of your friends are talking about above. Then invest 50% of the future profit from them into your kit.

You don't need the cameras to book the weddings and they will be sufficiently in the future that you can buy bodies/lenses and get used to them in the meantime.

I can't tell you the number of people who have friends that want you to shoot their portraits, friends weddings, products and tell you how awesome your photographs are but then melt into the distance as soon as they have to (a) commit and (b) hand over some money. I wouldn't be kitting up on a full wedding photographers setup on a whim.

Over hundreds of weddings and many many more consults only a very small number of people asked about my cameras when discussing their wedding.

And while I'm on it - IMVHO wedding courses are an almost complete waste of money. You'll learn 5% of what you need to know. Far better to offer to assist (ie bag carry) for someone for 3-5 weddings - you'll learn far more by observing a real wedding and how a photographer works than getting portfolio images with 20 other people at a staged wedding taught by someone who hasn't shot a wedding in years and makes a living on courses and photo-mag articles... then if you have to shoot one for free to make sure you know what you are doing before taking peoples money.
 
meonshore said:
Ben,

My honest advice is that you should book the couples that all of your friends are talking about above. Then invest 50% of the future profit from them into your kit.
...

And while I'm on it - IMVHO wedding courses are an almost complete waste of money. You'll learn 5% of what you need to know. Far better to offer to assist (ie bag carry) for someone for 3-5 weddings - you'll learn far more by observing a real wedding and how a photographer works than getting portfolio images with 20 other people at a staged wedding taught by someone who hasn't shot a wedding in years and makes a living on courses and photo-mag articles... then if you have to shoot one for free to make sure you know what you are doing before taking peoples money.
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2 pieces of sound advice there too:thumbs:

It might be tricky to get a position as a 2nd shooter locally, try in the next town/city rather than locally. We generally aren't happy training the competition;)

You might be better just booking a business training course, have you got any recently married mates? Would they be prepared to model for you for a pub lunch?

And don't forget all the other stuff, still life, macro, architecture, public speaking, all good things to practice along with portrait photography.
 
Thanks all! Very helpful advice. :) that's why I love this forum!
 
Phil V said:
I'll do the ... True to an extent...

The Op doesn't have a FF to make a comparison, and the brides aren't faced with a choice, surely startup money is more sensibly spent on a full set of gear and backups.

He can either start up with a load of debt, or wait till he can afford FF, but he can start up with crop cameras now. That's surely more sensible than blowing his budget on a FF body and limiting his other options.
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Yeah again I agree to an extent but the cost of a 2nd hand 5D MKII is probably not THAT much more than a 7D these days, so I'd still advise that route over the 7D.

You're right though that it's possible to shoot weddings on a 7D and I did it last year so maybe I'm just looking at things through FF tinted glasses :)
 
ajax_andy said:
Yeah again I agree to an extent but the cost of a 2nd hand 5D MKII is probably not THAT much more than a 7D these days, so I'd still advise that route over the 7D.

You're right though that it's possible to shoot weddings on a 7D and I did it last year so maybe I'm just looking at things through FF tinted glasses :)
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The 5d II is a bit more than a 7d, but quite a bit more than another 50d, which on this budget is significant, I'm not concentrating on the body here, the OP needs loads more kit, and the money could be put to much better use than low light IQ.

I'd go more than 'FF tinted glasses', it's a skewing of priorities in pursuit of an ideal he simply can't afford at this time.

All just IMO of course ;)
 
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