Just one lens
Just one lens, the 50mm lens
Let’s say I can have only one lens to shoot a complete wedding day. Just one lens to create a story of the day with reportage wedding photography. One focal length all day that still provides a variety of images to be captured. What lens would I choose?
The 50mm lens.
Wedding photographers have different lenses they like to work with. Zoom lenses or prime lenses. I’ve only used a zoom lens three times at weddings in the last fifteen years, maybe longer. While I may have a backup 24-70mm zoom in the car, that is usually where it stays all day. Ironically, the wedding photograph I have won the most awards for was shot on a 24-70 zoom, I was experimenting at that London wedding with what lenses to take with me.
I prefer to shoot with fast primes, which is usually at least three lenses, most often four, which means a fast lens-changing technique. When I worked at The Times, most of the time and certainly on news jobs you would be using zoom lenses. You need the flexibility in fast-moving situations and where you often have little choice where to stand. Primes used were mostly the fast telephoto lenses, when in Downing Street or shooting sport, for example. But I always carried a fast 50mm lens for low-light situations and portraits, etc. (One was smashed by a security guard on a job…) For features work, portraits, reportage jobs, I had a separate kit, often a Leica rangefinder with a few fast prime lenses. So when I first started shooting weddings I often had zooms – wide and long. I was treating the day like a news job. When I switched over to fast prime lenses, I think my photography improved.
So why the 50mm lens and not, say, the 35mm? A popular lens setup amongst wedding photographers is the 35mm with the 85mm. But for me that is not enough to shoot a wedding day. I want wider than 35mm and longer than 85mm most times. I want some variety, so would using just one lens, like the 50mm, work? I don’t have a set lineup; I use what suits each wedding, but I will always have the 50mm with me. The other lens choice pivots around it. The 50mm lens is often called the ‘standard lens.’ A lens that gives you something like what our eyes see, normal vision – not a broader vision or a telephoto crop. The ‘Nifty Fifty’.
Back in the day, film cameras came with a fast 50mm lens and not the inferior kit zoom lenses that have come along since. My first SLR camera, the Olympus OM10, came with a 50mm lens. So why the 50 and not the 35mm – the ‘photojournalist’s lens’? Truth is the 50mm has always long been a favourite in photojournalism and documentary photography, especially in the early days. Titans of photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson are famous for using the 50mm focal length. Or the 5cm lens as it was called then. Many wedding photographers are fond of quoting the great war photographer, Robert Capa. If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough. This invariably becomes 20mm lenses rammed up people’s noses… But when Capa went ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6 1944, he had two Contax II cameras with 5cm (50mm) lenses attached. Iconic images from that Normandy beach, shot on 50mm lenses.
A 50mm lens is versatile. As I read in an article about Henri Cartier-Bresson, “his special ability was to use a 50mm lens but allow the photo to ‘breathe’ almost as if shot with a 35mm”.
So on a wedding day, it works during prep, the arrivals, ceremony, reception, details, portraits, speeches and on the dance floor. You can get close, capture a full scene, isolate a subject or a detail. It is a lens with many uses. Shooting with two cameras, one camera will usually have the 50mm lens on it. Did I mention that the 50mm is a very sharp lens too.
So, using some images from the last two years, the different moments of a wedding day that I shot on a 50mm lens..
Getting REady
Wedding Ceremony
Wedding Reception
Wider Scenes and details on a 50mm lens
A 50mm lens is versatile – letting you shoot both wider scenes and details…
The Dance floor
On the dance floor, one camera always has the 50mm on it…
So a few images from the last two years to show how I use a 50mm lens in reportage wedding photography. Of course I’ve been using the 50mm for quite some years now. Here are a few more…
So, what about shooting a wedding with just a 50mm lens for real? A 50% discount on my standard package for the first couple to book me to shoot their wedding day on just a 50mm lens!