50mm and 85mm primes at weddings

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

For those of you that shoot weddings ..what sort of use/shots do you use 50mm or 85mm primes for? I did have a Sony 50mm prime but it seemed a bit too "tele" to use at crowded receptions ? I see that Noa often uses an 85mm at weddings ...surely that's a bit long for reception work??

Reason for asking is I have the opportunity to grab a nice big Sigma 50mm F1.4 at a good price but the burning question is, will I use it that much???

Chris

[Noa Put]

I use the 85mm mainly to get talking heads at a reception when they are standing up or during the evening part when they are sitting down. In that way I can keep my distance a bit and I"m able to get more natural reactions. In those cases I always shoot with a f2.0 to f1.4 f-stop to get that nice blurry background and to seperate the person I"m shooting from it and that's a look I really like. A 50mm I would use more for closeups though. I do have a 35mm from samyang but since I got my 24mm I haven't used it anymore, my 24mm otoh gets used quite a lot.

[Robert Benda]

I use an 85 or 135mm for most things at the reception, including the 1st dance, and move to the 35mm (crop-frame) or 50mm (full-frame) when there is open dancing, and I move through the dance floor getting medium or tight shots, or have a reasonably wide shot for the bouquet toss once I've stepped back.

Sarah+Chris, April 13, 2013 on Vimeo

4:33 mark for closeup shots using a 35mm on a full frame camera, and stepping back for the wide shot.
2:49 for wider shots of speeches and 1st dance (sorry the audio is so bad, tascam failed on us...)

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

Thanks ..nice to see what others are doing. Our speeches are almost always from a lectern/podium so I have one cam on that (it also runs audio from a lav mic clipped to the podium mic) and I guess that is usually around the 50mm -70mm mark on my zoom (that's using a 24-70 on the APS-C sensor)

I tend to shoot the cutaways all around 18mm cos the handheld shot is steadier but it does involve running around to tables while the A-Cam does it's thing.

Also doing table shots on the EA-50 stock lens you lose aperture fast when zooming so it's better to get in closer and at least have F3.5 ....However I think I can see a use of a 50mm F1.4 prime here where I wouldn't need to move around so much (or so far) since it can be somewhat faster than the 18mm and I might get away with not having to use an on-camera light!

Chris

[Chris Harding]

Hi Robert

Thanks for the video.. after a bit of toying around at 50mm and 85mm (APS-C) I now know what issues I face that I did see throughout your video ...fairly large primes are a bugger to hold still ...With my camera with either the stock lens at between 18mm and 20mm my shots are steady handheld but at 50mm the slightest little movement makes the footage wobble around like crazy ... I would imagine that at 85mm you cannot successfully handhold and get decent stable shots without a tripod which would really cramp my style!! I already use a Sigma 24-70 constant F2.8 zoom for speeches on the main camera (on a tripod of course) but on my handheld cutaway camera I will either use the 18-200 and keep it close to 18mm or if the light is really poor I'll use my Tokina 11-16 F2.8 and get in closer .... !!

Do you guys seriously handhold an 85mm prime at weddings?? I don't think I would like to try it !

Chris

[Noa Put]

Do you guys seriously handhold an 85mm prime at weddings?? I don't think I would like to try it !

Yeah, I do :) but only during the reception when people are standing up, it's usually very crowded and then I take close ups from talking heads and because you don't have much background as reference point to see how much you are shaking (I just get a lot of other peoples heads in teh screen) it doesn't notice that there is too much shake, only when it gets later and people are sitting down at the venue I will use a monopod when shooting talking heads just for extra stabilisation.

[Robert Benda]

I don't usually walk around at all unless I have some weight on the camera, like my tripod/monopod, to help smooth out things. If I am moving, I usually cap it at 50mm. If I can help it, I set the tripod down with longer zooms - I'm just not steady enough.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Guys

I'm good at 16 and 18mm ... fair at 20mm and after that it gets a little hairy ...For speech cutaways I can hold maybe 10 seconds at around 35mm but luckily that's all you need for a cutaway

I'm impressed with an 85mm handhold Noa!!!

Chris