I'm no expert at wedding photography but the below was posted on the local photog forum that I admin...

<i>Looks like I am going to shoot a wedding. I am planning to rent a lens. What should I get? What do you use to shoot wedding? I don't want to be changing lens all the time so it would be great if there is one lens that does it all.</i>

Talk about opening up a whole can of worms!

<ul><li><a href="http://forums.audiworld.com/photo/msgs/37566.phtml">Click</a></li></ul>

f2.8 zoom. A slower lens will work, but compromises the quality of the end result.

Make sure you have an external flash.

Focal length would be determined by the camera. 17-55 for cropped and 24-70 for full frame. I suspect the question was posed by a cropped camera owner, so 17-55 gets the vote.

That's the 1 lens that the person should not be without!

But the comment "I don't want to be changing lenses all the time" is inviting a can of worms! They shouldn't be shooting a wedding...they aren't doing anybody any favors with that attitude. Well, I guess they could get a second body and lens, which would solve that problem (why do I have a feeling that isn't what they had in mind?).

you only need wider than 24 if you can't find yourself 10 feet away from your subjects, or only shoot in landscape.

whats wrong with dreaming?

: /

Gathering a wide shot of a church or reception hall.
Shooting groups of people on the dance floor.
Gathering tight detail shots while still encompassing part of the "atmosphere" that surrounds.
Exaggerating the depth of length of objects (train on a wedding dress, limo, etc.).

In fact, if you're shooting no wider than 24mm on a cropped body I would say you're missing out on a whole dimension of possibilities with the wedding shooting. 17mm gives opens up those possibilities without running into territory where you have severe corner distortion in your images.

nothing wrong with dreaming! :-P

;-)

You get to pick one lens to do the whole wedding...which one?

Trust me, reach is better than wide in most cases.

He posted an image of a 'model' he photoed and asked for critique. One guy beat me to it and had the same feedback "well the picture frame in the background is in focus". Ouch.

I haven't run into any problems yet...

and being a professional photographer who NEEDS to get the shot..

dloftis essentially picked 3, which kinda negates the original dilemma posed.

I gave you specific examples of how wider than 24mm on a cropped body is handy when shooting a wedding, and none of those examples means getting in anyone's face.

It does boil down to shooting style. I'm just making a case for why &lt;24mm on a cropped body is handy. To say that it's only useful if you're &lt;10 ft from the subject or shooting landscapes is incredibly narrow-minded.

I'm just going back to the original question posed by Tanner's best friend. Picking 3 lenses is cheating in this "what if" scenario.