Wedding photography is one of the most viable avenues for both beginner and veteran photographers. It provides a platform for budding photographers to showcase their skills and build a clientele. While already established veterans are taking on multiple clients and earning handsome amounts of money.
Even though wedding photography is one of the most lucrative photography avenues, it can take a while to get your start in the industry. There are a few tips that you can follow to ensure that you’re successful, but you need to start with the right gear. Wedding photographers often spend upwards of $5000 on their equipment. With so many cameras on the market, it can be challenging to pick the right model.
For those that are looking to get their start in wedding photography, the Canon EOS 70D is easily one of the best options on the market. It’s a significant upgrade on the very popular EOS 60D, borrowing many of the best bits from different cameras in Canon’s lineup. However, on the inside was the debut of Canon’s 20.2MP Dual Pixel CMOS AF sensor. The sensor would essentially allow effective autofocus tracking when making use of live view.
Even though it was a game-changer in terms of the live view capability, it didn’t hold it back from being a brilliant SLR camera. A few features really help it excel at taking your wedding photography to the next level.
Here are 5 tips on using the Canon Eos 70D for wedding photography
Using Lighting
Every photographer knows that getting the right lighting in your photographs is the key to success. As a photographer, one needs to understand the basics of how light will reflect on an individual’s skin tones. One of the best ways to go is scheduling wedding shoots for the golden hour. This is an hour before sunset and an hour after the sun rises. The EOS 70D allows photographers to adjust the level of light exposure that they want in the image. It’s easily adjustable from the accessible button interface on the Canon EOS 70D.
It’s also capable of performing in direct sunlight well. If you have an external flash on hand, that can be an advantage, but it’ll work well enough with the pop-up flash. A helpful tool can be making use of the in-built flash compensation in the Canon. It won’t give you the same results as natural lighting, but it provides much softer results than the flash without any compensation.
There are four metering modes that the photographers can choose between. Each different mode tells the camera where and how the sensor meters the light. Each mode is for a different lighting scenario. For your general wedding photography, users are better off selecting the evaluative metering mode. It’s ideal for portraits. Sometimes though, you’ll be in a situation where there’s very little light in the background, partial metering is the best answer. With the Canon EOS 70D, you also get the option to adjust ISO for darker lighting situations. If you want to avoid any potential camera noise, set 3200 as the max ISO limit.
Capturing Poses
One of the most important aspects of wedding photography is getting the wedding party on the right poses. An easy way to see what poses would be best for which situation is to scout the venue beforehand. Wedding venues often have the decor set up in advance. Visiting the place before the event can help you get an idea about what poses would be the best. Photographers can do a lot by developing a mental image in their head.
Another good idea is studying photographs of the most popular wedding photographers on the market. Look at the poses they use and try to identify how they’re getting the subjects to position themselves. Photographers can also engage with the subjects and ask them to pose actively. The Canon EOS 70Ds ability to capture burst pictures really comes in handy.
Be sure to make use of the live view feature as well. Thanks to the new sensor, the live view tracking abilities of the camera are exceptional. It’ll allow you to assess how the poses would look in the picture before capturing the final image. When you’re shooting more directed photographs, make use of the live view to get everything right.
Being a photographer isn’t all about staying quiet and snapping away. You essentially have to orchestrate the images. If you’re not going to communicate effectively, there’s no way that the people are going to know where to go in the photograph. Offer your instructions in a loud voice that’s clear so everyone can get in the correct poses as soon as possible.
Showcasing Your Style
The way the industry is working, it’s simply not going to be enough to cover a wedding in a decent fashion. To stand out, a photographer needs to have a signature style. Luckily, the Canon EOS 70D is an excellent option for anyone that wants to take their style to the next level. The high dynamic range allows you to adjust many things in post-processing without worrying about the images becoming grainy.
While the camera features several different modes that help provide users with a way to get quick photos, it’s the manual control over settings that allows them to shine. Adjust the ISO, exposure, and everything you need to get a certain consistent look across your photographs. While maintaining the same aesthetic in all your photographs can become a bit boring, it’ll make your portfolio much easier to recognize
Another way to add a bit of your own design and style to your images is by using the filters in the settings. There is a diverse variety of filters available that completely let photographers explore different avenues. The Canon EOS 70D also provides photographers with the opportunity to create their own filters. Not only does the camera provide control for the color, there’s also options to control the focus as well. Playing around with this custom filter mode might seem like a waste of time to some, but it plays a crucial role in helping photographers discover their style.
Having Back-up Gear
When you’re on the job, one of the most difficult things can be dealing with broken equipment. Nothing will derail a wedding photography gig like there being several issues with the gear. However, if you are well prepared, you’ll understand the importance of bringing back up equipment. Ideally, you should have a back-up camera body and a couple of lenses. If you’re a beginner, then one can argue that EOS 70D is your primary camera, so if you have an old one, use that for back-up. Photographers that already established veterans in the industry and prefer Canon will love the EOS 70D as a back-up.
It’s capable of capturing crisp and clean photos with thanks to the new sensor and easy-to-use controls. The body is also compatible with almost all the available lenses on the market. It’s definitely a camera that’s capable of serving as a primary and as a secondary camera.
While keeping an eye out for these big things can help you avoid any issues, sometimes you need back-up to a smaller degree. For every event, you should carry a fully-charged back-up battery and additional SD cards. If you run out of battery at the event, it could mean that you fail to cover a crucial moment. All photographers make sure that they have at least one spare battery during a gig. It would allow photographers to quickly switch batteries on the go, and there will be no break in covering the event. The extra SD cards become useful as well when the photographer is running out of memory.
Backing Up Your Files
If you have experience covering an event, you know that you always back-up the files when transferring. If you were using a camera from the old days, there would be an issue. However, the EOS 70D makes things much easier thanks to a whole host of new connectivity options. If you’ve got a laptop that supports an SD card reader or has an external one, simply plug-in the SD card and you can back-up the files on to your respective device.
Another option for those who don’t want to use the SD card reader is connecting the camera to the laptop. The camera will ship with a mini-USB cable that allows users to connect the camera to the laptop. From there on you’ll get a series of guided prompts on how to proceed with transferring images. While this method saves you the trouble of buying an SD card reader, it can be slower than the other method. There’s also several software on the internet that you can download to serve as a Canon suite.
While the camera first came out in 2013, it has features that still hold up well today. It offers Canon’s Wi-Fi function, which lets the camera connect to a whole host of other devices. Photographers can connect the camera to a PC to back-up their images and videos. Depending on the strength of the Wi-Fi connection, this can take a significant amount of time.
Users can also save their time on printing any photos thanks to the Wi-Fi printing commands.
