As compared to travel or food photography, wedding photography is much more complicated and requires a professional camera to work with. And if you’re looking to get started, the Canon 5D Mark II is the perfect pick. With its 21 megapixel CMOS sensor and a magnesium alloy body, you can be sure to take the most detailed images ever seen. Its full-frame optical sensor provides you with additional enhancements for your photos.
This is one of the few dust-resistant and water-resistant cameras, which means you can take it out in the desert or photograph a rainy day, all without causing any trouble to the camera. And if you don’t want to go into these weather conditions, you can bring them to live onto your camera’s screen using the special effects. It comes with several built-in effects like landscape, monochrome, neutral, portrait, cloudy, daylight, flash, fluorescent, shade, and tungsten light.
With this DSLR, you can be sure to take all kinds of pictures anywhere you wish. It is bound to enhance your photography experience and take amazing pictures of all the weddings you attend. This camera also comes with an 1800 mAh battery, which can take hundreds of images on one charge. This will lighten your burden of carrying extra batteries and worrying about recharging them from time to time. The Mark II is also one of Canon’s lightest cameras, making it a compact piece of equipment that won’t become a hurdle for you.
Here are 5 tips on using the canon 5d mark ii for wedding photography.
Find The Perfect Venue
Creating a wedding album is like making a movie or writing a story. You have to be organized, chronological, and able to convey emotions through visual aids. Just like a setting in a story, you also need a setting for wedding photography. This comes about through backgrounds that give the images a thematic sense. And for this, it is super essential for you to select the perfect venue. You can either arrange for this through consultations with the couple or ask them to give you their aesthetic preferences.
It is essential to select the right venue because your clients wouldn’t want a mish-mash of different venues that don’t correspond with their expectations. If they tell you that they like the color green and themes revolving around forestry, you can deduce that your story’s settings would be green spaces. You can take pictures in a forest, a park, or even a farmer’s market. You simply have to follow a theme when selecting a venue.
The Canon 5D Mark II assists you in all kinds of different venues. If you’re outdoors and are worried about dust, the camera’s dust reduction sensor gets rid of it by the vibration of the filter. And if you’re concerned about lighting conditions at different venues, then the ISO 100 – 6400 calibrated range and ISO 50 – 25600 expansion takes care of that. The camera also comes with a DIGIC 4 processor and several image processing features to help you take the best pictures anywhere.
Maintain A Low Presence
As you may be aware, the wedding is arranged for the couple and not you, so keep a low presence. Often, the wedding photographers can get a little too close to the couple, which may cause anxiety or distress. It is recommended for the photographer to maintain distance and not control the poses and lighting. Instead, try to improvise and make the best out of what you have.
You may want to take the best shots, but you’ll also have to remember that the couple needs to feel relaxed and have fun, so try to find a balance between the optimal pictures and keeping a low profile. In fact, the best images are those that are not directed: candids! With this strategy, you can take amazing candid pictures that capture moments of joy, laughter, grief, and love. This will satisfy your clients, and your work will be appreciated further.
Using the Canon 5D Mark II is the best option to maintain a low presence on the wedding day. It’s compact design and whisper-shutter effect does not let the camera be heard or seen very obviously. You can disguise it perfectly. In fact, with the 3.9 frames per second continuous shooting and 98% coverage viewfinder (with a 0.71x magnification), you can capture candid moments perfectly, without getting blurry or out of focus images. Additionally, this camera also offers a 1/8000 sec shutter speed, which is phenomenal for burst shooting.
Frame Your Pictures Well
Framing is another essential factor in wedding photography. Most couples want to have artistic photos taken on their wedding day, and they spend quite a bit of money on it. So, you should make sure to deliver to them what they are expecting. Framing is also necessary because this aspect decides what the overall look of the image will be like. It is a kind of distant calibration of measurements and proportions to see if the image makes sense to the viewer.
Such a measurement is important because if the background (frame) of the image contradicts or cuts the image at any point, you will end up with an awkward picture. For example, if you’re taking an image on an empty highway, your frame would be the distant highway road, the sides of the road, and whatever lies on the horizon (forest, the sea, or a dessert). Now, you have to make sure that the symmetry and bodily proportions (locations) make sense when viewing the picture. You can’t have the couple stand on one side of the road and take a picture from below. You’ll have to center them so that all the background elements are proportionally represented.
The Canon 5D Mark II helps you with framing as well. Through its 15 point autofocus zones and 35 exposure metering zones, you can be sure to take a well-focused and well-centered image. The camera also has several built-in exposure metering options, including center-weighted, evaluative, partial (8%), spot (3.5%), and spot AF area. Along with metering, the exposure modes include E-TTL II program flash, aperture-priority, automatic, bulb, manual, program, and shutter-priority. All of these will enhance the image’s quality and give you an option to customize your photography style.
Know Your Camera
Knowing your camera is essential in wedding photography. You absolutely have to know how to operate your camera and function it well enough to overcome any external challenges where you may have to manually adjust its settings. The wedding day is not the time to start experimenting with your camera and figuring out what button does what. You have to be prepared.
The wedding day can get very hectic, so it is advisable to become familiar with your camera settings a day or two prior. You must know a few basic things, including how to take a picture, fixing the ISO, adjusting the aperture, manual focusing, changing batteries, and making sure that the pictures are safe. If you fail in doing so, you may earn a bad reputation and end up with unhappy clients.
With the Canon 5D Mark II, you will find operating a camera to be very convenient. It is a user-friendly piece of equipment with directions for everything. Each camera comes with a set of instructions and a CD with full tutorials. If you need additional help, you can always look up its functions on YouTube. It is a very popular camera, and thousands of people have reviewed it all over the internet.
Backup Your Files
Perhaps the most important thing that a photographer needs to be wary about is backing up your files. The wedding day is a once in a lifetime moment for most couples, and they want to cherish this day’s memories for their lives to come. Think of yourself as the custodian of those memories, so it becomes your job to take care and keep those memories safe. You will do this by backing up all the photographs you have taken and ensuring that they are present on multiple platforms.
There are many ways to back up your files. You can transfer the images manually onto a device using the HDMI cable or use a card reader instead. Perhaps, you can also just copy the files onto an extra memory card. Another way is to use two cameras and take multiple shots simultaneously to ensure that the pictures are safe. Additionally, you can also simply upload the images onto a cloud. This way, the images will be safe online and will be easily downloadable from any device.
The Canon 5D Mark II assists you in backing up immensely. It supports the compact flash and microdrive memory cards along with several forms of image storage options. The camera also includes a USB port that you can use to back up your files directly onto your computer. The HDMI cable output allows you to view and store your file on other devices such as larger computers and DVDs.
