For Photographers
If you would like to learn more about the artistic, technical, or business side of portrait and wedding photography then head on over to Photography Concentrate. There you’ll find helpful tips, educational screen casts, information on one-on-one coaching, and workshop dates/locations.
One of the most common questions we get asked is what kind of gear we use. What follows is a pretty exhaustive list of the tools we’re currently using to make our images.
Bodies: We have doubles of some bodies and lenses because Lauren and I will often split up in the morning to cover both the bride and the groom getting ready.
Canon EOS 5D MK II
Canon EOS 5D
Canon EOS 30D
Lenses:
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4
Canon TS-E 45mm f/2.8 Tilt Shift
Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8
The above four lenses are our most frequently used portrait and photo-journalistic lenses. The rest of our lenses we use more as specialty lenses for specific situations.
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8
Portable Lighting:
Canon 580ex Speedlite
Canon 430ex Speedlite
Pocketwizards
Wireless remote shutter release and interval shutter release
Film:
Zeiss Ikon Rangefinder
50mm f/2 Zeiss Planar (for Zeiss Ikon)
Contax G1 Rangefinder
35mm f/2 Zeiss Planar (for G1)
Polaroid SX-70
Polaroid One 600
Holga
Instax 210
Horseman LE 4x5 view camera
210mm f5.6 Schneider (for largeformat)
Nikon Coolscan 5000ed (for 35mm scans)
Microtek M1 Pro (for 4x5 and instant film scans)
Computers:
Mac Pros Quad Core 2.66 GHz (7GB and 9GB of RAM)
Roughly 20 TB of hard drive space. Yikes!
Dell Monitors (30”, 24” and 20”)
MacBook and MacBook Pro
Misc Gear:
- Wacom Intuos3 graphics tablets (6x11 and 6x8)
- Spyder 3 Pro Monitor Calibrator for colour management
- AlienBee 800 studio light
- ShootSacs for carrying our lenses while we are shooting
What programs do you use to process your photos?
We use Photomechanic to sort through photos, Lightroom to process, and Photoshop for retouching only.
Are you a member of any specific photography forums?
http://www.digitalweddingforum.com
- a really great forum if you are interested in becoming a wedding photographer. This is the one paid forum that we are members of and it’s a great resource for all sorts of questions.
http://www.fredmiranda.com
- The forum where we got our start. A wide range of experience with the members, but there are a ton of people that offer a lot of advice. Great if you are just starting, not sure what type of photography you are most interested in, or just for a lot of advice in a ton of different genres.
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/
- Another forum that deals with a ton of different types of photography.