There\’re generally four types of photography lenses that each and every wedding photographer should have in his/her gig bag:

* Wide-Angle Zoom

* Wide to Telephoto Zoom

* Image-Stabilized Telephoto Zoom

* Prime/Portrait Lenses

Wide-Angle Zoom: Wide Angle zoom lenses are one of the most essential photography lenses that every wedding photographer must have, generally 17 mm to 35 mm in length with a fixed aperture of f/2.8. They provide a huge depth of field, making it easy to have background and foreground in focus. They are a vital wedding photography tools which allows flexibility in confined areas such as a small banquet room or crowded dance floor. While shorter photography lenses enable you to capture more details, wide-angle zoom lenses permit you to capture more reactions and atmosphere to tell a livelier story.

To explain more, wide-angle zoom photography lenses allow you to shoot a wider perspective of moments happening around the major subject, therefore offering a greater picture of the whole event. For example, wide-angle pictures have the ability to tell \”stories inside a story\”, permitting you to uncover more of the story behind the shot. This is vital for a good photojournalistic wedding photography. As events surrounding weddings are very time sensitive, excellent photography lenses will allow you to capture as many actions or emotions in the fastest time as possible.

When used in a location like the ballroom or church, wide angle zoom photography lenses also magnify the grandeur and spaciousness of the area, which encapsulates the creative feel for a photojournalistic wedding photography.

However, you have to be selective of the scenes or actions using wide angle photography lenses, as a caveat to shooting wide is that it creates some body distortion, specially when a subject is photographed close-up. Normally, people often look heavier and shorter on the edges, while arms may look large. The very last thing you want is to have the bride cursing you for making her seem she has put on ten pounds! To get around this issue, you need to as far as possible avoid putting the bride and groom at the edges of the wide angle distortion. Furthermore, wide angle photography lenses might also introduce distracting or unwanted elements into the frame, which would otherwise destroy a picture-perfect moment.

Wide to Telephoto Zoom: Wide-to-Telephoto lenses are the most crucial photography lenses that a wedding photographer can\’t do without. They should ideally be lenses which cover around the 20-70 mm focal length range with an aperture of f/2.8. This ideal range allows you to get wide enough to take a group picture and close enough to capture facial emotions in your candid shots or a three quarter portrait of a couple without the undesirable effects of wide-angle perspective distortion. They also double as good lenses for portraits. Given this lens, you\’d be able to capture the majority of the shots necessary for a wedding nicely.

Image Stabilized Telephoto Zoom: Image-Stabilized telephoto zoom lenses are also important components of your wedding photography equipment checklist. The 70-200 mm focal length is an important range for wedding ceremony photos. It allows you to give your subjects more room in conditions where you don\’t wish to get in the way. As you will often be photographing down the aisle from the back of the church, image stabilized telephoto zoom lenses will come in very useful. 200 mm is good enough to be able to take 3/4 length photographs of the wedding couple exchanging their vows while staying at a reasonable distance from the action and 70 mm is wide enough to take in the groomsmen or bridesmaids as a group without switching photography lenses.

A good thing to note is that when using such photography lenses, nice blurred background can be attained with maximum wide apertures of f/2.8 and long focal lengths of 200mm or 300mm, whether you are using a full-frame or a small sensor body. This lets you isolate the subject from its background, and to focus attention on the image as the main subject you desire to portray. This sort of photography lenses are specially useful for shots where you are unable to get in close and for personal and private moments, where you desire to be an unobserved stranger at a distance. A few examples include a stolen glance, a mischievous grin, a kiss – the details that are effectively presented by the emotions. Image-Stabilized telephoto zoom photography lenses hence play a vital role in catching those moments.