Telephoto Wedding

June 25, 2009

A great post from Jeff Ascough

The famous Robert Capa quotation “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough” is so apt when it comes to people photography, and yet wedding photographers seem to have a fascination with long telephoto lenses.

One of the most used lenses for wedding photography is the big 70-200 f2.8. Personally, I’ve never seen why so many photographers have a fascination for using this lens, and I am continually puzzled as to its popularity. It’s big, heavy, and (in the Canon flavour) bright white. If you ever want to be noticed at a wedding, get the ‘Great White’ out and see how people react!!

The first time that I was made aware of how this lens can effect people, was at a celebrity wedding which I covered some six years ago. My clients and their guests were used to intrusion from photographers as part of their daily lives, and yet I had no problem shooting in close with 28mm and 50mm lenses on a couple of Leica rangefinders. Moving in and around the guests, I was able to take pictures without getting a second glance from them. However, at the reception I had to get the 70-200 out to cover the speeches, and from that moment on everyone noticed me. It was really bizarre. It was like I’d lit a torch and was holding it above my head. After the wedding I wondered if it was me or the lens that had caused this reaction, or was it simply the lens forcing me to behave differently?

At first I thought it was the lens, as it is large and obtrusive and immediately shouts ‘PHOTOGRAPHER!’ to everyone. In hindsight I think it had more to do with the focal length. I’ll hold my hands up now and confess that I’m simply not a fan of long telephoto lenses for weddings. I do like them for landscapes, when I want to compress the perspective, but not for taking photographs of people. When using a telephoto I often feel detached from what is happening in front of me. I also feel far more conspicuous. I’ll try to explain.