What's in my gear bag?

What kind of camera do you use?

I shoot 99.9% of the wedding day with a Canon 5D Mark II. The other .1% I have a Canon 5D classic. These two cameras have been with me through about 40 or so weddings and I've never looked back. They're both full frame so I can use the entire focal length of the lens, they both have awesome color representation and great low-noise ISO. I can shoot at 3200 and not have to worry about a thing.

What kind of lenses do you use?

This is a tricky question. The answer is "a lot" but at most weddings I use an average of 6 different lenses.

For candids I use the Canon 24-70 2.8 religiously. It's fantastic at pretty much all focal lengths, and at 2.8 you can shoot in average to low lighting conditions.

For portraits I tend to switch between two to three different lenses. I carry the 85 1.8, which focuses faster than the 1.2 version (and it's about 3 times cheaper), the 50 1.2, which is great for all around portraits, and the 24 1.4, when I want to get a little crazy.

At the ceremony I shoot with the 70-200 2.8 (pictured above) like it's going out of style. I can get super close ups without worrying about disturbing the ceremony. It was the first "nice" lens I ever bought and I've loved it ever since.

I also use a Sigma 50mm 2.8 for all the cool ring shots. It's one of the best macro lenses on the market.

What about those crazy tilt shifts?

How could I forget! Tilt shift lenses let the photographer essentially block out parts of the frame by throwing them out of focus. It changes the angle of the focal plane, making it not parallel to the image sensor. Technical jargon aside, it creates a really dreamy, highly stylized atmosphere to the photo. I love em!

Do you bring backup equipment?

Of course! Cameras break all the time, which is why I have the 5D Classic always in my bag. In addition I have redundancy built into my lens selection. I keep a 10D and a few lenses in my car just in case everything gets stolen. Compact flash cards always stay on my person, so unless someone lights me on fire during a wedding, your pictures will be safe. (although we'll probably have bigger problems)

How do you light the reception?

Ah, the reception. It's the best part of the wedding. The important stressful stuff is behind us, and the dancing is just getting started. It's an etherial smorgasbord of ...... oh yeah, right, lighting.

I use on-camera flash for the reception as long as it's indoors. I'll never point the flash head directly at someone. Instead I'll bounce it off a ceiling, or stick a diffuser on top to throw just enough light forward to make people visible. In the rear of the dance floor I'll have a Vivitar 285HV (a good, cheap flash) set to 1/16th power pointing back at the dance floor to provide some rim light. This separates people from the background and makes it look all fancy and professional.  You can see an example in the last picture of this post.

How do you process your images?

I use Adobe Lightroom for (again) 99.9% of all the editing I have to do. Occasionally I add a texture or whatnot and that has to be done in photoshop. I use Presetopia presets for almost every single image. It has sped up my workflow so much that I can now deliver images to clients in weeks not months.