Original subtitles

Welcome back.

So this is the part where we discuss

the kit I use and how I set

up to shoot weddings.

If there is a part of the course

where we cover some technical information, this is

one of those sections.

But the first thing you should know is

I don't care what system you shoot on.

Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, they're all tools.

They don't make you a great photographer.

That said, I would obviously rather have the

latest mirrorless Canon camera, but you could still

give me a Canon 5D Mark II, which

is the camera I started on, and I'd

happily shoot a wedding on it.

Never use a lack of the latest tech

or kit to stop you from creating.

Do not use it as an excuse.

The camera does not make the photographer.

Remember that.

In this lesson, we're going to explore bodies,

lenses, cards, accessories, and how I set up

from a technical point of view to shoot

weddings.

Before we do, a little background for you.

I've always shot Canon.

It was the first camera system I used,

and I've always just found them to be

intuitive and usable.

I've tried a few others in my time,

a Nikon D750, I have a Fuji X

-T20 for the family, but Canon have always

delivered for me.

They're not perfect, far from it.

They took five years too long to add

eye tracking and a flippy screen, but I'm

not one of those guys who jumps around

from system to system because someone added a

new feature that the others didn't.

I'm here to run a business, and if

you do that every couple of years, it's

costing you money.

It's as simple as that.

And like I said in my previous intro,

I will try my best during this lesson

to translate between systems and make any terminology

as generic as possible.

So I shoot Canon, currently the Canon R6,

but I also shoot prime lenses or fixed

focal lenses, bar one, which is the 24

-70mm f2.8, the only zoom lens I

use for weddings.

If I was starting my journey again, the

one piece of advice I would give you

or anyone at that stage is to buy

the premium lenses as soon as possible.

They are an investment, but more often than

not, when people ask me about how do

you get your images so sharp or I

can't achieve those colours, it tends to start

with the glass you put on the front

of that camera.

Anyway, on with the lesson.

So all weddings for me start with the

same setup, two bodies.

You should always carry two bodies if you're

charging someone to document their wedding.

If I have to explain why, take a

minute, just step outside and give it some

thought.

It shouldn't take you long to figure out.

My go-to lens choice is usually a

35mm on one and the 135mm on the

other.

I do also love the 85mm focal length

and I know plenty that start off with

the 35-85mm combo.

I also use dual cards, the biggest I

can buy so I don't have to swap

out during the day.

So 256GB cards in each slot and I

write full RAW to both of those cards.

I don't shoot RAW to one and JPEG

to the other.

I want the RAW backup and you'll usually

find writing JPEGs can actually hit the camera's

buffer quicker because you're making the camera create

an additional file rather than just duplicating a

RAW.

Let's get dirty shall we and talk settings.

Now you're either shooting on a more traditional

DSLR like the 5D Mark IV or the

Nikon D750 or is it Nikon?

I don't know.

Or you've made the switch to the mirrorless

world and have a Sony a7 III, a

Canon R6 like I'm filming on here or

a Nikon Z6.

The reason I want to distinguish between the

two types of bodies is primarily due to

the focusing abilities of a DSLR versus the

mirrorless.

Now up until the start of 2021 I

was in the DSLR camp and I can

still remember the day I discovered back button

focus.

It was a game changer for me.

It's allowed me to speed up how I

focus and work the frame.

In short the basic principle of back button

focus is to separate the focusing ability of

the camera which is usually the half press

of the shutter from the physical motion of

pressing the shutter to take an image and

you do that by moving the focus ability

to the back of the camera.

Hence the term back button focus.

Genius.

But what does that mean?

Why would you do that Sam?

Well let me explain.

Let's say you want to take an image

of someone tight to the edge of the

frame.

In order to do that without back button

you have two options.

One you dive into the focus point selection

of your camera, move the wheel in the

wrong direction first, then move it back to

the other side, then focus and shoot.

But now your focus point is tight to

the left so remember to move it back

to the centre of the frame.

Right?

Sounds slow and open to problems if you

forget to move it back.

It is.

Your other option is to let the camera

choose the focus point by selecting an automatic

AF method that has a wide focus option.

The major flaw to that is weddings are

fast-paced and there are lots of moving

parts.

You want and need the control.

If you hand the control to the camera

the focus will jump around and just be

unreliable.

With back button focus however you have control

of the focus point speed and consistency when

it comes to recomposing the frame and it

works like this.

The focus point is always kept to the

centre.

It never changes.

In order to focus you take the focus

control away from the shutter and assign it

to the AF on button on the back

of the camera.

Now when it comes to taking a shot

you lock your focus on the subject with

your thumb on the back button.

Once focus is achieved you can take your

thumb away and fire the trigger.

The focus range is now locked to that

distance so once you've taken a safe shot

which would be your subject in the centre

of the frame you're free to recompose the

shot without needing to reapply focus.

A few caveats to note though.

If your subject moves they'll be out of

focus.

If you move forwards or backwards they're out

of focus.

I also try and avoid shooting wide open

so 1.2 or 1.4 on a

wide angle lens.

When you shoot on a 24 or 35mm

trying to achieve focus when you have to

move the camera a substantial amount to get

your subject to the edge and the focus

plane is a razor blade you're likely to

get soft or out of focus images.

On an 85mm or 135mm however you don't

need to adjust the camera too much to

move your subject to the edge.

If we take this selection of frames for

example this is just a bridesmaid reacting to

speeches but the principle of focus and recompose

is here in its simplest form.

All of these shot on the 85mm you'll

see how the opening frame in the top

left is my safe shot.

Center focused with back button.

Now as the frames move on you'll see

the first subtle change.

I've slightly lowered the angle of the lens

to remove the space above the bridesmaids head.

I'll explain more on that later.

I haven't adjusted focus neither she nor I

have moved.

The focal distance has stayed the same.

Now as the frames move on again you'll

see the camera pans across to the right

and the final shot the bridesmaid frame tight

to the left edge of the frame fully

edited and this is the one shot I

delivered from that sequence.

It's also important to note that I will

have taken those 10 to 12 frames over

a 2 to 3 second period.

Okay should we do a quick demo?

Let's do a very quick run-through of

the process of back button focus and how

it unfolds in my mind at a wedding.

We have a subject off to the side.

The subject today just so happens to be

the back of an office chair but let's

just pretend for now for this purpose that

this is a person at a wedding.

So I've identified my subject as I raise

the camera to my face and look through

the viewfinder I'll align the center focus point

with my subjects face, press the back button,

safe shot, release the back button, recompose.

If I want to now refocus I'll return

the camera to the center point on the

subjects face, press the back button, safe shot,

release the back button, pan left, pan right,

up down, however I wish.

That's it in a nutshell and I apply

that process to every minute, every scene, every

moment of every single wedding I go to.

Now if you've never used this method you

will need to set it up and practice

before taking it to a wedding but for

me it gives you far more control and

creativity when it comes to working a scene

or frame.

I'm not going to be able to tell

you how to set it up on your

camera.

We'd be here for several hours working through

every single system but if you google back

button focus and your camera model the chances

are you'll find a lovely American YouTuber telling

you how to set it up.

For those of you now shooting mirrorless back

button can still apply but most mirrorless systems

now have the added bonus of eye tracking

which makes the focus and recompose method slightly

redundant.

Again I'm not going to be able to

go through how you should set up your

camera as I can't cover every system, however

to give you an insight into how I'll

be working on the R6 I now have

two back button options.

One is assigned to eye tracking which is

terrifyingly good, it kind of makes me feel

a little bit like I'm cheating.

The other is more standard and similar to

my previous back button setup, however this time

I can just touch the back of the

screen to select my AF point then focus

and shoot.

The next two elements of my setup I

want to discuss are servo and high continuous.

If you shoot Nikon or Sony servo translates

to AFC or AF continuous.

Either way it's the focusing mode that when

you hold the focus button down tracks your

subject as they move closer or further away

from you and the reason I shoot servo

all day is simply because if I need

the focus to stop tracking i.e. to

lock I just take my thumb from the

back button and the focus is locked which

really just negates the need for ever using

one shot or AF-S if you're Nikon.

I honestly do not see the point of

that one shot AF operation if you shoot

back button focus.

The second part of this section is the

drive mode, the rate at which the camera

will fire off frames which for me is

always set to high continuous.

I want to be able to squeeze every

bit of potential from every scene I document

so using a feature such as silent shutter

on DSLRs or low continuous or even worse

single shooting just increases the risk of me

not being able to capture that perfect frame

when every element of the shot lines up

correctly.

I will always miss the occasional moment but

this and everything about how I set up

and shoot is about marginal gains and giving

yourself every opportunity to maximize the moment when

the moment arrives.

Let's talk about white balance said no one

ever.

Let's just keep this short shall we.

For the past eight years I've shot auto

white balance but like a lot of my

setup decisions I want to keep it simple.

Any decisions I have to make on the

day with regards to settings are simply a

distraction from being present in the scene.

So auto white balance it can be adjusted

and edited in post, job done.

Okay in terms of shooting setup I want

to briefly talk about manual settings versus an

option like aperture priority and how I expose

for a scene.

Now there are no right or wrong ways

to do this I know plenty of talented

photographers who swear by aperture priority likewise plenty

who shoot full manual.

You have to experiment and figure out what

works best for you which feels most comfortable

and reliable.

However over the past few years the method

in which I shoot has changed with the

introduction of live view and now mirrorless bodies.

Prior to both of those changes I was

a full manual shooter.

I wanted control.

I understand the benefits of aperture priority but

there were just too many occasions the camera

would misunderstand the exposure of a scene and

the only way to remove that is to

take full control so I did.

However the introduction of live view, mirrorless bodies

and exposure simulation, god that's a bit of

a mouthful, combined with much greater ISO performance

has meant that 99% of the time

I'm shooting auto ISO and using the back

of the LCD screen.

I only have a need for using the

viewfinder now when it's incredibly bright and I

need to double check my exposure.

But just to clarify the ISO part I

have my body set to an auto range

of 100 to 12,800 ISO.

Four years ago shooting at 12,800 wasn't

great in fact it was bloody rubbish but

now the files are clean and more than

usable.

If I want to shoot above that I

can I just have to manually override it.

Finally lens choice.

I've already mentioned my go-to setup is

the 35 and 135 or 35 and 85

combo.

I don't constantly change lenses during the day.

Again my focus is the scene and what's

happening in front of me.

Often the biggest mistake I see in people's

work and I've been guilty of this before

stems from the wrong lens choice.

I always wanted to be really obvious who

my subject is so which body or lens

I choose to shoot on whether that be

the 35mm 1.4, the 85mm 1.2

or the crazily overlooked 135mm is usually determined

by my subject and my distance from that

subject.

We'll be exploring this more in the next

couple of videos.

See you in a bit.

I'm off to get a brew.

That's a that's a cup of tea it's

not a beer.

I'm off to get a cup of tea.

See you in a bit.