Fourteen long and tiring hours into our first wedding photo gig this wedding season, and I got a virtual bitch-slap to the back of my head. Rudy Raharjo, my photography partner-in-crime slash cousin, turned to me and calmly asked “Are you going to sing tonight?”  Eight awkward seconds and one dumb-blank-look later, the best line I could mumble out was a trembling sorry-ass “Yes”.

Now, I love singing. Why, you ask? Singing transports me to a serene place where everything is perfectly orchestrated and flawlessly in tune, a stark contrast to the bitter and chaotic mess we call life. How much, you ask? So much that your beloved photographer wholeheartedly started a wedding band, ready to serve you and your loved ones, whenever he’s not booked to shoot a photo session

It was just that the song the bride chose for me, Michael Buble’s Dream a Little Dream, was a pop jazz piece that usually needs several takes of practice for the band to master. It was just that I forgot to print out the lyric. It was just that I had been laughing and joking all day that my voice was half-gone.

Aside from the annoying off-tune meant-to-be-harmony from the band singer, the ordeal ended well, though. J And when the bubbly MC yelled “One more!”, I knew I got lucky that nothing went wrong. Let’s count my blessings, shall we? 1. Although the band wasn’t familiar with the song (the bride swore she informed the band several days before ), the saxophonist happened to have the song on his mobile phone.  2. My old brain decided to show up for work and remembered all the words. 3. The heavy rain pushed the start of the wedding back, allowing us to have one more practice run at the song. 4. The sorry attempt by the male singer to throw me off tune failed miserably! (Kidding!)

One should never leave success to chance. Never. And the same is true, if not truer, for professional wedding photography. Read on, and I guarantee that you’d have much less shooting hiccups.

The Virtual Run Down

I always take the time to slowly visualize the shooting day in my head, as detailed as humanly possible. It allows me to visualize the gears, foresee any potential issues, and plan accordingly. Be paranoid, identify the things that can go wrong, and what you can do to prevent and/or overcome the potential issues. Never, ever, allow your plan to have a single point of failure. On a wedding assignment, I carry 2 cameras, 4 sets of camera batteries, 2 flashes, 5 sets of flash batteries, some-40 GB memory cards, and a mobile hard drive to back up the memory cards. Lenses? 24-70/2.8, 50/1.4, 85/1.8, 135/2, and 70-200/2.8. That way, if one piece (or two, God forbid) goes wrong, the others will let you run safely through the rest of the day.

The Preparation

Charge your batteries, format your memory cards, reset the cameras back to your preferred settings, clean your lenses, re-read the plan/concept, and folks, it doesn’t stop there .

Ready your clothes, pack a mint. Get enough rest, you’ll need to be quick on your feet tomorrow. Don’t eat anything challenging. Put all your bags in one spot, ready to be lugged.  And by all means, set at least two alarm clocks!

The Shooting Day

First off, check your camera settings, and make sure they’re set to your likings, before you start shooting.

Shoot RAW. Memory cards are darn cheap these days. Shooting RAW allows you to correct your picture style, exposure, and white balance later on. And while we’re on the subject, get the higher-speed memory cards, you don’t want to be losing moments.

Chimpings are good! Take full advantage of shooting digital and check your results often. Mistakes will be made, just make sure you find out soon enough to correct them.

And smile often! You’re less likely to be yelled at for your mistake when you’re smiling.

                And as you’re reading this article, you must be thinking, how did the dream get unpoofed?   One single innocent Facebook message from a photography-oriented group member undid my brain bind. A simple “Hi” pulled me back into the group I hadn’t had the time to read, let alone participate. And as I casually browsed along, I found myself smiling as I came across new exciting things, and my grin grew even bigger as I witnessed how some things will never ever change.

“Just how much your photo equipments affect the quality of your pictures?” remains one of the most asked questions of all time.  And it gets asked a lot, and in so many forms, in the said Facebook group. If you care to spin some perspective into the issue, you’d understand why so many people blurt out that very question. Producing good pictures is a darn difficult task, but you see great photos (and great photographers) left and right these days. And when you’re not YET (have faith, people ) churning away good pictures, it’s very common for you to believe that you could do better by just upgrading your photo equipments (instead of upgrading your photography skills and understanding ).

Now I could go on and on, north and south, up and down, and discuss the A to Z of things. But in case you haven’t been paying attention, I only get 1 tiny page, and despite my constant bitching, I suspect we’d see peace in Middle East before they’d raise my quota   So here’s my abbreviated (and confusing:-) )take.

YES! Equipments matter! (But only to an extent)

You don’t really think your cheaper-than-your-shoe pocket camera can compete with that camera sitting so beautifully behind that shopping window you’ve been leaving your drool on for the past month, do you?

Pocket cameras are on their own easy-to-carry, acceptable-for-amateurish-print league and Prosumer cameras are in their in-betweens world. Accept that fact. And yes, there are some tricks to take some great photos with those cameras (go revisit a previous article of mine), but in general, prices don’t lie.

Once you get into the DSLR area, most bets are off, though. You now have in your plate, the full manual control that you don’t get with the pocket cameras, and the wide range of great lenses that Prosumer cameras don’t allow, by design.

Full manual control – Love it or hate it?

This is, in essence, the number one reason why pros can take great photos. They take control. They decide each of the many little parameters that make up a photo. Be it focus point, ISO, speed, aperture, metering mode, color temperature, focal length, angle (and I have yet to get to the non-technical side of things, like wardrobes, mood, props, and a zillion others).

So, if you’re the type that would take advantage of having a full manual control, then YES! Equipments will greatly affect the quality of your shots. Ohers? Rrrrr.. Equipments’ll help, but not by much Read on, you’ll know.

The speed of things

Camera response time is arguably the main differentiator between any two camera levels. Other differentiators (Number of AF points, number of CF slots, battery power, full frame vs DX, etc) can be remedied by clever work-arounds. But response time simply can’t be fooled. This is why wedding photographers invest in professional camera bodies. They can’t afford to miss those priceless moments.

But if you’re a weekend photo hunter whose objects can be told to pose or wait for you, spending the extra bucks on a pro camera wouldn’t do you a lot of good. Instead, spend on..

Glasses

I mean, lenses

Now this is a whole different discussion altogether when we’re talking lenses. Pricier lenses tend to be sharper (in the middle or even all across), focus faster, and let more lights in (which also results in the ability to blur the fore/background).

So, this is the one area I’d suggest you to go crazy on. But, sharp objects and blurry background get old real quickly if the photo is lacking framing, emotion/mood, clever posing and good..

Lighting

Good lighting is so easily overlooked. They create beautiful photos, but most people aren’t aware of the lighting complexities behind the scene.

And as I’m already well over my 1-page quota, let me just tell you this, if you’re MOST people, spend your money elsewhere