Ten CRITICAL Tips for Shooting Your FIRST Wedding | Master Your Craft

Just been asked by a collegue to photograph her wedding ... scared but honoured to do it ... havnt said yes yet though but I am seriously concidering it and videos like yours help me

Do you just take photos or do you take videos too?

I narrowly pulled off my first wedding last week. Client just left a stellar review today. I thought I was ready for any problem…but I wasn’t.

1. Unless you absolutely must, avoid silent shutter mode. Nearby LEDs caused slight orange bars/color banding during the ceremony. I was completely unaware that this was a thing. I quickly caught it and was able to correct in post, but I wish I had known about it ahead of time. If you must use silent photography, get a tripod and shoot at 1/00s or under to minimize or avoid banding. When I noticed the orange bars on my ceremony photos while it was occurring I nearly shit myself.

2. Unless you know your flash supports HSS, make sure to cap your shutter speed with flash at 1/200s. If faster and your flash doesn’t support shutter speeds beyond that, you can get curtain drag where half of the sensor is dark. Happened to me; I quickly switched out the lens to stop the issue.

I was panicked during my shoot but I’m lucky it still turned out okay. Best of luck.

THANKS FOR THE TIPS

I WOULD LOVE TO USE FLASH FOR MY PHOTOS I HAVE a SONY a7IV paird wITH A SIGMA 24-70@ 2.8 ALSO SIGMA 85MM1.4 AND I JUST GOT INTO THE PHOTO AND VIDEO WORLD ,I HAVENT FIND ANY VIDEO THAT ACTUALLY TEACH ABOUT IT . FLASH SETTING HOW TO.?

I got my first wedding this month. I’m an experienced photographer but still a little nervous. This helped a lot, thank you!

Thank you so much, it help me

Thank you very You just save me about £2,000 also Thank you your adive I look forward to see more Thank You

from Sensei

this is productive information

Really loved this video! Thank you for all the advice! Will be back to watch some more!

Sixteen years in for us and great advice.

Fantastic tips. Thank you!!!

Thankyou, have been photographing for a while, first wedding shortly. I have a cannon 5D mark iv hope this is okay...

Shooting my third wedding next week and going through getting some refreshers. I think the wide, medium and tight is a great tip!

Makes a lot of sense everything

and tomorrow am shooting my first wedding! and just so happen to come across your video as my Frist advice 🙏🙏🙏

Tip #1.... wouldn't charging something actually encourage them to demand more "stuff" tho, quicker deadlines, more editing on photos, etc?
as opposed as to doing it "for free" or "as a gift" given that they're "friends" or something..

Like.. i live in a 3rd world country and profesional wedings often go for 300$... so the "charging something" would mean like.. 20$.. which is still "nothing" for the amount of time and effort needed.. lol

Not a fan of #10 or at least the way it was presented.

Everything else was great. However I feel like it should have been specified to that experienced second shooter - “I am using you to make myself better.”

In which case I’d imagine most who you will hire will approach that situation much differently or maybe not at all.

Using their images in your portfolio and to sell yourself down the line is a huge negative for me. Yes you paid for their time etc but that’s not actually quality YOU, the lead produced. I actually just had this happen recently to me where some friend of a friend asked me to help them out. And that person pretty much expected me to make their wedding images better. They even expected me to take portraits as my gear was about 10 years newer and I have about 12 years more experience than they do.

I refused bc that was not what I was hired to do. I was hired to support not lead and they didn’t say anything about wanting me to teach them. At certain points they were falling on their face I jumped in and picked up the slack and fixed the situation.

But with that said. I got paid about 1/10th of what I charge my clients. So I didn’t see it right to deliver quality to his clients that mine pay significantly more for.

So yeah I don’t think it’s right to hire someone better than you expecting them to help you showcase something they’ve worked hard to learn and grow on their own.

My 2¢, go second shoot as second shooters for those photographers and ask if you can use your images for your own portfolio. Almost ANY LEAD will always know that they will probably have to show a second some tips and tricks. But they are also being paid more to do so. Not the other way around.
And if you can’t do that ask to follow around a lead and experienced second on a wedding day as a shadow shooter. This way you can learn from them both and pressure the lead to HAVE to hold your hand they can focus on what’s important. The couple!

Good tips

Great video man! Thank you so much!

Love your tips. They sound like common sense but we know CS is dearly missing these days. More importantly, they are practical insights and once you explained them, it's obvious you know your stuff.

I'm a "professional enthusiast" (LOL, ie... enthusiast all my life) and had been to one particular wedding where I got so involved in taking snaps on my iPhone that after the wedding, the "real pros" when put on the hot seat by the client for not delivering enough good shots told them "there was this one particular guest - ME! - wielding his iPhone all over the place" who blocked most of their shots/videos. When this was brought to my attention, I didn't protest at all as the client was pretty cross with the whole thing. But I've been a practising enthusiast - errrr, pro enthusiast - long enough to know that's a lame excuse from anyone purporting to be a pro wedding photographer. If I'd been in the way, why didn't these pros said anything (DIRECT the situation, per your Tip number 10) until they came up short with their client? Is it a prerequisite for "pros" to have zero situational awareness at a wedding gig?

I called Canon and they said they haven't heard of a SD card failing on its own. Now I'm confused lol. 😅
I only have 1 sd card slot and have used the camera for 4 years without an issue. Is that luck or is the SD card supposed to fail by now? I can't afford a 2 SD card camera 😢

Shooting my first wedding next month. I made it very clear that I am not a professional. I do photography as a hobby, but looking to get into the wedding space. Its a small wedding and the most important photos to them are photos with their JP and family group photos. Charging $100 per hour. $500 for 5 hours. They are super excited and say that I am exactly what they are looking for. Hope all goes well.

great advice which is not covered in many wedding photography videos. thanks

Do you advise for the ceremony to go with a monopod/tripod or stay on my gimbal the whole time for my first wedding?

We shoot a wedding for $200 here for like 12hrs😂😢

Awesome tips.. and as always great content covered in a simplified manner..

A great educator

Superb video, great points and well communicated. Thank you

Great Content as usual. No fluff. The only sad thing is that we can’t hire Pye for $500 as a second shooter. 😂

Very solid advice !! ....And you can tell it comes with experience . . . .

Amazing and useful tips! Thank you!

Ya that my reasoning I take a lot of indoor photos but I've never photographed a wedding and now I have two small intimate outdoor wedding coming up..but I don't charge anything because it's a cousin and I was doing them a favor I do like my pictures but am very new to weddings so I've been doing tons of research thanks for the tips

All good tips but #8 was really helpful. Gonna shoot my first wedding today :D

THANK YOU ADORAMA

Great advice👍

That last tip I would have never thought of! I’ve been asked by many to shoot their wedding because of my landscape, city, macro photography and I was always too nervous. This is definitely how I will approach it next time I’m asked!

I appreciate this video! I am shooting my first wedding and it is two weddings!

Thanks for the tips… definitely learn a lot from this video…

I hate taking family potraits especially involving many members, there always complain that they dont look good bla bla

Damn.. those were SOLID tips! Thank you!

I am a landscape and travel photographer. I have been asked to photograph a wedding which is making me slightly nervous. This video has been really helpful as a start point for thinking through the key aspects. Thank you

I wasn't ready for tip #1 and 2. This man knows what he is saying. Man I cannot pay you or say thanks enough.

Hey, I will be shooting my very first wedding in a few weeks. Currently, I own a full-frame camera with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens, a 70-200mm f/4 lens, a 50mm f/1.8 lens, and an APS-C camera with almost the same lenses, except for an ultra-wide-angle lens. I was thinking about renting an 85mm f/1.4 lens. Do you think it is necessary, or will I be fine with my current gear?

I am shooting my first wedding tomorrow and I’m nervous for it. I took notes! thank you so much

Brilliant video..! Seriously recommend this to any level of photographer - thank you.

So much to keep in mind. Then there's the whole aspect of video recording. // Stupid question: Is it true that we always need a second shooter - to capture the moment when the couple leaves the altar - first time as a couple? Or is this passe these days?

That was very insightful!

ive been feeling so anxious since my first wedding is coming up and this video really helped me to calm down and feel more secure. Your voice is so soothing :) Gained a new subscriber here!