Lens Series Part 5: The Whole Picture

When we got started in photography, we read a lot of information from a lot of different people about what equipment to buy and when. We did some things right and we did some things wrong. And we want YOU to be able to learn from what we did so that you can do it better! Hopefully this will help you if you are just getting started or need a little bit of help wherever you are in your journey! We want to help! You can catch up on our lens series here:

Part 1: Getting Started
Part 2: Going Long
Part 3: Creamy Dreamy
Part 4: Little Details
Part 5: The Whole Picture
Bonus: Secret Weapon

Today we are going to be talking about our final lens, the Canon 16-35mm 2.8. To be honest we debated whether to include this lens in the series or not. This lens gets the least amount of use by far for several reasons. It is very specialized. This lens is very wide. However our style is such that we love to show the closeup connection between our couples and so we rarely use this lens. But at the end of the day, there are a few select times that we do use it and we felt that we should include it in this series because not everyone has the same style that we have. If you like to shoot with your couple very small in the frame and show lots of the surrounding area, then this lens will be great for you. We are going to point out its strengths today and you can make a judgement call as to whether this lens would be useful for you!

The advantages of this lens are all tied to the width of its view. It does an amazing job of capturing a lot of the scene in front of you, even in tight spaces. The best way for us to help you know how we have used it is just to list several instances where it really comes in handy.

So, for example, we have used it to get a wide shot of a large reception room setup. We had a wedding recently where 500 people were invited to a sit down reception. Obviously that was a large room! So we used the 16-35mm to capture that entire room setup. Another instance would be dancing photos at receptions. Many times there can be 100+ people out on the dance floor and we want to capture that whole scene in one image! Also, sometimes, we use it to get a cool shot of the whole ceremony as it is happening. Our couples like to see who was at their wedding and using the 16-35mm is a great way to show them the whole scene.

Like we said earlier, we rarely use this lens and we almost never use it for portraits. But we will share one instance where we might break it out every now and then. Sometimes, there is a background that is exceptionally beautiful or epic. This might be a great time to pull out the 16-35mm and capture that beauty, even if our couple is small in the frame. That’s one time where we might make an exception in our style and use this lens. But we will be honest and say that if you buy this lens, make it your last purchase unless the wide epic shots are your style. We also have the 24-70mm that we talked about earlier and at 24mm you can still get a lot of the scene in your image. So make sure you have the other important pieces in your arsenal before you make this purchase!

This is our last lens! Next week we will be bring you a bonus post about a piece of equipment that we also use at every session and wedding that has made our lives so so much easier! If you’re a photographer, you won’t want to miss this one! See you next time for our final post in this series!