New to weddings. Which lens to use for ceremony?

ParkerSmithPhoto said:

So, 50 couples a year means all but two weekends of one year of your life are spent stressing out over wedding photography; or, you are double-booked on a Saturday, running on fumes and risking a bad performance due to exhaustion, and then your whole Sunday is spent in recovery.

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In some sense I agree with you, if you booked 50 couples your fee is too low. But in my case half of my clients are Jewish people and Sunday weddings are very common. Some people do Friday wedding, particularly in this economy, too.

It’s not being negative to point out the fatal flaws in that business model. I'd rather go out and make $2000 in four hours shooting Santa portraits, walk away and be completely finished with it than "make" $3500 to shoot a nine hour wedding (which, believe me, is the high end of average wedding $$$), with 20 hours of post-production and $900 cost of sales.

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$3500 sounds about right. I know people who charge 6000 and still get fully booked. I actually don’t mind shooting wedding much but I just don’t want to be known to shoot wedding... I’d rather shoot commercial assignments.

What always worried me when I used to do weddings was due to the law of averages, and how many you could do without having your first disaster, I was fortunate for about five years and managed to quit while I was ahead, but still sometimes have nightmares about it.

I have done my fair share of wedding photography with a Canon EF system, digital and film.

I usually bring an assistant if I know it's going to be big. Carry spares and back-ups of EVERYTHING. Be seasoned, know how to pose people. It really is for pros. You're going to get bridezillas and people no matter how well you pose them and how dead-nuts accurate the exposure is, they will haul you off to court.

One lens you will want, and they do date back to the FL mount, is the 85mm f1.4, if you can spring for a newer rig, 85 f1.2L. IF you are shooting an EOS system these are readily available from any lens rental site.

I shoot the occasional wedding but I really prefer to shoot as a second doing the art shots. I have a couple friends that call me from time to time for the art part because they know I tend to see in those terms.

Arjuna said:

Thoughts?

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Yes, get the longest lens you can afford. 500mm at least. And then put a 2x teleconverter on it. You want to be as far away as possible from bridezilla and her mom.