Hey! I feel like it’s been a while since the last time I shared with you some tips and tricks of how we do things based on our experience. Today I wanted to talk about lenses. Honestly, after a few years into shooting, it feels to me that we started liking or disliking lenses, as well as strategically picking which ones to use, much, much later down the road. Its funny, but in the beginning I remember picking a lens based of the focal length. There was a choice of two kit lenses with the 30D that we were purchasing at the time. The first one was the “infamous” EF 18-55mm F3.5-5.6, and the other one was the EF  28-135mm F3.5-5.6 USM lens. And I’ll be completely honest with you – I did not know a single thing of what it all meant! All that I knew was the “mm”, and that was only because I grew up in Russia using metric system:) So, using a very simply logical concept “the bigger – the better” I went with buying the 28-135 one. It funny how it is, but today I think that neither of those two would give any great results in terms of quality of an image. It took time and practice to realize whatever we try, we can’t get a sharp enough image out of our camera. It all came to a pretty challenging conclusion. We either have to get an expensive “L” series lens, or we won’t get anywhere. EF 24-70 F2.8 was a pure joy to work with. It was much faster at F2.8, it was much sharper, and the colors seemed to be way more accurate. We loved that thing with all our hearts until we’ve discovered the prime lenses. At first, I didn’t really like the idea of not having the comfort of a zoom lens. It felt weird. However, after comparing the results from the 24-70 with primes, over and over again we could see the difference in the overall performance of them. Besides, all great primes were significantly faster. I must admit, the switch to prime lenses was probably one of the most significant changes we’ve done in our business. Today in our arsenal we have EF 35mm F1.4L, EF 50mm F1.4, EF 85mm F1.8, EF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. This set is definitely not a complete list and we’ll be adding lenses as we go, but these getthe job done and we’re able to produce great results with them.

We hope this is somehow helpful to you. If any of you have any questions in regards to lens selection or performance, feel absolutely free to drop us a note. We would love to answer any Qs.

Obviously, all this information is more familiar to people who know photographer’s world and terminology, so we apologize if this bored you to death:) Just keep scrolling down and enjoy some of our favorites from Alex and Liz’s wedding:

Last weekend was a lot of fun. We got a cool chance to get out of town and shoot an engagement session down in Los Angeles area. We ended up shooting around little town named Topanga. Its located northwest from L.A. and is right by Topanga State Park. Its beautiful out there. Well, Matt and Mayra were fantastic. We enjoyed every minute working with them, and can’t wait to photograph their wedding at the amazing Smog Shoppe.

Besides the good times with our couple, we accidentally discovered an interesting fact about L.A. state parks. It turns out that you got to have a permit in order not to get a citation for taking pictures in L.A. state parks. Interesting :)! Have a good week everyone…

Wedding photography is literally a gift in our lives, not just the shooting part although it is definitely great to be able to express your vision of a person’s wedding day, capture their moments and create memories. However, there is much more to it. It is about the fun of meeting new people and engaging in some entertaining conversations at the reception. It also allows us to make connections that helps us create unique photographs. Probably one of the most enjoyable things is to hear all the jokes that typically surround the bridal party. I guess the joking is a natural thing to expect, when a bunch of good friends are stuck together for an entire day. So, seriously, we cannot be more thankful to God for such a wonderfully cool job.

Jordan and Kati’s wedding was lovely, it took place at Englemann Cellars a couple of weeks ago.

Thank you guys for making us a part of your day, and here is a short recap of what happened that day…