Are you spending your weeks for searching about beach wedding photography tips? please welcome to my blog because today I wanna share to you some essential guidance that you can do for shooting your first beach wedding.
Beach wedding is a dream for million couple in this world!
I live in Indonesia for the past 35 years and I’m so grateful that my country got various lovely beaches that used for wedding celebration. I know that majority of couple want to spend their money just to get married in Bali or we used to called as Land of God. In fact I know exactly that Bali is hosting thousand of international wedding in a year and this is why I want to tell you in more further about beach wedding photography tips that I personally know after become a photographer for over than a decade.
10 Beach Wedding Photography Tips That You Should Know
When you got an enquiry and dealing with someone for shooting on beach wedding, I know that it blows your mind so be grateful and celebrate it because this is your milestone. Once you get it done than it is your time to know more about beach wedding photography tips both from my blog or spending hours for browsing on Google.
I know how is the feeling for being confuse or worry about your first beach wedding shooting but the first saying that I’m going to say is,
Stay calm!
Remember, this is your milestone so must enjoy it and do the best as you can to deliver great memories to your couple. Just to make this beach wedding photography tips easy to do so I will breakdown all the steps that you can do from start to finish.
1 – Make Sure All the Detail About Date and Location of Photo Shoot
This first suggestion is about asking all the details about date and location of the beach wedding. Make sure and double check your whole photo shoot schedule and don’t let any other schedule got crash with the new deal.
2 – Book Your Accommodation and Transportation
This second part is talking about your travel expenses and specifically it will telling you about flight and accommodation.
Accommodation
During past 10 years I get used to book my accommodation on two trusted platform, the Agoda and Airbnb. Personally I will book with Agoda if I shoot on a private island like what I had in Maldives but just in case I shoot in a down town like Hong Kong or Singapore than I will use Airbnb better.
Flights
When you get everything fixed than you can put your first beach wedding schedule on the list and block the date from other appointment. If you need to book a flight ticket both domestic or international than do it immediately to get the best rate of airlines. Try to check your local agent or do an online search with Jetradar to check the schedule and the flight rates.
3 – Ask Your Couple About the Whole Schedule
I could predict that most of beach wedding will celebrate before the sunset because all couple want to see the beauty of the beach together with scenic ocean view and surely the sunset ambiance. Once this magnificent period is over than most of them will continue to the party, I think this is gonna be the majority for the schedule.
In my third beach wedding photography tips, I will suggest you to ask 5 things that related to your couple marriage, such as:
- What time they will get prepare
- Location and time for the blessing ceremony
- How much time do you have for post wedding photo shoot following the ceremony
- What time the party begin, and
- Is there any after party celebration that you need to shoot
Here I surely don’t know how you made a collection or photography shooting but I used to make it as hour based. Generally when my couple book for 6 hours than I will end the photo shoot on the first hour of party but when it increase into 8 hours or more than I will keep shooting till the after party.
Here is the photo where I took a photo with my Singaporean couple Jasmine and Kevan after the sea food BBQ dinner in Bali.
4 – Choosing Your Photography Equipment
I think you will interesting for my fourth beach wedding photography tips because now we gonna discuss about wedding photography equipment that belong to most favourite discussion theme for every photographer. first thing that I’m going to say is, your photo gears are really important and this is why newly photographer spend hundred to thousand of dollars just to buy ridiculous photography equipment on Amazon or in the nearest store.
Even buying camera and lenses will burn your money out but it still REALLY important!
If you want to shoot beach wedding that you must consider that you will go and shoot for a wedding that located in such superb landscape so here you’re not only capturing the moment it self but also the scenic ocean view, cliff, or any other beautiful view.
Down here I’m gonna share to you about the most important equipment that you really to shoot beach wedding.
Cameras
I really suggest you to bring at least 2 camera body on your wedding session for SAFETY and COMFORT reasons. Safety is all about back up if you got trouble on your first body and the comfort is about giving you more chances to shoot various angle without changing your lens too often. Since I ever use two kind of camera system (Canon and Nikon) in the past 10 years so down here I will suggest you to buy cameras that I think belong to the best and help me so well to capturing beach wedding moment
Canon Gears
I personally love 5D collection and I use them since its first generation and the main reason about using the awesome camera is because it is full frame censor. This camera seems to be one of the most expensive Canon gears but no matter you use for L fine on JPEG format or even the RAW files than you will get the most outstanding file that you can deliver directly to client or after doing some post production work.
Nikon Gears
As the rival of Canon, Nikon also come with superb camera gears that gonna be fulfil your needs on capturing beach wedding. To make this competition fair than I also use both full frame Nikon camera for capturing moment. What I love about Nikon is, they have a beautiful raw files that come with better colour than Canon so once I get everything done on setting than I have a confidence to upload it on my album format, it’s fabulous!
Lenses
For your safety and comfort reason I will suggest few of lenses that you could buy, the good news is you can buy lenses with the same brand with your camera or using other brand that similar or have the same features and function. For the past 10 years I will bring 3 kind of lenses: wide, medium, and tele lenses
Let me suggest you down here,
Super Wide Lenses
Using a wide lens on the wedding is really good, it helps you not only for taking group photo but also shooting on a wide journalism style angle that will means a lot both for your portfolio and your couple hearts. Let me suggest you with few of them both for Nikon and Canon.
I shoot for for this couple pre wedding session back few years ago and that day I went to a beach in the North of Jakarta Indonesia where I get super nice wooden deck that directly face to the Java sea. By using Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 14-24mm f/2.8G ED on this scene so I can let my couple to lay down on the deck and capturing this glorious moment with a nice sea view for the background. Now look at the edge of the frame, since I use D810 which is full frame camera including 14mm lens so you will see the convex effect on the edge, it’s super wide lens.
Now take a look for this engagement session below, I was in Maldives back few years ago and shooting on the 5 start beautiful resorts. What I did is placing the Canon EF 16–35mm f/2.8L III USM which become of my favourite Canon super wide lens. Here I can get the perfect shape and moment of my couple who standing on the wooden deck but I could make a nice convex effect both on the right and left frame, it was wonderful
Medium Range Lens
Both for Canon or Nikon than my favourite medium range lens is 24-70mm, trust me no matter what kind of camera that you use but this kind of lens is extremely awesome and help you to get the most beautiful moment for sure.
Why I suggest you to own this 24-70mm lens on my beach wedding photography tips?
It’s all about efficiency!
Both Nikon AF-S FX NIKKOR 24-70mm or Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM and is coming for medium range shooting like for blessing ceremony, taking a portrait, group photo shoot or even taking some details on dress, shoes, and hand bouquet. Generally this lens is able to shoot for various beach wedding purposes without changing your lens too often.
Look at this beautiful moment below,
I love this moment so bad and it comes just within a seconds so it’s truly fast moment that I have right in front of my face. Having 24-70mm both for Canon and Nikon will let me capture this perfect moment without worry about aperture or even the range because this got got everything that every photographer need on beach wedding.
Tele Lens
I can’t believe what’s gonna be happen if company not publishing this great lens on this industry because it’s a masterpiece. Having tele lens is beyond expectation because it’s truly good lens for shooting in a long distance situation like blessing and party where as a photographer you gonna have a challenge to shoot a bit far from your couple.
Please remind that this long and expensive lens is not only help you for capturing moment that have a distance but it provides great shape and dimension on the object a.k.a your couple. With a perfect distance and good lighting you will definitely have a superb image result that blown your mind away. In fact both Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8E and Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM are having a great feature that will help you to make a clean and sharp images, the f2.8 as the biggest aperture setting that it has will give you a great dimension in all situation.
5 – Get Some References and Find Your Style
Now it’s the last beach wedding photography tips from me and this is about finding your own style. To find your own style than you must get some references and simply copy and paste it for your self and once you get practice and practice than you will get closer to your own shooting style.
Do Other Photographer Copy and Paste at Their 1st Time! YES
But with thousand times of learning all of them finally find their own style. You may browse for some references from best wedding photographer in this planet, learn for what they doing, how they shoot and capturing moments, and if you have some money than it would be so good to join on their workshop or seminars. If distance become matter than you can join for an online course or webinar and this is what I’m doing back in 2013, I’m here in Indonesia and I joined an international photography webinar Live from Los Angeles that take me to stay awake from 9pm to 6pm.
It’s hard but it’s worth it to do and I sure you already have some ideas on your mind about how’s gonna be your role model.
