DPReview.com is closing April 10th - Find out more

Go-to lenses for event photography

Started 3 months ago | Questions thread
Erik Baumgartner Senior Member • Posts: 6,894
Re: Go-to lenses for event photography
4

Nothing wrong with fast primes (I like a 23/56mm combo on two bodies - I hate swapping lenses), but unless it’s really dark, my go-tos are the 16-55 and 50-140 f/2.8 zooms. They’re both exceptionally sharp and excellent performers wide open at f/2.8 - which is usually plenty fast enough, and with apertures much wider than that you will often run into DOF issues in a group setting anyway.

While f/2.8 is usually fine, f4 is often not, and 18mm isn’t often wide enough for my liking either, so the 18-55 f/2.8-f/4 might “work”, but wouldn’t be my first choice.

Complementing your 23 with a 56 would be fine, but unless you have a second body, that will mean swapping lenses and significantly less versatility (IMO). FWIW, I shot my father in law’s 80th birthday party in a similar setting to yours with just my 16-55 without any issues. I hate the on-camera flash look with a passion and haven’t shot that way in over a decade now.

As far a group shot goes, I would assemble everyone in as shallow (and reasonably narrow) an arrangement as possible and back up as much as you can to minimize perspective distortion at the edges of the frame and maximize DOF.

 Erik Baumgartner's gear list:Erik Baumgartner's gear list
Sony RX100 Fujifilm X100V Fujifilm X-T2 Fujifilm X-T20 Fujifilm XF 35mm F1.4 R +5 more
Post (hide subjects) Posted by
gsz
gsz
Keyboard shortcuts:
FForum PPrevious NNext WNext unread UUpvote SSubscribe RReply QQuote BBookmark MMy threads
Color scheme? Blue / Yellow