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Hey photographer friends! Welcome to Part 3 of Camera Bag Essentials. Each week, we’ll be sharing some wisdom on some of the basics of every professional wedding photographer’s arsenal of equipment, and when it might make sense to buy it! Last week, Hunter talked about wide angle lenses and which we recommend for each photographer and business. This week, I’ll be sharing about one of our biggest lens investments to date: the telephoto zoom lens!

 

4 Reasons to Buy a Telephoto Lens

For us, we can think of three situations when we always reach for our telephoto zoom lens. If you find yourself in any of these situations, you may want to consider purchasing one for you and your business!

 

 

1. When you can’t get any closer to your subjects during a wedding ceremony 

When it comes to not being able to get any close to your subjects, we immediately think of wedding ceremonies. While we know some photographers who have no qualms with getting right up in a couple’s face during a wedding ceremony, our philosophy is that wedding ceremonies are sacred, and therefore we want to capture the best images we can without being overly disruptive. 

 

And of course there are some venues — usually churches or other places of worship — where you’re physically limited by how close you’re allowed to stand to the couple during a ceremony. Maybe you’re not allowed to walk any closer to the altar than the guest who sits furthest back, or maybe you’re not even allowed to leave the balcony. These are pretty rare, but if you do have a wedding at venue like this, you’ll definitely want a good zoom lens.  

 

 

 

But even if you’re allowed to stand as close as you’d like, it’s still nice to be able to really zoom in and capture all of the emotions of a wedding ceremony without getting in anyone’s way too much.

 

 

2. When you can’t get any closer to your subjects during a surprise proposal

The other situation where we’re limited with movement is during surprise proposals. While not every photographer captures proposals, we photograph them all the time! And while we love the wide shot showing the entire scene and one person down on their knee…

 

 

We also love shooting with our telephoto lens, capturing the reaction of whichever person is being proposed to! There’s always SO much emotion in the eyes and face of someone as they realize what’s happening during a proposal, and we want to be able to really capture all of that emotion, without standing right up near them. We’re often seated nearby on a blanket, pretending to be on a picnic, so our telephoto zoom lens lets us capture great tight, emotional images even if our client who is doing the proposing stands a little further from us than we’d planned.

 

 

3. When you want to capture multiple angles quickly and without moving

During wedding ceremonies (and especially just before the kiss), we love to capture a variety of close-up and wider angles. In the photos below, we were able to really zoom right in and fill almost the entire frame with Jess and Tanner’s kiss, zoom out a bit to capture a near-full body shot, then zoom out even further to feature just a bit more context of the image. And we were able to capture these three photos within seconds of each other without taking a single step!

 

 

Although we shoot with prime lenses throughout most of the day, not having to run around during a ceremony to capture multiple angles is another way that helps our couple and their guests really focus on the wedding ceremony and stay present in the moment, rather than being distracted by us.

 

4. When you need to be far away from your subjects to protect your own gear

While most professional camera bodies and lenses are made to withstand a bit moisture and dust, you never want to intentionally put your gear in harm’s way. And there are a handful of scenarios where you might want to capture an image inside the “splash zone”.

 

One example of this is popping champagne. Whether we’re shooting graduation sessions at our local university or capturing a bride popping champagne with her bridesmaids on the morning of her wedding, we need to protect our gear from getting sprayed while also capturing great shots.

 

 

And as added bonus, you don’t have to smell like stale champagne for the rest of your day! 😂

 

So, Which Telephoto Zoom Lens Should I Buy?

So at this point, you hopefully have a pretty good idea of whether or not your business could benefit from a telephoto zoom lens. If you ARE convinced that you want to buy one, the 70-200mm f/2.8 is a staple of most wedding photographer’s camera bags!

 

If you read Part 2 of this blog series last week, you know that we also recommend the 24-70 mm f/2.8, and (to a lesser degree) the 14-24 mm f/2.8. These three lenses together are often called the “trinity of zoom lenses”, because if you own all three, you’re covered from the ultra-wide 14 mm all the way to the super-telephoto 200 mm, at a consistent f/2.8 aperture.

 

 

However, there are two caveats when it comes to a 70-200 mm lens. The first is that it’s very expensive. If you were to purchase a new 70-200 directly from Nikon, it would run you around $2,600 for the newer, Z-mount mirrorless lens or the Gen-2 F-mount version, or $2,350 for the Gen-1 F-mount version. Although these prices will come down slightly with time, I can’t imagine a new 70-200 from Nikon costing less than $2k anytime soon 🤷‍♀️

 

Just like with the wide angle zoom lenses we talked about last week, you can always save money on glass by looking at well-cared for used lenses, or a reputable third-party lens maker like Tamron. When we purchased our Tamron 70-200 f/2.8 in the pre-mirrorless days, we got a brand new lens that, as far as we could tell from our research, was about 90% as good as the Nikon F-mount version, for around half the cost. At the time, that was good enough for where we were in our business! There are also less expensive, f/4 versions of the 70-200 which you could get from Nikon for under $1,300 or from Tamron for closer to $600.

 

 

The other caveat with the 70-200 f/2.8 is just that it’s heavy. If you’re small (and not very swol) like I am, carrying the 70-200 for an entire hour-long ceremony can be really challenging. And the last thing you want is to tire out your arms and get really shaky hands during the ceremony that end up blurring your photos!

 

Even for Hunter, after shooting with lighter prime lenses most of the day, he can feel his wrists and forearms getting sore when has have to shoot a longer ceremony with the 70-200. It’s definitely not a lens either of us would want to carry all day long, which is why even though some people like shooting portraits with this lens, we’d rather just use a telephoto prime lens like an 85 mm. 

 

 

Well, that’s it! Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

 

Want More?

 

Click HERE to get your free copy of our eBook: “5 Essential Tips for Turning your Side-Hustle into a Full-Time Photography Business.” You’ll also be subscribed to our newsletter, so our newest content, weekly encouragement, and exclusive offers will be delivered right to your inbox!

 

 

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Shopping List!

If you’re planning to purchase anything that we talked about today and we helped you make your decision, it would mean SO much to us if you purchased it through the links below! You’ll pay the same price as you normally would on Amazon, but Amazon would share a small slice of the profit with us. You’ll get what you need, support a small local business (us), and show us that our advice really has been helpful! Thanks! [Prices shown as of date of publishing, and are just for comparison/reference]

 

Mirrorless:

• Nikon Z 70-200 mm f/2.8 S [$2,600]

DSLR:

• Nikon F-Mount 70-200 mm f/2.8 G VR II [$2,600]
• Nikon F-Mount 70-200 mm f/2.8 G VR [$2,350]
• Nikon F-Mount 70-200 mm f/4.0 F VR [$1,400]
• Tamron F-Mount 70-200 mm f/2.8 G2 for Nikon [$1,300]
• Tamron F-Mount 70-200 mm f/4.0 for Nikon [$600]

 

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Check out the rest of the series below!

• • Camera Bag Essentials 0: DSLR vs Mirrorless: Nikon D750 vs Z6 vs Z6ii
  • Camera Bag Essentials 1: Prime Lenses: 85mm vs 50mm vs 35mm
  • Camera Bag Essentials 2: Wide Angle Lenses: 35mm vs 24-70mm vs 14-24mm
  • Camera Bag Essentials 3: Four Reasons to Buy a Telephoto Zoom Lens: The 70-200mm f/2.8
  • Camera Bag Essentials 4: How to Up Your Detail-Photo Game with a Macro Lens
  • Camera Bag Essentials 5: Using Reflectors and Flashes as a Natural Light Wedding Photographer
  • Camera Bag Essentials 6: Why We Used Off-Camera Flash as Wedding Photographers… But Don’t Anymore
  • Camera Bag Essentials 7: How to Know When It’s Time to Upgrade Your Camera Body
  • Camera Bag Essentials 8: How to Know When You’re Ready for a New Prime Lens
  • Camera Bag Essentials 9: Everything You Need to Know to Protect Your Camera Gear
  • Camera Bag Essentials 10: 10 Wedding Photography Accessories You Didn’t Know You Needed