One of the more rewarding aspects of learning photography basics is when you use it to take wedding reception photos. A family member, a friend or a colleague may request for your help to take some memorable wedding photography. Because it can be a very tough job, some compensation fees or ex-gratia payment may be expected; unless of course the wedding couple is a complete miser and totally oblivious to the amount of suffering a wedding photographer has to endure to capture their wedding photos!

Do request for some compensation as the photo shooting is a whole day affair starting from the early morning right till late at night for the wedding dinner before the celebration is over. I can say it out front that is very tiring carrying the heavy digital SLR camera complete with flash unit and a multi-purpose zoom lens attached. (By the way, don’t expect any compensation if you are NOT using DSLR, using a DSLR complete with the necessary accessories make you look like a pro because you are using pro equipment, yes?)

Planning to shoot like a pro? You may need to carry a second DSLR with a fixed prime lens that has big aperture like f1.8 to get that super portrait look. There is no time to switch lens shooting wedding reception photos. So switching cameras would be faster and thus the choice of carrying two DSLR cameras. Anyway that’s for the super pro as they can afford the equipment. For the rest of us, just one DSLR with plenty of spare batteries for the DSLR and flash unit, and plenty of memory cards to keep on shooting!

Wedding reception photos is not just about capturing the wedded couple but also their family members and friends attending the function. Your eyes have to be like an eagle looking out for interesting and unusual expressions, apart from the usual bridal pictures of the couple and reception event. You are given the veto to move all over the place to get your angle and yet do not disrupt the solemnising service.

This is where a higher FPS (frame per second) speed DSLR has an advantage over the starting out DSLR cameras. And of course it beats the compacts and mobile phone cameras hands down. In a room or a hall where lighting may not be optimal, a DSLR has the advantage to take a better photograph because it is less grainy even on higher ISO settings when you compare it against compacts.

In addition, a powerful flash also helps to illuminate the area, though there are still aspects of limitation on the use of a flash.

With a faster processing speed, you could quickly grab a second and third shot in quick succession. A compact or mobile camera would be hopeless in this kind of situation even if they were high end ones, they would still lose out to even a basic DSLR.

You will need to be quick when composing your photo, it would be best to take your best possible shot there and then rather than to go back later to fix and crop your pictures. Why? Easily a thousand photos can be taken in one day, there is no way you are going to fix, crop or enhance the exposure of each photo one by one. Very likely you pick the good ones as keepers and enhance them if necessary, throw out the obvious bad ones, and for the average photos you could use a batch processing to fix exposure. For cropping there is no way you can do that for so many photos, and so it would be best to compose your shot as best as possible before pressing the shutter button.

And after a full day of shooting, you would probably be quite fatigue, perhaps even aching hands from lugging that heavy DSLR around. So pack your things, give yourself a pat on your back for a job well done and go home for a well deserved rest!