# Best Camera for Weddings



## house4b (Jun 13, 2012)

I currently shoot with the D7000 and I need something that handles better in low light as I primarily shoot weddings. Any thoughts?


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## cgipson1 (Jun 13, 2012)

house4b said:


> I currently shoot with the D7000 and I need something that handles better in low light as I primarily shoot weddings. Any thoughts?



Really? The D7000 actually handles low light very well.. especially when teamed up with fast lenses. The only bodies that do better are Full Frame (FX). I am assuming you don't have "Fast" Glass?


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## o hey tyler (Jun 13, 2012)

Yeah, you need to be clear about your lenses. A better body only does so much.


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## sovietdoc (Jun 13, 2012)

D800 or a D4 will handle low light better

but D800 is pretty terrible for weddings

D3s still has amazing low light performance, in some cases even better than D4


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## Solarflare (Jun 13, 2012)

Um.

Why is the D800 "pretty terrible for weddings" ?

I would have guessed 2 full frame cameras (D800, D800E, D4, D3s, D3X, D700, ...), one with the 28-70 and the other with the 70-200 mm 2.8 zoom lenses, so you dont lose time with changing the lens and have everything from 28 to 200mm at highest quality and with ultra fast autofocus instantly available, would be the kickass equipment for a wedding photographer (and many other types of photographers), as far as Nikon equipment is concerned.


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## cgipson1 (Jun 13, 2012)

sovietdoc said:


> D800 or a D4 will handle low light better
> 
> but D800 is pretty terrible for weddings
> 
> D3s still has amazing low light performance, in some cases even better than D4



Why? I would shoot a wedding with a D800.. no issues! Great low light capability.. super focus capability, etc.... what is your problem with it? 

File size? (my CF card writes the large files faster than I can shoot them) ? 

Lack of FPS burst speed? (a wedding is not a high speed event!)? 

Just curious!


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## sovietdoc (Jun 13, 2012)

D800E for weddings? LOL no comment.

Okay, a few reasons why I think D800 isn't really that good for wedding photography.  

First as you'd expect, let's start with the 36.7MP.  Yes, filesize is also an issue but most CF cards will be able to eat up those hundreds of shots anyways.  With such high resolution, the buffer size is pretty low.  Burst and frame buffer is very nice to have for weddings.  A lot of those shots will be in an uncontrolled environment so you get a lot of people turning their heads, moving, closing/opening eyes/mouths and etc.  Sometimes you need to just hold the shutter to get like 10 shots so you can later pick the best one.  

This also brings another point, with this huge resolution any slight missed focus or movement with slightly not enough shutter speed will be clearly seen on the photo, and technically you could then downsize it to like 20mp or whatever but that's extra work you wouldn't need to do if you had a different camera.

Q mode may not be a killer for most people but seriously, Q mode is useless on D800 as it still "bangs" pretty loudly.  

You can definitely shoot weddings with a D800 and get great results, but there are just better wedding specific tools out there.


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## cgipson1 (Jun 13, 2012)

sovietdoc said:


> .
> 
> You can definitely shoot weddings with a D800 and get great results, but *there are just better wedding specific tools out there*.



I do agree with this... a D4 would be my first choice here. 

I actually find the resolution on the D800 to be a plus.. and am not really seeing the issues you describe above. I shoot a lot, handheld, too... even my Macro stuff. Just not having the problems you mention. 

As far as the Burst mode goes.. I learned to shoot weddings in the Film days... I prefer to take the shots I want, and have never been an advocate of "Spray and Pray", although I admit it could be useful in some situations.

yes.. the shutter is a little bit louder than some.. but if it doesn't bother wildlife.. I can't see it being an issue at a wedding...


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## greybeard (Jun 13, 2012)

If you don't already have one, try a 35mm  f1.8 DX.    I bet that will solve a ton of low light problems.


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