Photographing a Wedding With a Single Lens?

As a wedding photographer, it can be easy to justify a large number of lenses for different purposes throughout the day (35mm/50mm primes for getting ready, 70-200mm for the ceremony, 105mm macro for shots of the rings, 85mm for portraits, and so on). In reality, most weddings can be documented well with significantly less gear. But how much less?  I recently had someone ask me: “For someone looking to get into wedding photography, is there a single lens that you would recommend that would be good enough to start with and be able to shoot a full wedding with?”

I thought the answer would make a good article. However, before continuing, an important note. I would never advocate photographing a wedding and bringing only one camera body and one lens. When someone is paying you to capture once-in-a-lifetime moments, gear failure is not an excuse for missing the shot – so at a minimum I would have a backup camera and a backup general lens (something like a 24-70mm f/4 or a 50mm prime). That said, there’s nothing wrong with trying to slim down your equipment. By keeping your gear on the minimalist side, you can be more nimble and not have to worry about missing moments while you’re swapping lenses, resulting in better photos.

Off my soapbox and back to the question. Is there a good, single lens for wedding photography that basically does everything you need? This question isn’t something I had considered much before, so I had to give it some thought.

First – every wedding is unique. The gear requirements for a large church wedding are quite different than a micro outdoor wedding. If I were to choose a single lens that could do it all, I would need a versatile focal length range, so a prime lens would not be an option.

Second – weddings often continue into the night when the light is very low, so the zoom lens would need to have as fast of an aperture as possible.

With these two factors considered, an obvious choice would be something like a 24-70mm f/2.8. However, for my personal style, I rarely shoot weddings as wide as 24mm, and very often use focal lengths longer than 70mm (particularly for ceremonies where you may not be able to get near the couple without being in the way of guests). This, for me, actually argues for something more like a 70-200mm f/2.8 instead – but then you miss the ability to shoot wider shots when needed.

Much to my surprise, the answer came to me not through weddings, but instead on a recent trip to Africa. One of the lenses I brought on the trip was the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 (available in Nikon Z and Sony E mounts). I really enjoyed using this lens in Africa, and when I got home, I looked through a few of my recent wedding albums. Sorting in Lightroom, I discovered that about 90% of my delivered photos were taken at a focal range between 35mm and 150mm, and only about 40% were between 24mm and 70mm. (This didn’t surprise me since the 70-200 is one of my most-used wedding lenses).

In addition, the bright maximum aperture of f/2-2.8 would do a good job of covering the vast majority of situations. It isn’t quite wide enough for some shots that I like – although you can get creative by finding different vantage points, like for the image below. I’d also prefer slightly longer than 150mm when I’m not able to get close to the couple during the ceremony, but it splits the difference really well.

Here’s a comparison of a ceremony taken at 35mm and (nearly) 150mm from the same spot, to give a perspective of the type of range this lens could provide.

The Tamron 35-150mm is not a macro lens, so it can’t do ring closeups like the following photo. However, it does have a maximum magnification of 0.17x at 150mm, which is still pretty good when cropping.

I personally prefer my ring shots with a bit more context anyway, and it can focus more than close enough for a shot like this:

Spencer wrote up a full review of the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 lens here, so I won’t cover all of the specs and pros/cons, but will list the ones I think would be most relevant for wedding photographers.

Pros:

• Excellent focal range for most wedding subjects
• Very good build quality
• Very sharp, especially under 105mm (I have no issue with the sharpness at any focal distance or aperture in practice)

Cons:

• Fairly expensive ($1900 for E mount and $2000 for Z mount) – however, given that this could feasibly replace a 35mm f/1.8, a 24-70mm f/2.8, an 85mm f/1.8, and even most of a 70-200mm f/2.8, it represents a significant value
• Flare control is not the best, so if you do a lot of portraits with the sun in frame, this may be an issue
• Not the fastest focusing lens. This is probably a bigger con for other types of events, since weddings don’t (usually) involve a lot of fast action

Conclusion

This article is theoretical, at least for now. I haven’t switched out my wedding photography kit for the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8, but in response to the question I received, I now know the answer. If I had to photograph a wedding with just one lens, this is the clear winner. My experience using it in Africa also showed me how much I enjoyed the lens.

Below are a few photos I took with the Tamron 35-150mm f/2-2.8 in Africa, as well as some wedding photos where I think the Tamron would have made a convincing replacement. As always, let me know in the comments section below if you have any questions or ideas for wedding photography lenses!