Hey it’s LENSEL,
Take that break from hunching over the editing desk, grab a drink and get to reading today’s edition of LENSEL. The latest delivery of fresh news and insight for wedding photographers everywhere. Here is what’s on the menu this week:

• Jumping into a wide lens choice for portraits

• Adobe’s adaptive profiles ie. will your photos edit themselves?

• What it’s like to shoot 40+ weddings a year

• News and inspo to keep you ahead of the game
  
  Now let’s go 👇

NEWS

Happening this Week

• Canon’s Halloween Surprise. Canon will announce 3 NEW LENSES for the RF (your R5, R6s etc) line up on October 30th! Early rumours suggest a new 24mm, 50mm and 70-200mm. Here is their official teaser…

• Capture ONE updates. Interesting new updates in Capture ONE this week let you intelligently match your images colour to any reference image. It’s not perfect but it could be the start of something VERY good. Check it our here.

• The London workshop from one of the best. Benjamin Wheeler is hosting his Editor’s House workshop once again this November. Jump in now to secure your place.

• Ever seen a circus wedding? This wedding, captured by the wonderful Jose Villa was WILD. Talk about embracing the circus theme…

• Loop Earplugs save your ears in receptions. Yeah those receptions get loud week in week out. These earplugs seem the best. And this review covers all the details.

• Remember the red wedding in Vietnam? A few weeks ago we featured an insanely concepted wedding in the hills of north Vietnam. We finally get to see a little more here in this video.

• Are you crazy? 40+ Weddings a Year. This photographer had questions for photographers doing super high volume wedding per year. The resulting convo is an interesting case in how many ways there are to play this wedding game.

WEDDING DAY

🙌🏼 The rise of wide portraits

Watching that focal length
One of the subtle things that sets photographers apart is their focal length choices. 50mm, 135mm, 28mm or a wild zoom twist to a random 66mm… Using the right length at the right time changes so much about how something feels.

Long lenses like 70mm, 85mm ++ can successfully isolate a subject and can highlight a detail or emotion super well. BUT at other times they might make you feel far away, or removed from the action. (We are definitely not hating on long lenses at all - we love them) But we’ve been noting a distinct rise in photographers working at wider and wider focal lengths, especially when it comes to portraits and getting CLOSE UP.

iPhone influenced (again)
Whip open your iPhone and you’ll by default get a 26mm focal length. (yes there are multiple lenses and focal ranges on all the newer ones). BUT that focal length is influencing how we all see and remember the world. It’s wide, but not super wide and we are seeing this FEEL creep more and more into wedding photography. We also think this is partly to do with the popularity among wedding photographers of the 28-70mm lens by Canon. With many starting to use the 28mm more and more.

Now, we aren’t talking about some 8mm fish eye, I can see the side of the lens feel, it’s that feel when you are at 24, 28, 35mm but you are getting close up for a portrait. Distorting things ever so slightly.

But here’s the kicker… It distorts things to show them off…
It might make legs look longer.
A person taller.
A dress longer.
It might fit more of the context in.
Or fit more people and more story into the frame.

We are working with that subtle distortion, not running from it. And this is why you would and should consider whipping out a wide portrait on a wedding day.

Fill the frame and get CLOSE.
If you want to get on this vibe and make some wider portraits you are going to need to get up CLOSE. So drop the angst and try it.

Remember to fill the frame too and make use of the corners. The worst is an empty feeling wide shot. Add a person, a shoulder, a building, something. Get in close with your wider lens and make it happen.

SOFTWARE GAMECHANGERS

💻 The pre edit, edit profile from Adobe

A peak into the editing future?
You know how you use the Adobe Standard or Adobe Camera profiles to get your RAWS in Lightroom into a certain colour space before you edit? (if you didn’t that is generally what happens). This week Adobe announced their new Adobe Adaptive profile and it VERY different.

Instead of just interpreting the colours from your camera, to your computer screen, it also interprets different exposures and white balances in different parts of the images. Essentially editing your photo a little, with AI, before you edit.

You can jump in here to read about all the details, but this is similar to the iPhones computational photography vibe. And it is a glimpse into the future where our cameras will edit in camera. Maybe? Who knows… It’s all exciting. Just give it a try.

INSPO THIS WEEK

⬇️ Loving the subtle and tasteful FLASH work here.

⬇️ This is classy, documentary, wedding photography at it’s finest from antonovakseniya. You WILL need to click in and see this one…

⬇️ Sometimes it’s just a super simple composition that works. Don’t overthink.

⬇️ This close up portrait, calm, close (of course) and the composition? 👌🏼

Refer friends to LENSEL and get the preset ⤵️

Refer your friends and earn when they subscribe:

1 referral - A huge thankyou from us! 😁
5 referrals - LENSEL’s Black and White Lightroom Preset 💻

You currently have 0 referrals, only 5 away from receiving Lensel's BW Lightroom Preset.

Copy & Paste & Share your personal referral link: https://lensel.beehiiv.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER