Wedding and Prom Photography Essentials

Its summertime which means its Graduation, Prom and Wedding Season. Here are a few essentials you need, that are easy to overlook. Most people have a checklist and they know what to bring, but here are a few things that will save you from getting burned.  First you’ll need plenty of backup batteries. I suggest taking at least three batteries and two chargers(per device). Make sure throughout the day you’re recharging batteries. It doesn’t matter how good of a camera you have without power it won’t work. Also bring 3 sets of batteries for your flash or external lights.

I like to use rechargeable batteries and bring the charger with me when every shoot and since I have three sets of batteries, while one is recharging I can be shooting with the second set. P.S. I only use Energizer rechargeable Max 3000 milliamps and every 6 months I throw them away and buy a brand new set. I use a marker to write the month and the date of purchase from one side of each battery

Make sure you have plenty of memory cards and make sure that they are Name Brand cards that have a fast transfer rate. I used to have a memory card that was 30 megabytes per second u1 32GB. Now I exclusively buy memory cards that are 90-plus megabytes per second U3 and at least 64GB. At the end of the day when you’re transferring eight hours of video or pictures that could take hours with a slower card.  Save yourself hours of labor buy faster cards.

I always have a laptop/tablet with me so throughout the day I can copy my footage. This is a great backup if a memory card fails or gets lost. I don’t erase the memory card either, I keep two forms of backup one on the laptop and one on the original memory card. Also, make sure that your laptop has a fast card reader. There’s no point in spending $100 on u3 120MB per second SD  card if the laptop can only read is 30 megabytes per second.  If your laptop is slower buy an Anker USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader.

In Conclusion, most photographers bring two cameras as backup, but one set of batteries and 1 SD Card.  It’s better to have it and not need it.  Also, stay hydrated, most Wedding and Graduation shoots last for at least 4 hours and can go all day. Bring plenty of water, Gatorade, or even a protein shake.  Be prepared and think of the unknown. Comment anything else photographers forget to bring to shoots.

-Laptop/Tablet

-(3x) Camera Batteries (per camera)

-(3x Sets) Flash/ lights batteries/Rapid chargers

-Extra U3 Sd Cards

-Fast transfer Memory Card Reader

-Water Bottle