Congratulations! If you’ve found this blog post, I’m sure it means that you’ve booked your first wedding. It’s exciting and nerve wrecking but you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to give you 3 Technical Tips before Photographing your First Wedding. You may or may not already know a few of these tips from second shooting with wedding photographers.

#1. USE A DUAL SLOT CAMERA

If you’re thinking, what does that even mean? Let me explain. In your camera, you have a slot for your memory cards. With most newer cameras, there is a space for 2 memory cards. Sometimes it’s an SD and CF card and other times it’s just two SD cards. Either way, make sure you have both inserted into your camera body and most importably remember to change your camera settings so that your camera is recording to both memory cards. Often times, your camera will not automatically do this until you’ve changed this setting.

Why is using a dual slot camera and both memory cards important?

When you’re photographing and utilizing both memory cards, you’re already recording and backing up your images as you take them. I always use both memory cards and use one card as my primary card and the other as a back up. I do this just in case a card is corrupt, damaged, whatever the case my be. When I get home after the wedding, I immediately download all the images to several locations and I do not format my cards until the wedding has been edited and delivered. This way I have multiple sources of the images backed up in serval places.

#2. TYPE OF MEMORY CARD MATTERS

When I first began digital photography, I remember taking a few photos and my camera would say “busy.” The message popped up for a few seconds and then I could continue but it was super frustrating. It wasn’t until I purchased new memory cards I realized that the type of memory cards you buy matter! Why? You need a memory card with a quick read/write speeds so you’re not waiting on your camera. I love these types of memory card and this is exactly what I use for all weddings and sessions. If you’re super techie and want to know more about memory cards click here.

How to Store Memory Cards

Not sure what to put your memory cards in once you have them? I use water resistant cases to store and organize all my cards. I also label each memory card with a numbered sticker so I know which I used for which session or wedding. This keeps me organized and prohibits me from accidentally using the card until that session or wedding have been delivered. See a list of all my “photography must haves” here.

#3 TIME SYNC YOUR CAMERA

If you are working with a second shooter or you’re photographing a wedding using two digital cameras, make sure you time sync your camera. This ensures that the images you take across multiple cameras are recording at the same exact time so when you download and edit your images they are in sequential order. If you don’t time sync your cameras, the images will be completely out of order just making it a bit more confusing and super unorganized. Sometimes even through a wedding day the timing gets slightly off track even with time syncing. A way to fix this is to take an image of your phone’s time including the hour, minute, and second on each camera you’re using. From there when you’re culling through your images in PhotoMechanic, you can adjust time timing to the exact timing using this method. Here is a video on YouTube explaining how to do this.