best lens for wedding photography?

This is my advice to the many people out there who are asking, "I'm taking photos of a wedding and I want to know what lens/equipment is the best to buy?" The reality is there is no one best lens -- each lens has strengths and weaknesses. So before you jump out and buy or commit to renting equipment, try to come up with a plan or sketch of what the specific wedding scenarios will be:

• Will you be mainly outdoors, indoors, or both?
• Will this be during the day, at night, or span both?
• How much lighting will you have available to you inside?
• How much access will you have to maneuver around the space?
• How much space is there to work with?

Once you think about what the answer to these and other questions are, then you will be able to easily determine what equipment you need. Otherwise, the cart will be coming before the horse and you might show up with a whole bunch of sweet equipment that just doesn't work for the setting that you have.

If you know you have limited space to work with, you might want a zoom lens that can do wide angle to cover a table full of people. If you know the space is vast, you might want more telephoto ranges to work with. If the lighting is dim, you'll need a faster lens. If you want to do portraits in natural light, maybe a prime lens would be best. Needless to say, there are lots of tradeoffs to look at depending on the conditions you will be working with and the style of photography that you like to do.

It's only natural to think of the technology first -- it's exciting and cool. But if you put the questions and goals first, chances are the technology (i.e. lenses) will select itself out and obvious choices will emerge as to what you will need. Especially if you describe the settings that you will be working with in the photographer forums (like flickr), the experts will come out with more consistent answers. Otherwise, it's just all personal preference and personal experience that will dictate the wide variety of answers and suggestions you will get.

I guess this is just me applying the systems approach to photography... Really, it all sounds like common sense, but this is a trap easily fallen into. Especially in the IT industry, where people tend to jump to the latest and greatest technology without thinking about what problem really needs to be solved.