Marcus Bell's Camera Bags for Wedding Day

Marcus Bell is experienced and prepared. As Bruce Dorn has said on numerous occasions, “Luck favors the prepared.” And so it is Bell’s motto also. He uses three small-sized bags of varying age, including what he calls a “bum bag,” which he wears about his waist most of the day.

1. Spare batteries, breath freshener (“a courtesy,” he says)
2. Air brush and lens cleaning cloth
3. Two Canon EOS 5Ds with two main lenses: 28–70mm f/2.8 and 85mm f/1.2
4. Epson P4000 downloader, carried in pocket.
5. Point-and-shoot 8MP camera for backup (surprisingly, some of the album images get made with this camera)
6. Digital flashmeter
7. 70–200mm f/2.8 lens for ceremony
8. Mag Light (flashlight for looking through the three bags)
9. Stain Stick and spare cloth to get virtually any stain out of the wedding dress. Bell confesses that sometimes he will have the bride sit or lean on something that might cause a stain of the dress; therefore the need for the Stain Stick.

BUM BAG (WORN AROUND WAIST DURING THE ENTIRE DAY)
1. Secondary lenses (35mm f/1.4, 17–35mm f/2.8) he might use during the day
2. Crochet hook that he sometimes uses to help a bride fasten the bride’s dress
3. Arctic Butterfly, a battery-powered sensor brush, that is used to clean the sensor of dust.
4. Small handheld video light, battery powered
5. Extension tube for close-ups
6. More spare batteries
7. 30GB worth of cards, 4GB capacity each

BACKUP BAG
1. EOS 1D Mark II
2. 85mm f/1.8 and 50mm f/1.4 lenses
3. Tele-extender (he never uses this but keeps it in the backup bag nonetheless).
4. More spare batteries
5. Charger for batteries
6. Timetable sheet for events and instructions how to get there. This is essential and he keeps it in plain sight while preparing his other gear.

OTHER MB NOTES OF INTEREST
If Marcus doesn’t get a chance to scout the location before the wedding, he’ll arrive several hours early and take a few shots of special locations that will serve as a grid for where he may want to make portraits of the bride and groom.
Marcus shoots with two cameras, one with the 85mm f/1.2 or 35mm f/1.4 and the other camera with a 28–70mm f/2.8.
He dresses all in black and uses no lens hoods because he’s trying to keep his presence unobtrusive.
He uses 30GB of CF Cards. All are formatted beforehand so that he never has to format a card at a wedding for fear of wiping out the contents. During the day he’ll download cards to the Epson P4000 hard drive. He keeps exposed cards in his right pants’ pocket.

This is from a new book I’m working on… Best of Wedding Photography, Third Edition.

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