Photographing an Indian wedding with the Canon EOS R

Changing light and silent shooting

"Also, a lot of images were shot outside from quite low down, so you've got a bright sky background. Most cameras would underexpose the subject in that situation, but the EOS R did an incredible job. I was still able to recover the detail in the sky, and again there were no blown highlights. I was astounded by the quality of the JPEGs and just how much latitude there was in compressed files."

Sanjay heavily customises his functions – relying on the ability to quickly switch between modes in fast-changing wedding situations. In the unpredictable lighting conditions, he used the newly-introduced Fv mode in the EOS R – a Flexible Priority mode that combines the control of the full manual exposure mode, the aperture priority (Av) and the shutter priority (Tv) with full auto. It allows you to independently adjust each aspect, with the remaining settings automatically responding to maintain the correct exposure.

The reason Sanjay chooses to shoot with a Canon EOS-1D X Mark II is its speed and accuracy in action sequences. "I quickly cycle through settings without having to take the camera away from my face," says Sanjay, meaning he could take full use of the customisable touch-bar on the EOS R.

"At a wedding ceremony I’ll use the face-tracking mode," he explains of high-speed sequences. "It works really well but the AF area is quite small. I hit AI Servo, and that’s very successful at a wedding ceremony. Since Sanjay used the EOS R on this shoot, firmware updates have further improved the camera’s focusing capabilities, adding eye-detection AF in Servo AF mode, as well as a small AF frame size in Servo AF.

"The [potential] challenge for me was fast movement," Sanjay explains about his expectations of the EOS R, "because I didn't know how quick the camera was going to be." But it didn't miss a beat. "For example, there's a sequence of images of a tradition where the groom stands on a little decorative clay pot containing grains; crushing it symbolises that he will not let any obstacles, small or large, come between him and his wife. When I photographed that sequence, using a five-frames-per-second burst [the maximum frame rate with Servo AF/AE] – it captured everything."

Moving from the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II to the Canon EOS R was not as difficult as he expected, even though he only had a few hours to familiarise himself with the full-frame mirrorless system before the shoot began.

"Even though the EOS R is a completely different system, it feels similar to other Canon cameras," he says. "The menu system is familiar and everything is where you expect it to be, although there are more functions and lots of new features, like the multi-function touch bar and the articulated screen. It took a little while to get used to the way the camera behaved, the way it reacted and performed in certain environments, but for a first go it was incredibly good."

Before the wedding began, Sanjay customised the two EOS R bodies according to his own shooting preferences so they were both working in exactly the same way. "I disable the focus on the shutter, and have back-button focus," he explains of one of his adaptations. "This allows me to hold the focus on something, and release the trigger repeatedly – I use all of the AF points, manually selecting the point of focus."

Sanjay says the fact that the EOS R has only one memory card slot, as compared to the two card slots of the EOS-1D X Mark II, didn't worry him. "I'd argue that memory technology is much better now and cards are far more reliable than they ever have been," he says. "If other photographers are worried about it, they can always tether their camera to another device as a back-up. If I was really afraid of the whole one-card-slot situation I would have refused to shoot a wedding with it."

All the images were taken with the camera handheld and, for Sanjay, the really stand-out aspect of this wedding shoot was the quality of the RF lenses he used. "They are hands-down the best lenses I've used," he says.

"They're all excellent, but the RF 28-70mm f/2L USM is astonishing; I mainly used that for the wedding and couldn't put it down. Also, the RF 50mm f/1.2L USM is the sharpest lens I've ever seen. Canon has made huge leaps with the optics on these lenses and I can't wait to see what other cameras and lenses will follow in the future."