Four Easy and Unique Ways to Photograph Wedding Rings

When I got into wedding photography twelve years ago, I didn't know a single photographer who was shooting macro shots of their clients' rings. Today, these shots have become expected, and hopefully, if you're a wedding photographer, you've got a macro lens in your bag so that you can capture professional-looking shots of the rings. 

If you don't have a macro lens yet, don't worry, they aren't that expensive. I personally use a 60mm f/2.8 macro lens. I bought it used on eBay, and I use it exclusively for ring shots. If I were using a macro lens more often, I might buy a more expensive version, but I wanted something relatively cheap and small so that it could easily fit in my bag at every wedding. 

In this video, we go over four easy ways that you can quickly photograph your clients' wedding rings at every single wedding you shoot. Keep in mind that this is not studio product photography. We don't have hours to perfect a shot. We have only a few minutes to capture something and anything we bring must easily fit in our bags. I'm not going to write a description of each shoot, because you'll learn a lot more watching us in the video, but I will link to the products that we mentioned in the video.

The most important thing to remember with wedding photography is that even though something might be boring to you, that doesn't mean it will be to your clients. Sometimes, wedding photographers go out of their way to do something "different" and "difficult," and they overlook the easy shot that the clients would have preferred. That's why no matter what rings shots I shoot at a wedding, I also capture the standard "ring in the flower shot." It only takes a few seconds to capture and my clients always appreciate it. 

If you'd like to learn more about how we shoot weddings, you may want to check out our 14-hour tutorial on all things wedding photography

Use the code "rings" at checkout to save money on the digital download. 

Lee Morris's picture

Lee Morris is a professional photographer based in Charleston SC, and is the co-owner of Fstoppers.com

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9 Comments

Patrick that hair! they will be calling you Fabio Lanzoni soon. :P

Really like that third shot by Patrick. Hadn't thought about doing a long exposure like that, really cool result.

This is great...very insightful, creative with the laptop and and props for backgrounds. I'll definitely keep these in mind since shooting rings at weddings can have such a time restraint 5-10 minutes most of the time.

Keeping a little ipad mini in your kit with a couple of different backgrounds doesn't take up a lot of space.

Lee, GREAT video. my ring shots have always been a little mediocre. The LED flashlight you used in the last one is not the same as the link you provided.

Ya I couldn't find the exact model.

great ideas and video. thanks!

Loved this post and finally got to try it. Not to your standards, but a good start I thought...

Very cool ideas. I love the second shot.