Dallas & Sabrina Photography

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Hi, we’re Dallas & Sabrina. We are husband and wife, best friends and destination wedding photographers. We are two Canadians living in beautiful Barcelona, Spain.

We both got into photography at a very young age – Dallas as a music photographer and Sabrina as an in-house photographer at an art gallery. We met at a dive bar singing karaoke one night, became best friends and turned our artistic hobby into a successful business.

About eight years of adventure, travel and general craziness later and we have never looked back!

[🏕 Related: Guide to adventure photography]

Our gear has changed a little over time, getting smaller and lighter as the years pass. Typically, Dallas shoots with two cameras and Sabrina with one. We both use Nikon D750 bodies and Dallas also uses a Fuji X-T2.

Our lenses haven’t changed much since we started, which makes us so happy looking back because that was our goal when saving up. We wanted to invest in what we really needed/wanted – except for a new 58mm ’cause Dallas dropped one in a fountain… while it was snowing… in New York City.

We used to take along tripods, light stands and a bunch of extra things but we have found they were unnecessary and more of a burden. Traveling a lot has forced us to keep things simple and light, to work with what we have and make what we have work for us.

Cameras

Nikon D750 x 2: We chose the D750 because, honestly, we didn’t need or want the massive pixel count of the 800 series, and Nikon seemingly refused to actually update the original D700. The camera is small (for a DSLR), full-featured, amazing in low light, and really doesn’t lack anything that we would ever need to shoot a wedding.

Fuji X-T2: Dallas also shoots with a Fuji X-T2. He bought it so that he could have a small, compact camera that he could just take out whenever and wherever he wanted, without having the bulk of a DSLR. It’s super fun to use, produces great images, and is compact and super quiet, which all make for a great wedding camera.

Lenses

Nikon 85mm f/1.4: This is basically my (Dallas’) lens. I really, really, really love this thing. It’s incredibly sharp, even wide open, which is mostly how I shoot it, and the way it renders colors and backgrounds never fails to make me smile. I love the focal length and compression: because I’m not so great at being close up, it’s just more suited to my personality. I love everything about it except for the weight, but that’s something you just have to accept if you want to use it.

Nikon 58mm f/1.4: This is basically Sabrina’s lens; she has it on her camera most of the time, though we both absolutely love it (she just hogs it most of the time, haha). We chose this lens after renting it one time because we just fell in love with the quirkiness of it. It’s a super odd focal length, which we love, and it creates a really unique image… when it works. It’s quirky – like sometimes it just refuses to focus, or it just wants to make every image super soft that day, or it’s doing some other weird thing. When it’s working though, there is nothing like it, and the results make all the quirks worth it.

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART: I mean who doesn’t have this lens? In our opinion, it’s probably the best 35mm ever made, and the price makes it basically unreasonable to buy anything else (plus the fact that it’s better than everything else anyway). The only issue is that it doesn’t autofocus in live view. Oh well, still worth it and still the best 35mm available.

Sigma 24mm f/1.4 ART: Just like the 35mm, how can you go wrong with this lens? I tested the Nikon and Sigma side by side a bunch of times and honestly I just like the Sigma better. It has (in my opinion) nicer color and better autofocus, plus you can buy two of them for less than the price of one Nikon 24. This is Sabrina’s go-to wide angle and, like the 35mm, it will probably be in our kit forever.

Lights/Triggers

2 x Yongnuo YN560 IV + 2 x Yongnuo RF 603N II triggers: About ten years ago Dallas was looking for the cheapest flash units he could find and stumbled on the Yongnuos (back then they were still version 1) and we had that flash for like six years. Eventually, it broke down (after years of abuse) and we upgraded to the version IV’s.

I’d like to say they are so cheap that they are disposable, but they just never break down! We don’t use TTL or complex light setups so these are perfect for us. The built-in receivers mean we can use the smallest, cheapest triggers which have also never failed on us, and that makes them perfect for traveling too.

If they ever break down, or get dropped off a balcony, or have a glass of wine spilled on them, it’s really not a big deal.

Bags/Straps

Dallas uses a Crumpler 7 Million Dollar which he has had for way too long. He needs to get a new bag, but this one just keeps going! It’s like a comfort blanket for him now, one that needs to be thrown out and replaced while he’s not looking… (Sabrina – “I’ve tried to replace this bag so many times. I bought Dallas the top of the line most expensive Ona bag and he hated it so much, so back to the Crumpler bag that just never dies.”)

Sabrina uses a generic backpack (that she stole from her friend – thanks Ella) with a Tenba BYOB 10 insert and it’s perfect for her. It fits all of the gear she needs on a wedding day and basically turns any bag/backpack into a great camera bag.

We also have a Tenba BYOB 13 insert that fits perfectly into a standard size airline carry on bag. With a few real-life Tetris skills we can pack nearly our entire setup into that one bag when we travel. It’s amazing.

Sabrina has a custom leather camera strap her good friend Mikey of French Sessa Photo Co. made for her and Dallas uses a Holdfast Moneymaker that he has had for ages and desperately needs to replace with a new one.

Hardware & Software

We both use 15-inch Macbook Pros and to edit we use Lightroom Classic and sometimes Photoshop. Dallas does most of the editing, and over the past year has been working on making his own presets from scratch, which is what we are using for all of our shoots now.

Sabrina uses Adobe Bridge for organizing collections. Sabrina designs all of the albums and she uses Smart Albums II which is incredible for putting them together – she loves it.

We always pack a couple of sandwiches and water (no photographer wants to miss a shot because they are hangry), back up contact lenses, glasses, sunscreen when we are photographing in hot locations and earplugs for the dancing at weddings because I (Dallas) destroyed my ears being a music photographer when I was younger.

Photography isn’t just a job to us, it’s our art and passion. The wedding day is filled with so many raw emotions and capturing them is what inspires us and what makes us love wedding photography.

dallaskphoto.com | @dallaskphotography

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