Marko Marinkovic
Wedding | Last Updated: April 4, 2024
“Wait!” my grandpa yelled as I stood in his bedroom pulling a leather strap attached to his precious Zenit-E sitting on the shelf. I was 5 and didn’t really understand anything, but grandpa was patient and I had my first little peek through a viewfinder. I also snapped my first “click” of a shutter.
Time has a funny way of turning things around. In more recent history I found myself chasing a corporate career for a living. To tell the truth – I was never really happy with how things were going for me. There’s no point in earning money if you have no time to spend it, so I decided quit my job in April 2012 and grab my camera.
No, my move wasn’t so hectic and risky, I was shooting in between, but didn’t hold on to the camera as tightly as today. Now you’ll find me shooting weddings for a living, and I love every little bit of it. Well, almost every little bit to be honest :)
Let me start things over with a more recent story. Hello everyone, my name is Marko Marinkovic and I’m a wedding photographer from Croatia. It’s an amazing job with a lot of privileges, but it also takes a lot out of you. 2015 took me to some pretty amazing places like Taiwan, France, Thailand, NY, Texas, Italy, UK and Switzerland. I can’t wait to get 2016 on the run.
But wait, you’re here to read about my bag of goodies, right?
My baseline are two Nikon D750
‘s and my main lenses are Nikon 24mm f/1.4
and Nikon 35mm f/1.4
. I shoot mainly wide open and these are on my cameras 95% of the time.
You’ll see that I carry a Nikon 85mm f/1.4
for situations in which I can’t get really close. I tend to use it rarely.
Nikon 24mm f/3.5 PC-E
and Nikon 45mm f/2.8 PC-E
are my tilt shifts. I use these occasionally for a couples shoot or venue details.
Besides these I carry my Nikon SB-900
flash unit for dancing shots. Flash is something I put on only when I have to.
My strap is a HoldFast money maker
. You’ll also find an aspirin just in case things get bad. If they get worse there’s a Brufen. I’ve never used painkillers so far, but you never know.
SanDisk or Lexar cards are my go to brands. I shoot RAW+Jpeg fine. Having double cameras leaves me with enough leverage over failures, and jpegs are good enough option in case one SD dies on me. LaCie rugged SSD
is there for backup.
My camera shooting setting is manual. It makes me get to know my camera a little bit faster and read light better than it can in some occasions. My mobile, wallet, keys and watch always end up in my camera bag as I don’t like having things in my pockets or on me while working.
ThinkTank Pixel pocket memory card holder
holds all of my cards in one place, and Zendure portable battery
keeps my phone charged wile on the road.
One of the wonderful benefits weddings bring along to your life is travelling. I love to travel light, so I manage to pack all of these things in a single Think Tank Perspective 30 bag. It’s small enough for a cabin luggage and doesn’t draw any attention, as it looks pretty plain from the outside.
When on the road raw snacks work for me, so anything from cashew nuts, almonds or peanuts can be found on the bottom of my camera bag. Guitar is my first love and I’ll use any opportunity to jump into a guitar shop and try something out. I guess I’m a guitar salesmen nightmare! Hence – the guitar pick :)
There’s one guy missing here since I used it to get this picture. Fuji X100t
is a great little thing that makes my life and walking through shady city areas a lot easier. It does have its bad sides too, but I’ll leave these on the side.
I’m not really a good salesman so my home equipment holds Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8
, Nikon 105mm f/2.8
, Nikon 28mm f/1.8G
and Nikon 50mm f/1.8G
. I don’t remember using any of these in the last…well, I really don’t know when. I should probably sell them.
I doubt Henri Cartier-Bresson needed as much as we have today. Actually, I googled it. It was a Leica rangefinder and 50mm lens for all his life. Thinking back, my most used camera is an iPhone. Remember, you make the picture, camera just writes it down in four corners.
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