Todd McGaw
Wedding | Last Updated: April 4, 2024
Hey everyone. I’m Todd, of Todd Hunter Mcgaw photographers. I photograph weddings all over the place with my wife Alyda, and for now, we’re based in Brisbane Australia. It’s nice & sunny. We like the city & all, but we’re thinking we might move to the beach soon – we just really, really like swimming in the ocean.
I’m not really a super tech-head kind of guy but I certainly do appreciate quality optics & awesome cameras so I have a pretty simple setup when it comes to gear. At weddings I shoot with one body all day – I use a Nikon D4s. I like my camera strapless. It’s quite liberating shooting with a camera unattached. So what do I do when I need two free hands? I put the camera down :)
I carry my gear in an Incase Ari Marcopoulos bag. I wear the bag strap really short like a jazz bass player and that keeps the bag high and super close to my body so I can move around in crowded areas easily without knocking into people/things.
I shoot primes and therefore change lenses about 76573 times every wedding. I leave the lens hoods on and backcaps off all day so I can change lenses on my camera in about 2 seconds. It works well for me.
Even when I shoot weddings without Alyda and use other second shooters, I still shoot one body, and yes, I get my sensors cleaned often. I’m a member of NPS so I get pro sensor cleans for zero dollars.
I spend the majority of my time on the Nikon 35mm f/1.4G, and also love the Nikon 24mm f/1.4G, and the Nikon 85mm f/1.4G. For macro action, I carry a Nikon 55mm f/2.8 manual focus lens. It’s about 30 years old & a total optical ninja!
We carry a Lowepro CompuTrekker AW Camera Backpack on the wedding day as well. It carries backup gear (Nikon D800, Speedlight, LED panel, radio triggers, etc), that I only need for certain chapters of the wedding.
Alyda spends most of her time on a Nikon D3s/Nikon 50mm f/1.4 combo. We sometimes swap/share prime lenses as well, but otherwise we have a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VRII, & a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 that are there if we need them.
My Swiss army knife travels with me for wedding day emergencies like opening beers, unpicking groomsmen’s suit vents/pockets, fashion malfunctions etc. The scissors are awesome & precise. I very occasionally use an LED light panel if needed, and a rechargeable bicycle headlight gives me a super bright concentrated beam when I need it.
We use in-camera dual card slots of course but also backup as we go to a Colorspace UDMA2 dumpdrive, so at the end of the wedding we already have 3 copies of everything and I can easily upload the wedding from one source in 20-30mins..
That’s pretty much it really. I sometimes shoot film at weddings too if the clients are into it. Usually my Mamiya C330, or Holga 120N. I like these because I can use them quickly – no fuss, the Mamiya’s screen is easy and quick to focus, and the Holga is easy-peezy to use. Shooting film at weddings is not something I do all the time so didn’t photograph the cameras.
Oh yes, we travel a lot too and so I must also mention my favourite travel camera. My trusty Fujifilm X100 (with strap). I just love it – really compact & unassuming, fixed 35mm (equiv.) f2, lovely sharp lens and super quiet leaf shutter. I won the AIPP Australian Travel Photographer of the Year with this camera in 2012.
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