Having enough tapes and batteries for a day is crucial. You need sufficient amount of both.
Take at least 4 hours worth of tapes and 6 hours worth of batteries. And a battery charger.
Get the tapes and the batteries organized in the camera bag.
Keep tapes in the boxes, all properly labeled before going on the shoot.
The easiest thing would be to place clear labels on each tape. You might date them in advance.
Have a pen or two handy; make notes on the tape/box before putting it in the bag after using the tape. The fastest way to mark the tapes would be placing consecutive numbers on them. If you have some more time, put down some additional information as well, like ‘’groom’s house’’, or ‘’reception-1’’ and so on.
Mark all your batteries, for example with insulation tape.
I get mine organized with marked side up for the fresh batteries, and down for discharged battery to avoid wasting time on figuring out which battery is charged, which is not. Keep your battery charger plugged into AC/DC adapter in your car during your travel part of a day. And after the wedding day settles down as you move to the reception hall, get it plugged it there. Place drained batteries on the charger; get that battery rotation organized through the day, so you always have good battery supply.
Then you have mixed lighting conditions. Lighting is mixed when you have more then one source of light, and you sources have different colour temperatures.
Very rarely you happen to shoot in any other conditions than mixed. Strongly speaking, using just one light inside of isolated room with all the windows closed, still puts you in the situation of mixed light. Why? Because all the objects in the room, including walls and ceiling, reflect and absorb the light. In a sense every object becomes a light source with its own characteristics, such as colour temperature, brightness, harshness, etc.
Another situation, and much more difficult to deal with, is when you are shooting in the room with large windows and the ceiling lights on. The windows let the daylight (5600K) go through and the ceiling lights throw 3200K flow. Is it “indoor” situation? Not really. Since we have prevailing daylight, it looks like a daylight condition. If you are using the camera with colour temperature presets you might want to set it to daylight. At list when you are shooting next to the window, set it to “daylight”. When you step away from the window, make an evaluation, how much the lighting has changed.
Read amusing article about synthetic lighting.
Day light
Day light refers to the temperature of the sun light around noon and is 5600 degrees of Kelvin, or 5600K (5500K in some sources). If your camcorder has a preset for a daylight or an “outdoor”, most likely it is 5600K.
Indoor light
Indoor light usually refers to the light with the colour temperature 3200 degrees of Kelvin, or 3200K. If your camcorder has a preset for an indoor light it is most likely 3200K.
Available light, or shooting with available light usually means that a cameraman is not going to use an extra light sources. Available light may be a light from the sky (direct sun light, shade, clouds), a light from the ceiling in the room, multiple light sources of the same or different colour temperatures.
Flattening the shades
If you are shooting in the isolated room with one light source on the ceiling, and the person of your interest is located right beneath the light, you’ll get ugly shades: raccoon eyes, the “beard”, terrible video. Try to use the camera light. You’ll see the difference. The image you get will look more like a news shot: bright object on the front, dark background. And you’ll get rid of those ugly shades.
Make it lit (speeches during reception)
That’s the major function of the lighting: make it lit. If covering the speeches during the reception is part of your plan, take it seriously. Don’t rely on available light. There might not be one. Your camera light may not be strong enough. And if you are planning to stand with your camera light on right in front of the podium, you may block the person speaking from the rest of the audience. Not good.
Set up a lighting kit. That is the light set up on the stand. Be in the room well in advance. If necessary, leave your previous location earlier. Find out, where the speeches are going to be delivered from. In most cases it is going to be a podium. Find location for your camera before the reception has started even if the speeches are not scheduled until the end of the dinner.
There are two opinions on lighting among wedding videographers. Some videographers advertise with the lines such as “Unobtrusive lighting”. It might as well be translated by customers as “I can’t afford the lighting kit” or “I have no idea how the lighting works”. The truth is: your camera won’t be able to create an image without lighting. And the light is your major tool alongside with your camcorder.
First of all, look with some extra amount of criticism at any of you previously shot videos. Don’t worry about outdoor footage. Go straight to indoor stuff. Put yourself in the position of the bride and try to find something you could have done better. Compare it to National TV broadcast and analyze the difference. Why the faces on your video are too shady? If the person stands by the window (by TV, by fish bowl, by white wall), why his or her face is too dark compare to background? Or why his or her face (or white dress!!! think of the bride) is bluish on one side and yellowish on the opposite side? Keep watching and analyzing, you’ll be able find more interesting things.
