Omni Microphone solution ?
 

Hi,
Does anyone have an idea what is the best way to record good quality audio for weddings in the church ?
I have an XH-A1 Camera and I was thinking of buying a pointing mic for it, but then when I'm way back in the church it's no use. Even when I do lots of cuts to change position.
Isn't there a way of placing a microphone so the voice of not only the wedding couple but also the priest is recorded in good quality ?
Is it a field recorder ?
What do you advise ?

I think the most common solution is a wireless lav mounted on the groom. Picks up the groom, bride and officient quite nicely.

You'd need two mics, since the B&G are sometimes exchanging comments during the ceremony, which might not me the best for you. I've got two sources - wireless lav mic at groom and a shotgun on camera to capture the "ambient" sound and the priest. Then all the "magic" happens in edit.

We use two wireless mics. One on the groom and one on the podium. Lukas is right about the bride and groom talking. I don't think they realize it sometimes, but they have the most random discussions during the ceremony. You need a solid source to cut to when that happens. You can also check to see if the church/hall has speakers setup. You can place the 2nd camera in firing range (not to close) to the speaker and they will usually work out.

Chad,

If there is no podium do you mic the priest / minister in addition to the groom?

you could always mic the groom and the preist with seperate wireless mics and use a zoom or similar type recorder at the podium for the readers

I recently purchased a Zoom H4n for audio purposes. Other than that, I have nothing but the onboard cam mic.

Are lav's really the only way to go, or can someone get creative in positioning the Zoom in a key area to pick up necessary audio? I would hate to think I made the purchase for no reason. The audio quality is phenomenal, but the unit is simply too large to slip into a grooms pocket with a lav attached.

Again, I'm just getting started and I heard that PDR's were a good place to start.

Brad, you have to keep a few basic rules about audio in mind when doing weddings.
First a shotgun is one of the worst mics to use in doors especially in a church as most churches are pretty echoey. HOWEVER, a shotgun on your 2nd camera or 2nd audio recorder CAN be used to pick up the music being played and sung im most churches depending on where the mic is placed.
A lav placed on the groom will pick up the music, the bride, the groom, the officiant and in some cases even the podium however that will in most cases not be close to being quality audio. Of course the lav needs to be placed correctly on the 'talent'.
While the stand alone recorders are inexpensive and record good audio I really don't like to NOT be able monitor the audio I'm recording but thats just me.
IMO a good way to record weddings (I say this because in my years in the business I've tried every way you can think of and am very happy with this layout of audio recording) is a) lav the groom b)lav the podium --I use the Audio Technicia 1821 dual channel receiver, send both lavs back to my primary camera and kill off the hypercaroid mic I use. I then use my 2nd camera with an AT897 to pick up the music -I set channel 1 to AGC and set channel 2 to manual set to about 50%. I shoot a lot in the same places so I kinda know what to expect from the musicians. As for micing the officiant, I don't even ask anymore, most of the ones I run into don't want to be bothered and frankly with the groom mic'd and the podium mic'd in most cases it's not necessary. In fact in some scases I have choices of which audio track or combination of tracks works best. Depends on where the cameras are located and the other audio considerations-PA system, sound quality in the venue, things like that.
I've been using this layout for about 6 or 7 years although I've only been using the AT dual for a little over 1 year but the plan has been the same. 2 lavs, shotgun on cam 2 and kill the hypercaroid on cam 1. I do very little post work for the audio using this plan and am very happy with the setup.
Remember, audio is 70% of what we see