Survey: ceremony
 

1. How long does it take you to set up audio for a ceremony?

2. How many cameras are you using, and what are their roles during the main part of the ceremony?

3. How do you cover the bride arriving in her car?

4. How do you cover the processional and recessional?

5. Do you use any special equipment during the ceremony? Sliders, steadicam, jib? Do you ever use lights during a ceremony?

6. At what point do you leave the church? Do you video the group photos? Do you leave before bride and groom?

Re: Survey: ceremony
 

In my own case:

1. At least 10-20 minutes if I'm doing it in a mad rush.

2. Never going to shoot a ceremony with fewer than three cameras. Role of cameras: wide shot, speaker shot, cutaway/couple camera; or wide shot plus two close-ups during the vows. If I have a fourth camera to play with, its role is less defined -- usually ends up as a second cutaway camera, which is definitely useful in a lot of situations, or can be a dedicated steadicam camera, unused till you need to pick it up.

3. Bride arriving -- most of the time, my second shooter gets this on steadicam while I'm running around the inside of the church setting up and getting guest shots. When I'm able, I'll rush outside with a closeup lens to get a second angle of her arriving.

4. Processional: usually with wide shot of where the bridal party end oh, unmanned camera on groom, monopod getting girls' faces as they walk down aisle, and steadicam lurking behind the bride, or ready to get coverage for the handover while I'm running out of the way.

Recessional: steadicam in front of the couple from altar to outside the church, maybe with alternative angle (side, back or close up from front).

5. Never use lights during ceremony. Never used slider during ceremony that I can recall. Often use steadicam during ceremony.

Only real special gear I use is that I have very long lenses by DSLR standards (100-400, 28-300, 70-200 with doubler).

6. Takes me ages to pack up -- too much gear. Usually get shot of B&G driving away from church, then hurry after them. Will keep covering during the group photos if I can.

Re: Survey: ceremony
 

1. Audio takes maybe 15 minutes. Mic the groom (get him to say his name and the date at the start), mic the pastor, stash another recorder on the lectern or another spot.

2. We use a 3 camera setup. Safety camera in the aisle that receives the audio from the pastor's mic. 2 the forward cameras are on the outside aisles and setup to get over the shoulder closeups of the B&G's face each during the vows.

3. How do you cover the bride arriving in her car? Doesn't happen here.

4. How do you cover the processional and recessional? For the processional, the camera on the bride's side (left) has a clear view of the groom, and stay's put. Other camera is on a monopod, at the front of the aisle (I try to be discreet and crouch). 70D with live autofocus and 50mm equivalent. Recessional is handheld and reversed (from the back)

5. Do you use any special equipment during the ceremony? Sliders, steadicam, jib? Do you ever use lights during a ceremony? No, though I'm considering a narrow beam light I can mount on camera to fill the face shadows a little in dark churches.

6. At what point do you leave the church? Do you video the group photos? Do you leave before bride and groom? Depends on what they ask for. I've done that. Or we've been told we don't need to (or they were done before the ceremony) and we head straight to the reception.