XL1s capture settings on Indoor wedding

[Rickey Brillantes]

Hello everyone,

I just one to ask your inputs or suggestions regarding videotaping a wedding.
By the way I'll be shooting my first wedding video this coming weekend, the event will be at a church and will start at 4 pm. I'll be using an XL1s stationary and a senheiser e100 wireless system for my audio.
Im a graphic artist in profession, but I have a passion too with video specially in editing and i'll be using Final Cut Pro for my post.
As a novice in being a videographer my question is what is a good setting for an indoor afternoon shooting in capturing these kind of scenario on my XL1s, and also in the evening in the reception what is the best mode setting? how many tapes should I bring? and what are the Do's and Don'ts?
Thankyou guys for reading and responding to this, your professional inputs will be highly appreciated.

[Rob Lohman]

We have a special wedding forum, I suggest you try to read as much threads
there as you can. As for tape, bring lots. If you know you are going to be there
6 hours I would at least bring something like 10 tapes to be safe. Tape is cheap!

It will also be VERY WISE to try and record some footage indoor in similar
setting if possible before you get there. Usually lens must be wide open (which
can give you focussing problems), shutter should probably not go below 1/30th
(otherwise people will look strange), normally 1/60th is better, definitely don't
go above that (you loose too much light).

Gain might help but it will turn ugly quickly, I would not go above +6 for sure.
Again, run some tests to see what it all does and how it looks.

Keep in mind that in full automatic of semi automatic modes the camera is
controlling a lot of these settings for you and you cannot change them. Check
the manual on what you can and cannot change in each mode.

[Rickey Brillantes]

Thanks Rob for informing me about the wedding forum and for some of the tips.

Indeed that forum was very helpful, I did spend time reading those threads that was posted. And now a new question arises and was looking for an answere in the forum but found none.

1. Regarding white balance, how do you set this thing up, i know that you have to shoot it on a white board and in the viewfinder you can see the icon blinking, then there are those 1,2,3 knobs what are they for?

2. And also I read there that most shoot on a frame mode for the soft effect, I did try and made an experiment on that but these is what I found out that everytime I pan I see a stuttering effect, i found no answere on how this things can be resolve.

Again, thankyou for anyone who can give me a bright idea to these things.

[Rob Lohman]

1. when I had my XL1S I always used automatic white balance and it never failed me. There are also two presets for indoor and outdoor use. The 1, 2 & 3 positions are for custom white balance presets (read the manual). Usually you point the camera to a white sheet (filling the complete viewfinder) under the lighting you are going to shoot and hit white balance it will then shift all the colors so the thing you pointed the camera at looks white

2. most people choose frame / interlaced mode for the look they are after. A bit fictional (frame) or more real (interlaced). However, frame mode might loose a bit more light so it may be more wise to use interlaced instead, unless the couple does not like the look. Frame mode indeed can result in jittery pans if you pan to fast (this is due to the fact you are now shooting at 30/25 (NTSC/PAL) framerate instead of 60/50 [fields] in interlaced)

[Paul Gallagher]

Could someone please point me in the direction of the wedding section as I can't seem to find it.
many thanks
Paul

[Mike Teutsch]

Originally Posted by Paul Gallagher

Could someone please point me in the direction of the wedding section as I can't seem to find it.
many thanks
Paul

Paul,

It is on the home page toward the bottom, in "Special Interest Area."

This is the direct link: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=72

Mike

[Paul Gallagher]

Many thanks Mike.