Iris & Gain Setting?
 

Hi, I am editing a 3 cam wedding ceremony. When I was inputting the footage I noticed that one of the cams were set to 4.8 with 6 db. Is this a valid technique, shooting with such a high gain inside a church, when the iris could have been opened more?

Not normally
 

Hi Richard,
I have shot and edited a bunch of weddings in different surrounds and my opinion is if it is anything above 1.6 at full wide, then you shouldn't use any gain. It is better to be a little dark than too bright. Generally, so long as you have good contrast in the shadows and your bright areas are not blown out, you shouldn't ever need to use gain. Set the colour viewfinder to a mid level, not too bright or too dark. The eye viewfinder will always tell you the truth and you can use your zebra to check if the whites are blown out too much. The darkest church I have shot in required +6db with the aperture set (fixed, should always set it manual) at 1.6 fully wide to 2.4 full telephoto. Receptions are something else, but once you go toward +12db, you need to start using a camera light.

Generally I'd open the iris before setting gain above 0.

There are times when one can set gain above 0 before adjusting iris.

Example:
Iris adjustments seem to be finer than gain adjustments.
Moving gain during a shot causes a noticeable bounce in luminance.
If I find I'm in a situation where some parts of the shot need to be gained up while others don't, I'll set gain to a given point and then adjust iris as needed.

Thanks for the input. The camera woman who shot this way is very experienced, so I can't understand for the life of me why she would do this. She must have made a mistake. If I get the chance I'll ask her.

The gain allowed her to turn down the aperture. This gave her a grearer depth of field. Less hunting on auto focus and more leeway when in manual. The amount of gain she used adds next to no grain with that camera. I think she knew what she was doing