Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

Victor | The macro helps make it look riskier than it was. d;-)

Zhong | You're welcome. I love helping others. Regarding your question, the best thing you can do in a situation where you're lacking enough light is to ... add more light. During that fireworks scene we had an LED light set up off-axis to give some extra light on their faces. We also had a studio light some distance away (probably about 60 feet) hitting them from behind with some extra light.

Obviously you can also up your ISO and drop your shutter and open your aperture full-wide, but sometimes it's just DARK and you're not going to get good results without adding light. You can also try the Neat Video software as it does a good job of increasing exposure and reducing noise. We don't use it but we've heard good things about it.

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

Thanks, Travis, awesome insight as always!

With a studio light, do you find it takes too long to set up or gets people upset with the bright light? Is it something you have to plan in advance, so you get the shot you need, then turn it off quickly?

Also, where were you able to get electricity/outlet to power a studio light outdoors?

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

It takes maybe 5 minute extra to set up a light, and we take care to set it up so that it's not going to annoy the guests. We also generally only use the lighting for major events like the first dance and so forth, but we take care to judge the crowd too. Sometimes you can just leave the light on and everyone will just keep dancing and not even care. Sometimes you need to turn it off. As for power, we just ran an extension cord to an outlet inside a building that was near the beach. We also have on-camera lighting we can put on stands or on cameras if needed.

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

Thanks for the confirmation, I've been wanting to stay away from lights as much as possible, but seems that just not possible with the current technology yet in dark scenes.

I can't stop watching your video either - probably watched it 20x now! And I notice more and more amazing stuff each time. For example, this time around, I noticed that you had a subtle slider shot of the audience sitting in the chairs during the ceremony as well as a dolly in shot with the rose petals on the ground at the couple at the front.

How were you able to manage these slider shots during the ceremony? Especially the dolly in shot with the rose petals - I'm guessing you were situated in the middle of the aisle for this shot, which was permissible since it was outdoors and not in a church?

But the bigger question is what kind of ceremony camera set up do you use? I was thinking the standard 3 camera setup, all on tripod (middle back of aisle, then right and left up front). But if I go with that setup, I don't see how I could possibly achieve the subtle slider shots you got during the ceremony? Care to share how you accomplished that?

Thanks Travis! Great job again.

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

We use anywhere from 4-5 cameras while shooting a wedding ceremony, which leaves us free to dedicate one camera to more creative shots. That said, I only work with a single assistant and we work together to keep all of the cameras shooting what we want. It's not easy but it works well for us. d;-)

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

Zhong, if you're not going to use a video light than you need a faster lens. 1.8, 1.4 or 1.2s.

Re: Rhett + Nicole | MUST SEE Wedding Highlights | Serendipity Studios
 

Michael is right, although the DOF is so shallow below 2.0 that you'll likely have a nightmare keeping focus on a moving subject.