How should I handle WB when shooting an outdoor wedding?

Gary the Llama

Gary the Llama

Well-known member
(For those of you who are curious, my camera lens is fine. No scratches. No more freaking out. Shot some test footage today and it came out beautiful.)

Now... On to the real question. I'm shooting a wedding in two weeks. It's a pretty informal thing because they weren't even planning on having a videographer. They were going to just set a camera up on a tripod to film the whole thing.

Well, they said I could do what I want so I'm going to have a lot of freedom to shoot what and how I want. Which is good, because it's my first wedding.

It'll be outdoors and the ceremony will start at around 5:00pm or 6:00pm so I'm going to be battling with a falling sun. Now fortunately, the ceremony itself will only be 20 minutes or so but I know the sun can fall a lot during that time. So how should I do my WB? Set it to auto? I don't want to stick a white card in front of the camera every few minutes because that would interfere with the footage.

Any help (or general wedding shooting tips) would be appreciated. Thanks guys!
 
I'd white balance with the card once at the start, and maybe again if you get a chance. That time of day tends to be a little lower in temp than the 5600 preset, and the light changes rather quickly.

EDIT: You could always white balance on the brides dress :)
 
Just keep a White Card handy and Press the WB when you see the lighting conditions starting to change

Leaving on 5600 is most likely acceptable but most important is not screwing up the Exposure
 
I guess what I'm worried about is having to hold up a white card during the middle of the ceremony... Guess I could always use that time for a quick cutaway. :)
 
John_Hudson said:
most important is not screwing up the Exposure
Click to expand...

I've read this is the hardest thing with weddings, because of the black tux right next to the white dress. This is why good wedding photographers get paid so well.
 
Chill. It is very easy to fix WB in post if you screw up.

Like said about, use the Bride's dress (if it is white) but even if the sun does set, it will give a lovely warm tone to the footage. Of course, if it gets too warm you may need to re WB. Concentrate on exposure, framing and content - they are harder to fix in post. Still try and get the WB right, but it isn't a big problem.
 
Just WB once in the beggining. The light isn't going to change that much. And I would rather have it right to start then change it in post. It always looks better if it is set correctly to start. You can fix it later but it never looks quite as good if it had been set correctly to start.
 
I like to think that the bride is actually the number one person at the wedding, I try to expose so I am getting the wedding dress detail, she spent some money on that and wants to see it. Heres an example (granted this is an eaiser lit shot but you get my meaning)

Keiko1.jpg
 
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