Lighting A Wedding Reception

X

XDeathOrGloryX

Active member
for any of you wedding videographers out there... i have a friend who booked a wedding shoot, and has asked me to shoot 2nd camera for it. he isnt too experienced with weddings, and ive never shot one before. (i work mostly in broadcast television).

i was wondering if anyone had suggestions on what to do as far as lighting during the reception during the dancing parts or any other time they drop the house lights down.

whats the standard? on camera light? softbox off in the corner?

i mean, id like to not "ruin" the moment by building a bunch of lights to throw onto the "scene", but i also dont want to miss out on capturing anything important due to low light levels.

any tips/suggestions are appreciated as always. :)

Daniel
 
Re: Lighting A Wedding Reception

I've done still photography for the occassional wedding and will tell you that ambient light levels can vary considerably depending on the location and time of day. You can be in a murky ballroom with no windows or in a reception area with floor to ceiling windows. It helps to know beforehand what the conditions are going to be.

I was just trying out a Lowell Caselite 4 yesterday and renting one or two might be a good option (~$40/day/light). You can rent them with either daylight or tungsten balanced fluorescent lamps to match your ambient lighting. It's a reasonably compact unit built into it's own transport case and it comes with barndoors and an eggcrate. They put out fairly soft light and you can switch each of the 4 bulbs on or off as needed. The great thing about flos is the fact they run cool, so I think they're safer around a large group milling about (and drinking). A similar light from Kino-Flo is the Diva-Lite 400.

An on-camera light will produce a deer-in-the-headlights look if the ambient light is really low, but if the light is dimmable or the ambient light level is good, you can use it for some eyelight/fill. I'm sure we have a few wedding videographers lurking that can offer some suggestions.
 
Re: Lighting A Wedding Reception

If you're not shooting 360 degrees, a couple of 3/4 back/cross lights (Omni or equivalent) can give a nice look to dancing or other "group scenes". A softened front fill from an opposite wall (behind camera) will add enough to keep the image clean. When the lights go down, your setup will still provide it's own "mood". Flo's or Caselights fall off pretty quickly with distance, so a couple of 650's and a softened 1k set to wide flood are probably your best bet in a largish room.
You should be able to work a 180 degree range with this setup, allowing a great deal of freedom to pick and choose your shots.
Hope this helps.
Ken
 
Re: Lighting A Wedding Reception

Personally, I like to keep it simple with a 500w tota bounced into an umbrella with an extra layer of diffusion to create a softbox like effect. Also a dimmer is handy to make to bring the light up slowly. We only use this in dark reception halls.
We also always use the Sony 10/20w lights...10w often does the trick.

Here is an example from my final wedding in D.C. before I move to LA and quite weddings. We only used the 10/20w lights.

This wedding was shot with a PD150/VX2000/DVX100a/PDx10/ and TRV38, yup TRV38 I had it to black some old tapes before i sell them off, so we put it up for fun :)

http://www.cmvideography.com/ljvig

best regards,

chris
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top