wedding in 2 days and doing video first time

R

rocketman122

Active member
well im a stills photographer. shooting for 8 years now. the couple didnt want a videographer. they only asked if we can shoot (2 stills) the ceremony with video. why dont they designate a family member to shoot with a smartphone. Idont know...

I plan on doing that and the other photog will shoot stills of them entering. when everyone is in place, I will place it on a tripod and let it record, then use my D3s for stills and just keep coming back and keeping an eye on it. this will be an outdoor ceremony. so my questions are:

-should U keep the exposure on S and lock it in to a certain shutter speed and let the aperture adjust? or just put it on the tripod and adjust manual and let it run as is?
-I have a audio technica atr-3350 lavalier mic. dont have boom mic or anything else. I plan on setting the mic up some how in the place(prewiring it in) then when I come to place the camera on the tripod just connect the mic and record.
-probably will use a 35mm f/2 lens. I do have others. but want a nice clean shot without distortion. so will take it back a bit instead of going in and going wide with a 17-35 AFS I have.
-any point to use a led light for fill? I think like a stills photog so dont mind my dumb questions.



now, since I dont have a boom mic, how much money do I really need to invest for one? can I get away with one of these cheap ones?
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trk..._nkw=nikon+d600+microphone&_sacat=0&_from=R40

aslo, how do you setup a led light and boom mic with only one hot shoe? and adapter that will let you use both?

thank you
 
Which camera do you plan on shooting the video with? Most Nikons will not allow you to change aperture while shooting video. (I think only D4 and D800 will). So my suggestion is to set a reasonable aperture (based on lighting), set the camera on P and let it adjust the shutter speed and ISO. The aperture you select should allow for a shutter speed of ~ 1/60 and an ISO without too much noise. Or use manual mode. I think most Nikons have a time limit of 20 minutes for each video clip, so plan accordingly.

If you only have 1 lavalier mic, I would suggest putting it on the officiant. He won't move during the ceremony, and does most of the talking anyway. The key to good audio is to get the mic as close as possible to the speakers. And test your setup in advance to find the right volume settings to give you good audio levels. An on-camera mic is not going to give you better audio unless you're less than 5 feet away.

And regarding lighting, use your judgment as a still photographer. Will the people's faces be in the shadows? Will a fill light help? LED lights are usually pretty weak, so test your light to see if it will make a difference at your location (or a similar setup). And remember that you can mount the light on a stand to get it closer if you need to.
 
* The usual thing is to put everything on manual.
* The lav thing should work well enough.
* If you can get decent exposure without a LED for fill, that's what I would do. If you use an LED, don't put it on top of the camera. Use it as you would use a flash in a studio.
 
For the D600, it seems that 'video' is limited to 20-30 or so minutes. Unlike my GH-1 which can go for 'hours' if one had enough SD card memory.

From the D600 specs page:

---
Maximum length

Approx. 29 min. 59 s (20 min. depending on frame size/rate and movie quality settings)
---
 
Sumfun said:
Which camera do you plan on shooting the video with? Most Nikons will not allow you to change aperture while shooting video. (I think only D4 and D800 will). So my suggestion is to set a reasonable aperture (based on lighting), set the camera on P and let it adjust the shutter speed and ISO. The aperture you select should allow for a shutter speed of ~ 1/60 and an ISO without too much noise. Or use manual mode. I think most Nikons have a time limit of 20 minutes for each video clip, so plan accordingly.

If you only have 1 lavalier mic, I would suggest putting it on the officiant. He won't move during the ceremony, and does most of the talking anyway. The key to good audio is to get the mic as close as possible to the speakers. And test your setup in advance to find the right volume settings to give you good audio levels. An on-camera mic is not going to give you better audio unless you're less than 5 feet away.

And regarding lighting, use your judgment as a still photographer. Will the people's faces be in the shadows? Will a fill light help? LED lights are usually pretty weak, so test your light to see if it will make a difference at your location (or a similar setup). And remember that you can mount the light on a stand to get it closer if you need to.
Click to expand...

using a D600. Ok, I misunderstood the date and shot yesterday actually. luckily I bring my led light. I always use it on a small stand place it on the floor to light my subjects for family formals. sometimes im shooting in very dark areas.

I learned a lot. I was wasnt so bad. but quite sucky. shaky, composition was different thinking compared to stills. it is what it is. there was no officiant. it was basically family members talking. no real ceremony as they are wife and wife and were already married out of country. it was a ceremony/party for friends basically.

Samuel H said:
* The usual thing is to put everything on manual.
* The lav thing should work well enough.
* If you can get decent exposure without a LED for fill, that's what I would do. If you use an LED, don't put it on top of the camera. Use it as you would use a flash in a studio.
Click to expand...

I didnt use a lavalier mic. I used a small 90º maxell mic that looks like a small antenna. sound is very nice actually. seems omnidirectiol and the speaker was about 15 feet or so to the right of the camera (on the tripod) and caught it very nicely. I used my led light and it did help outdoors. you can see a faint fill in the ceremony. very faint. im glad I used it. thank god I had it on me and for the dancing used it as well. iso 800. aperture at f/2.8 1/30 . it was ok. lit well enough. just the flourtecnet looking color sucked and I forgot the leds amber gel.

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
For the D600, it seems that 'video' is limited to 20-30 or so minutes. Unlike my GH-1 which can go for 'hours' if one had enough SD card memory.

From the D600 specs page:

---
Maximum length

Approx. 29 min. 59 s (20 min. depending on frame size/rate and movie quality settings)
---
Click to expand...

I did ok and timed my stop record to get the whole ceremony.

great first experience. my stills experience helped me a lot. im ready to go again.


btw guys. from the ebay link above I posted, are any of these mics worth anything? also, how would I mount both the mic and led on the hot shoe together? any adapter?
 
ok, looking over the videos I downloaded to my computer, the audio isnt synced. how can this be? the video and sound are not matching. also video on nikon seems very soft. my focus was off in many shots but thats from practice and I need to by a loupe because I just couldnt see what was oing on in the bright sun. very hard to focus. any way to fix the audio sync issue?

btw how do I see exif on video?
 
Last edited:
A loupe - yeah, with a DSLR, it;s hard to live without one.

Audio synch... that's odd. But drop the clip in your NLE, unlink the audio from the video and nudge one track (either audio or video) a frame at a time until it syncs. Find a spot that it's easy to sync, closeup of someone talking (where you can be a frame or two off and it's hard to notice), a hand clap, etc. Make a note of how many frames forward or back for future ref.

If it seems out of sync on your mac/pc in a clip viewer, it may be that you machine isn't fast enough to play a 1080 clip without some stutters, etc - but none of the macs I've owned have had trouble in that regard.
 
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