Wedding recpetions and light Experience NEED HELP

J

jsvideoworx

Active member
Want to know people experiences on setting up lights at a wedding reception. I am looking into setting up some of my lights during the reception and would like to know if clients, photographers get mad with the videographer for setting up a couple of lights. I want to set up maybe 1 or 2 just to give me enough light for me to work with the images in post.
 
sometimes the easiest thing for me to do, is find the light switches and turn them all up higher and turn on a couple more lights if others are turned off. but then that entails dealing with the manager and probably dj as well. but usually i find it easy to reach a happy medium. if not, then i turn to plan B.

plan B entails sticking 500 watt totas in the corners of the room facing into the corner to add some more ambient light. with possibly throwing up a fresnel or open face towards speaches and cake cuttings. but as long as you can keep those super bright corners out of your shots, then all is well. and its probably going to piss off the dj and the manager. but probably not enough to do anything about it. photogs usually don't mind, since it gives them more light.

but make sure to go over the lighting issues with the b&g before hand. and let them know that if its too dark you are going to try plan A first and then B second. i haven't had to resort to plan b in a while. they key is to keep "the mood" while still having enough light to get good video. and unless you're shooting with an HVX then you should probably be able to pull off something well with an on camera light and fiddling with the light switches.
 
I've set up an extra light at the reception a couple of times in addition to my on-camera light. Most of the time I only do this during the first dances to add a little extra backlight to the scene.

For most of my clients though, they want things as unobtrusive as possible. Photographers might not mind. I had one say that my second light was screwing up his pictures because he kept getting a lens flare, so it depends on the particular photographer and not all of them in general.

I recommend that you have an adequate on-camera light in your arsenal just in case.
 
I use a smith vector 950. I like the light it puts off, but i hate carrying the battery around. I going to put it on a stand instead of on camera. I have taken it to one of the weddings i have done but didnt really need it. I guess i will try it out at the next one and see if anyone complains. Thanks for your help.
 
I use a Smith Victor light as well for some of the reception. I hear you about the battery. Setting it up on a stand is not a bad idea. What I do is hang it on my tripod. After the first dances I usually switch from the Smith Victor light to my much lighter weight Sony on-cam light. This way I can go tripod or hand held very easily for the rest of the night.
 
What we use are two on-camera lights that are mounted on a light stand and placed n opposite ends of the dance floor. they are remote controlled and I turn them on before the intros and leave them on until dinner, then I tun them off, then back on when the festivities start up again.

These lights are only 75-100w each and are elevated 10-13 feet in the air, so they are out of the line of sight f any guest and aren't powerful enough to mess with the DJ's lights. They are powerful enough to let us run our Sony FX1's at 12db gain with very aceptable results. Plus the added light gives some nice depth to the actual image.

We also have dimmable Sony HVL-LBP lights mounted on our cameras (geled to color balance to 3600k) for some fill lighitng when needed, as well as a just in case light. These lights are dimmed down very low for the most part.

You can see the remote ligting at Receptionlight.com. We custom built our own rigs using our available on camera lights, and use large Bescor battery belts which mount at the base and run for 3-4 hours at full tilt. We did however order a couple of remotes from Receptionlight, which work great.
 
Last edited:
vegas06 said:
What we use are two on-camera lights that are mounted on a light stand and placed n opposite ends of the dance floor. they are remote controlled and I turn them on before the intros and leave them on until dinner, then I tun them off, then back on when the festivities start up again.

These lights are only 75-100w each and are elevated 10-13 feet in the air, so they are out of the line of sight f any guest and aren't powerful enough to mess with the DJ's lights. They are powerful enough to let us run our Sony FX1's at 12db gain with very aceptable results. Plus the added light gives some nice depth to the actual image.

We also have dimmable Sony HVL-LBP lights mounted on our cameras (geled to color balance to 3600k) for some fill lighitng when needed, as well as a just in case light. These lights are dimmed down very low for the most part.

You can see the remote ligting at Receptionlight.com. We custom built our own rigs using our available on camera lights, and use large Bescor battery belts which mount at the base and run for 3-4 hours at full tilt. We did however order a couple of remotes from Receptionlight, which work great.
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now that is what im talking about. This is an awesome setup. thanks for the information.
 
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