Wedding Bliss(ters)

All-in-all I am very satisfied with my Vixia HG21. I was worried that I would miss a lot of shots during the reception as the sun went down and lights dimmed on the dance floor, but I was able to capture everything without having to use the very bright (and battery sucking) light attachment.

I shot a little over 5 hours of video, and recorded over 4 hours of external audio only running on my laptop battery. I was very impressed that the battery of my new Dell Latitude E6400 lasted as long as it did recording audio from my M-Audio Fast Track, it was fantastic.

Being the on the production side of a wedding for the first time was interesting. I got to know the DJ, Photographer, the Priest, and the Maitre d' and we all worked very closely together to make sure we were all able to do our job well.

But besides the photographer being a jerk even though it looked like he was a good photographer, the only hiccup I had was the entrance of the bride and father of the bride walking down the aisle. I was pretty confident that my camera was up high enough, but the instant that they came down the aisle the attendees all stood up and, of course, the tallest biggest person in the church was in front of my main camera. Quite near panicking, I repositioned the main camera to point up front to where they were going to approach and I grabbed the secondary camera and moved up to the front of the altar to capture them half way down the aisle. After they got close I moved out of the way and the main camera picked them up from there. That was too close and I should of spent more time positioning the main camera correctly. But everything else including the reception went very smoothly, including using the tripod and the weight as a steady cam, that worked beautifully in getting a lot of dramatic shots without a lot of camera shaking.

Add some more battery juggling, blisters and sore feet, and 5 bags of equipment to move around at a time, it was tiring and somewhat hectic at times, but it was an enjoyable experience that I hope to do again and maybe this time on the +net income side.

I still have a lot to do to prepare their video(s), but I'm going to make the best of the footage I got and do a multitiered production with a combination of different kinds of videos, highlights, and raw footage to help them celebrate the memory of their wonderful day.