Indoor lights and HUGE windows! « Videomaker Community Forums

Video-maniac
Member

OK you wedding guys!

IÂ’m curious as to what you guys do when you have weaker in-house incandescent lighting along with HUGE windows throwing huge amounts of light in during a bright overcast day? Needless to say this was a pretty good size church.

IÂ’m finishing up a wedding that has taken me twice as long as normal because I have been trying to minimize the color differences of the video in post. In other words I got my ass kicked on this one.

Do you guys just edit the way it is and IÂ’m too anal or is there some secret that I donÂ’t know of? Filming the wedding party looked good when they were coming down the isle but as soon as they split off to sit at their seat in the pew next to the windows everyone starts developing the dreaded blue hue. Setting the white balance almost seems useless in this situation. The balcony camera looked great because all of the windows were out of play. The side cameras took a beating with having to deal with indoor and outdoor lighting in the same frame shot. I know camera positions help but in this case there was no way of avoiding the big windows. Would you leave the cameras on AUTO balance?

HummÂ… Next time I wonder if the minister will let me hang beach towels over the windows like in the old college days? X-D

Just curious on how you guys address this.

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

The side cameras took a beating with having to deal with indoor and outdoor lighting in the same frame shot. I know camera positions help but in this case there was no way of avoiding the big windows.

We get these from time to time and just did one a couple weekends ago. The biggest problem I've had with big, bright windows, is glare.

To better understand my solution, let me explain how we designate our cameras. The one on the groom's side that faces the bride is C1, on the bride's side facing the groom is C2 (both of these are behind where the couple & minister stand and to the sides. C3 is at the rear, balcony, etc. forming the apex of the triangle.

What I've done is to move C1 & C2 forward to the side aisles back with the guests. This way, all three cameras have light behind them instead of shooting into the light.

We've been fortunate in most cases to have side aisles. In other cases, we've taken a pew as close to the front as possible, with C1 on one side and C2 on the other (C1 always shoots the bride and therefore must be on opposite side to get best angle and vice versa with C2).

Pew shooting means custom tripod setups and other difficulties. Sometimes we'll get relegated to the rear where the 2x telephotos come out (gotta get that ring shot!)

Excellent question!!

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

As for your white balance question, it just depends. You can manually set to sunlight or incandescent, but depending on the mix, white card balancing may be called for.

I used to do that a lot in the past, but anymore usually trust "auto" if I'm going to have changing conditions. The problem with the VX2100 is that you can't force white balance, then go to auto exposure. Auto exposure is auto white balance. If you have exposure issues due to uneven lighting, it may be best just to go with the auto exposure (but not if shooting toward the windows!)

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

OK Hank... I guess I should have explained my problem a little better. What you said makes total sense and for the most part we do something very similar during the actual ceremony.

The problem I'm talking about comes in when the group comes down the isle and then exists after the ceremony.

How do you pan with the couples and avoid windows? That's where I'm having the problem.

Sorry about not making myself clear the first time.... it's MONDAY!

RAM

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Sorry about misunderstanding - its Mnoday here too!

If I understand correctly, you're concerned about wt bal issues as couples exit the ceremony under changing lighting conditions?

Same issue, same/similar solution. (If I've got it right this time)

Whenever possible, right after ring ceremony (or Sand / Unity Candle, if there is one), one of us will (as discretely as possible) go down a side aisle (or better yet, often we can slip through a back doorway, and go around the sanctuary on the outside) to take up a position near the exit door.

Behind the last pew is usually good. That way, we're out of their way but still get the good shots. No panning necessary, just set up a bit of a diagonal (usually looks a bit nicer than straight at you) and hold on the parties coming toward the camera. The main issue is to not have the windows in the frame.

Whatever you do, you can't be shooting with a bright window in your frame. In my experience, automatic exposure/wt bal works pretty well in the VX2100s if you don't have too much contrast and if you have some white in the picture - at least at the begining of the shot.

White walls, large dark stained windows, etc. can throw off your exposure average and force you to go to manual. I always check these things out at the rehearsal, then double-check before the ceremony. Jean and I usually either synchronize our cameras to the same f-stop (but generally leave wt bal to auto unless there are issues) or we both stay on auto exposure if we don't have changing lighting conditions or contrasty backgrounds.

If something unexpectantly changes during the ceremony (like they turn on lights you'd never seen before even though you thoroughly asked about this sort of thing before) we'll signal each other through our headsets and go to the same f-stop.

When we have wt bal issues, rather than risk having different settings, I'll usually set both C1 & C2 to incandescent or daylight, so they'll be the same, then both will take the same sort of nudge in post - but at least they'll look the same.

Being a little off on white balance isn't too bad, but having each camera with a different color temp is going to get noticed.

RAM, if you end up with part of your clip needing color correction, (and usually this is one huge "ceremony" clip), I'll cut the section out, using the razor tool. Then I just correct that part of the clip I've isolated. I've found this works better than trying to use auto-color on a big clip.

Hey, if I still didn't get the topic right, try me on Twosday! :)

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Oh, and in the churches where you simply can't move, you can set C3 a bit wider and lower to catch the exits - but you can do something else also..

I've got a cheapo Hi-8 camera that I've given to groom's parents to catch that "reaction" shot when we've been positioned where we were afraid we might miss it. I've had wonderful results with that. So why not setup a consumer camcorder on a cheap tripod behind the last pew set to frame the exiting couples?

If the quality is really bad, you could PIP it within the wide shot of C3.

Posted 5 years ago #
Video-maniac
Member

BINGO!

You mentioned that you set up more diagonally on entrance and exit. I think that makes way more since in this situation. Normally I have one camera front left and the other mid right at the start and finish and what we do is one camera follows the couple half way down and then returns to the back door while the other camera picks them up at the halfway point and follows them to the front and vise versa. When you edit it all up it looks very nice for you get a camera hand off kind of effect. That only works with churches that are well lit and donÂ’t have dominate windows IÂ’ve discovered. While I like doing that, I think IÂ’m going to have to re-think this the next time I have that situation. Going your way would undoubtedly take these windows out of play more thus preventing the headache I currently have.

BTW: Cutting the clips is how I adjust the color. I think it would be impossible or at least twice as difficult to do it in any other way. The classic was after the ceremony, my partner set up his camera just outside the sanctuary pointing down the main isle to catch everyone parading out towards him. The brideÂ’s dress was your basic white but as she got closer to the back door you could see it start to turn blue. By time she was in the outer foyer of which there was nothing but outside light blasting through the windows, her dress looked completely blue. What I did was razor cut at a point just before the color started to change and then corrected the color on the later clip. Then to help mask the transformation, I just used a simple dissolve transition between the two clips and it comes out looking pretty good.

ThanksÂ’ for the tip! My only regret is that I didnÂ’t know this about 3 weeks ago. Live and learn I guess!

RAM

ps: Not bad for a Monday! ;-)

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

Transition would work. For even more control, you might also try laying one copy of the clip over the other and playing with the opacity settings of the upper track, using keyframes.

Also, there's nothing wrong (IMHO) with a shot from the front to rear, showing the bride's train and the couple's backs as they exit (at least, for the final part of the exit). This would be a sillouhette, with bright sunlit doors in the background, but could turn out a little "artsy".

But if worse comes to worse, what's wrong with a blue dress, if it matches blue faces? X-D

Posted 5 years ago #
Endeavor
Member

If you want to get a little more into it, you can adjust the white balance in post and have it change with the movement of the shot. You can do it with keyframes in Premiere (or after effects more easily if you know how).

Posted 5 years ago #
compusolver
Member

You're absolutely right, Adam - but hey, its Mnodya. We'd have thought of that by Tuesday! X-D

Posted 5 years ago #