http://kissthebride.com.au/Articles/?p=1245
Here's my spin on it as well..... the preparations, church/ceremony & photo shoots are easily handled by professional cameras, though the reception venue can always present a challenge. although the PRO camera's have a higher Lux thingy as mentioned in the article, they still do have there limitations despite how professional the user... movie makers don't have full studio lighting for a reason, even in full manual settings the camera operator will need to use additional lighting and minimal gain settings to achieve a balance between the two (if its too dark its un-usable)
Where the skill takes place that "uncle Joe" wont spend time doing is colour correction "grading" and adjusting the raw footage to achieve the desired effects... this can be very time consuming in itself.
We use cameras like the Canon 5d mark 2 and Sony's EX1R, these have great low light capabillities though they are 99.9% operator reliant when it comes to a low light reception or event.
Some good advice for couples planning their wedding is to either have the speeches in a designated location (a podium or lecturn- this helps with audio capture too) if the venue has specific lighting directed at this location (e.g spot light) try use it,
or another practice is to have the lighting turned UP during The Speeches, Cutting the cake. (I'm not saying that you need to blow the mood "out the window" but these little changes will help ensure your events are looking good all the time. and i know no matter how pro the operator they will love you for it.
Once the dancing hits too, try have some form of lighting, be this disco/dance lighting of minimal house lighting.. no lights equates to camera operators needing "on camera" lighting to some degree...
we love the light!!
Have fun planning your day..
dave..
.jpg)