Digital Camcorder for Wedding - Any help or advice appreciated!

Gforcemurphy

Hi all,

I just thought I'd ask the forum - We're having our wedding in July next year, and while we're all too happy to get a "proper" professional photographer for the day, the idea of a videographer is just a luxury too far for our budget. A good idea (we thought) would be to source a small digital camcorder for the day, and hand it to a select few friends to shoot an hour or so each. Should give a more "candid" account of the day, and from the perspective of different groups, families, etc.

Ideally of course, we would find someone who would be willing to lend us their camcorder for the day, but failing that, we may have to look at buying something in the budget end of the market that would hopefully suit our needs.

So on to obvious questions: What should we be looking at? Where are the better places to search?

Priorities would be enough memory capacity to shoot - say, 8 hours of footage - transferable afterwards onto a laptop. Picture quality should be decent enough but within reason. While we may get some use out of it afterwards it will be primarily for the day that's in it. Budget would be €150 to €200, but if someone says we could get what we want for cheaper, I'm all for it.

As it says above, any help or suggestions are most appreciated!

Cheers.

smelltheglove

Don't you just hate it when you type a nice reply and the whoel thing disappears:o

Ok so, I really do find it disappointing that only around 50% of my brides get videographers. I really enjoy looking back on mine dvd as do my kids.

By the sounds of it you really do want a dvd otherwise you would not of posted so is there any chance you can haggle with the suppliers you already have to try and get a few bob off to go towards a dvd? My own cost 1k which is an average enough price for a dvd, I would recommend www.bestdayproductions.com www.myweddinginhd.ie and www.carlowdigital.com all of whom I have worked beside.

Leaving that aside if you cant get one no matter what then yes guests will have camcorders, just ask and Im sure they would be willing to bring them along.

My personal experience is this, attending the wedding of my step sis I found she had no videographer, I stopped off on the way to the hotel to get my camcorder. Unfortunately I only had around 35 mns of battery so I used it sparingly. One guest had a camcorder at the ceremony only so after the wedding I got a hold of the dvd. I went ahead and edited the two together as best I could, the earlier footage was very very shaky, I ended up selecting small parts and slowing them down so they would be watchable. I covered the whole lot with music and built into chapters too. The process was long enough but finished up with around 40mns of a well appreciated dvd.

Based on this experience, make sure you not only have a camcorder but a tripod, place the camcorder on a tripod at the ceremony location to get a steady coverage of the ceremony.

If possible get another guest to record seperatly the key moments such as the rings and vows and join them together in editing.

Camcorder wise I have found the dvd camcorders pretty useless, the ones I have used anyway, after borrowing twice I was only able to record 15 mns per disc compared to the 60mns I would get on my little handicam from 4 yrs ago so if you end up having to buy for yourself check out argos, I got mine there a few years back but it did cost around 500 at the time, you may pick up a secondhand one cheapenough on adverts.ie too.

Best of luck with the wedding planning and I hope you enjoy your big day!

thatsnotmyname

In terms of a Camcorder

I would recommend that you make sure you go for one that records in High Definition

Three years ago friends of mine had the same idea as yourself

it worked out well except when they got their new 40 lcd tv
the quality is fairly crap!!

HD would be the route to go

Best of Luck!

Nforce

Yep...record in the highest resolution possible. It's better to reduce the resolution afterwards to fit on a dvd rather than try upscaling it. Back when I got married video was still in use and it looks sh1te on our HD tv's.:(
If you are getting a guest to record make sure they're not drinking! A couple of years ago I was a groomsman for my BIL and was asked to bring my camcorder to the wedding as he said he'd get a guest to record us. I'd the camera set up so all they had to do was switch it on and press record. I showed them how to do this and all was well...or so I thought. Turns out that the original camera person decided that they'd be too embarrassed to record the wedding so they passed the camera onto someone else who managed to record the whole ceremony and the afters in IR night mode!:eek:

Freddie59

i've done several weddings for friends and family. Want my advice? Don't go with the idea. It will be terrible. I've seen some. They are truly awful.

Wedding videos nowadays won't break the bank, and, if you only want a memento, some videographers offer a tiered service. iIf you want just the bare essentials (say ceremony and photoshoot) it won't be that expensive when compared to the stills.

But, like the stills, get someone who knows what they're doing. If you do it with a cheapo camcorder it will be reflected in the quality.

Freddie59

thatsnotmyname wrote: »

In terms of a Camcorder

I would recommend that you make sure you go for one that records in High Definition

Three years ago friends of mine had the same idea as yourself

it worked out well except when they got their new 40 lcd tv
the quality is fairly crap!!

HD would be the route to go

Best of Luck!

If you record in HD you need a serious PC to do the editing. Just be aware of that. Doesn't have to be HD. Our son got married recently and we got a pro to record it in SD (I edited the tapes afterwards). It's great on a 42" Panasonic Viera.

And if you record it on a Hard Drive or DVD camcorder you will also need some serious machines to edit it. Just Google it. Stick with a Mini-DV camcorder. As smelltheglove says, the DVD ones in particular are awful.

For the afters you'll need some kind of light. Otherwise what looks fine on the LCD monitor on the Camcorder will truly look like shyte on a large-screen TV.

Nforce

A relatively modest modern pc will have no problems editing HD video. File sizes may be higher so you could consider burning to dual layer dvd or better still...to BluRay if you've a BR burner (blank 25gb media is available at prices that won't break the bank).
I use a 1920x1080 HD camcorder. It'll fit up to 9hrs of full resolution footage onto it's internal 120gb hard drive. Spare batteries are a must...with higher capacity batteries readily available for most popular brands. Editing is quick and simple enough.

Freddie59

Nforce wrote: »

A relatively modest modern pc will have no problems editing HD video.

From 2009 but still relevant.

http://www.mediacollege.com/forum/showthread.php?5934-Best-computer-specs-for-editing-HD-video-smoothly-from-a-Canon-XH-A1

'You will need at least a QuadCore Machine (my DuoCore 2,2GHZ just doesn't cut it!!) as fast as you can afford, plus at least 4GB ram and a video card with at least 512mb video ram..more is actually better.

You need to look at at LEAST 2 drives but with HD it's worth having a dedicated machine for video only with one drive for the OS and editing and one for your raw files. Everything must be SATA at least to get a decent data rate.'

Nforce

Freddie59 wrote: »

From 2009 but still relevant.

http://www.mediacollege.com/forum/showthread.php?5934-Best-computer-specs-for-editing-HD-video-smoothly-from-a-Canon-XH-A1

'You will need at least a QuadCore Machine (my DuoCore 2,2GHZ just doesn't cut it!!) as fast as you can afford, plus at least 4GB ram and a video card with at least 512mb video ram..more is actually better.

You need to look at at LEAST 2 drives but with HD it's worth having a dedicated machine for video only with one drive for the OS and editing and one for your raw files. Everything must be SATA at least to get a decent data rate.'

Yep...as I said "A relatively modest modern pc". Many consumer PC's come with quadcore processors,4GB memory,500gb+ Hard drives and graphics cards with 512mb or more for ~€500/600. Seperate HDD's are not a requirement so long as you've adequate space on your single drive ... internal 1tb hard drives can be bought for €80. SATA hdd's are the norm since 2005 ish.
I've successfully edited HD video on my laptop... Intel Core 2 T7600 2.33Ghz,4GB pc5300 ram, dual 512mb nvidia graphics cards and a 160gb 7200rpm HDD. It's not ideal...but it can get the job done.

EIREHotspur

Video is one of the most expensive technologies you can deal with.

Your looking for a 150-200 job.

The quality of Camera you will get for 150-200euro? Rubbish.
Unless you want a simple no frills cut of your video then you need a good PC to edit.

I would say your best bet would be to ask a friend to do it or borrow a camcorder.

Good luck with that.

Borderfox

Rent one?

AnimalRights

thatsnotmyname wrote: »

In terms of a Camcorder

I would recommend that you make sure you go for one that records in High Definition

Three years ago friends of mine had the same idea as yourself

it worked out well except when they got their new 40 lcd tv
the quality is fairly crap!!

HD would be the route to go

Best of Luck!

My trusty Sony camcorder is not HD but when used during properly during day light hours and proper light you'd hardly notice it wasn't.

AnimalRights

Mine is HDD not DV btw.

Not much available light at a gig, I get the brilliant sound from an external mic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKOZ9PkYZ-k

Don't forget thats after utube has compressed the fck out of it.

Gforcemurphy

Thanks for all the (mostly) helpful responses, a fair amount to take in - including all the editing requirements which is something I hadn't full appreciated, but it's fairly essential I suppose if we go down that route.

As it happens I'm in the market for a computer for work, so something else to keep in mind now. I think I'll keep an eye on adverts.ie for a half decent MiniDV Camcorder for €250 or so (keeping realistic) and take it from there. Obviously it won't bring the same professional finish, but there will be some positives from that as well I reckon.

Gforcemurphy

I've spotted this among Lidl's "specials" arriving next Monday...

http://www.lidl.ie/IE/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20101220.p.HD_Digital_Camcorder

Seems like it might do the job (ie, amateur wedding and afters footage conducted by a few mates). Is there anything essential I'm missing? It seems to take as a max 8GB storage cards, so that would presumably give different amounts of footage depending on whether you shoot HD or SD, but any ideas how much to expect? Also would battery life be an issue?

If there's no big red flag warning me off that anyone can point me to, I reckon I'll try and get me one on Monday morning, so again, any help appreciated.

Thanks a mil.

hmboards

Borderfox wrote: »

Rent one?

+1 Why spend 250 to buy a cheap one that you only really need for the day. Rent a decent quality one ?

Gforcemurphy

Thanks everyone for the input,

We have just been given a belated engagement present from the other half's father, and it's a camcorder

Here's the link if anyone cares to comment on its ability (or lack of) but it seems alright at first glace. Geting to grips with it at the moment.

http://www.sony.ie/product/sdh-hard-disk-drive/dcr-sr15e

80GB HDD, decent battery life it appears. Anything I'm missing? I suppose it's bought now and it's not something we will be trying to replace in the circumstances, but it's worth some feedback in any event. As the original post points out its for some "DIY footage" for our wedding (and afters :rolleyes:).

PCPhoto

me thinks someone in the other half's family are on boards !!!

(or you mentioned it to them and they picked up on the hint)

Gforcemurphy

Yeah, I think the second of your two conclusions isn't too far off .

(But cheers, the second I read your post I thought you knew more that than you were supposed to and I had just been snared! :eek:)