Best camera for weddings videography

Hello guys! This is Paul and today we gonna speak about the features that perfect wedding videography camera should have!
Some people may think that any kind of decent video camera would work and all depends on a skill of the cameraman. I agree that skill is important part here, but there are some requirements that should be met by the camera for weddings and here are the most important ones:
Sound recording
Wedding videography camera should be able to record high quality sound. It is important for the ceremony and speeches. You just can’t record proper sound using internal camera microphones since they are omnidirectional which means they record everything around including wind noise, random sounds around the camera and so on, so wedding camera should have input for a professional external microphone or wireless receiver if you’re using wireless microphones.

Low light performance
Next important feature that wedding videography camera should have is a good low light performance. There are lots of moments during the day that may happen in a badly lit environment – bride and groom preparation, ceremony in a church, badly lit venue and so on, so only option here is to increase your camera sensitivity. Usually when you do so you start getting noise and video quality decrease in geometric progression.

Colour profiles
Lots of video cameras have something that called a colour profile to adjust colours in captured video and more advanced ones have a colour profile called LOG. This profile allows to capture video with a completely desaturated, non contrast look that gives a huge benefit during the post production to colour grade your footage in any way you like. Since wedding videographers don’t have time and possibility to set up lights to control the shooting environment it’s essential to be able to match the colours of the hotel room where groom is getting ready, apartment where bride is getting ready, church, and a venue. Otherwise you will end up with completely different look for each of these scenes which is not good for a final video.

Battery life
Wedding videographers shoot non-stop for the whole day and it is important to be able to have enough power in your camera to handle such conditions. Bigger batteries are better, however they usually weight more and it may be not comfortable for a cameraman to handle. In this case lots of small batteries that can be easily switched is a good option.

Portability
The last but not least feature in this list is a portability of a camera setup. Some cameras can weigh more than 10 kilos when you attach all needed peripherals which is disaster for camera person on a wedding day, that’s why it is important to find a camera that will have everything listed above and at the same time be lightweight and portable not to cause any problems during the wedding.

There are few cameras that have all these features: Sony A7SII, Sony A7RII, Panasonic GH5, Blackmagic pocket cinema camera, and some others. In one of the next posts I’ll compare them.

Thank you
-Paul