Guide to Picking a Videographer Part 1

You've just popped the big question and hopefully, she said yes.

If not, then you could check out this website, maybe it'll make you feel a little better.

Over the coming months, you're going to be looking at flowers, venues, more rings, and invitations. Go to one of those bridal shows and you'll most likely feel unbelievably overwhelmed.

You have to pick a DJ, you have to pick a photographer, you have to pick a florist.

That's a lot of pressure for someone who isn't familiar with the wedding industry. Thankfully, when I was in the process of planning for my own wedding to my super awesome best-friend/now wife, I knew a little something about what to look for in a videographer.

Here's Part 1 of our "Guide to Picking a Videographer"

What Type of Cameras Do You Use?

In my travels, there are three different formats of video cameras that surface in the wedding industry. 3CCD, HDV, and High Definition.

3CCD
3CCD (or charged couple devices) are great quality cameras that have three different "chips", each dedicated to measuring red, green, and blue light.

How it Effects Your Video: The three independent chips allow for the camera to intake more color information, as opposed to a single chip camera that will "crush" your colors into compressed information. Basically, your Cabernet colored bridesmaid dress will look "Cabernet", not just "red".

How it Effects Your Wallet: Standard definition packages are slowly phasing out as blu-ray players become more affordable and as HD technology begins to flood the video market, so don't let a videographer attempt to charge you through the nose for this package. The majority of these cameras shoot on miniDV or DVCam tape, which will archive much better than HD Footage.

HDV
HDV technology sounds fancy and in most cases it is. However, early forms of HDV can be referred to as the "Poor Man's High Definition". HDV was initially developed by JVC; it's early attempts at the technology failed miserably (I would know, I have one of their cameras) but it also brought about the first consumer affordable high definition cameras.

How it Effects Your Video: The picture is beautiful. HDV, however still shoots on tape, and in a technical format a little better than that of the 3CCD cameras. See, the letters HDV are misleading. In reality, HDV is closer to High-Def Like than actual HD Video. The camera records MPEG-2 audio/video files onto a tape, so there's going to be some compression involved in the shooting process.

How it Effects Your Wallet: This is a time when the question "What brand of camera do you use" is extremely important. Bruce Cullen, the videographer who we chose to shoot our wedding, uses a Canon XL H1 HDV camera. This HDV camera is a top of the line professional HDV camera that has all the bells and whistles. If your videographer answers that question with something along the lines of JVC or Sony, time to start looking at other options. These HDV cameras are probably the older line, and were designed for consumers, as mentioned earlier.

True High Definition
If money is no object and you truly want to go all out on your video; high definition cameras are the way to go. Make sure your videographer has the ability to "master" your DVD onto a high definition disc (blu-ray), otherwise, every time you watch it you'll say to yourself "wow this looks nice, I wish it was HD though...."

How it Effects Your Video: In extremely well lit areas (like your church or outdoor ceremony) the footage will look amazing. In low lit areas (like anytime during your reception) the videographer will be forced to use an "on-camera light". HD Cameras don't do well in low lit areas; they need all the help they can get. Most on camera lights are non-invasive and can do the job without lighting up the entire room. However, some can be annoying and attract a little too much attention to the videographer. Ask to see a sample of the High Definition Dance footage just to get a feel of what that light will look like.

How it Effects Your Wallet: When we met with videographers, every time I heard the lettes H&D, that familiar "BIG MONEY BIG MONEY" phrase kept running through my head. Yes, HD is expensive, but the cost for the videographer to film in HD is expensive too. Cards that the footage is shot with can range anywhere between $200 and $1,500. HD footage takes up more space on the videographer's hard drives, which means they'll have to purchase bigger drives to account for the increase in file sizes. Blu-Ray discs cost almost three times as much as regular standard definition disks and require a special burner has to be purchased separately from most computers.