Ever wondered what a wedding filmmaker takes to a wedding? What special bits of kit would they take? Any special tricks up their sleeve? What gear makes a great modern wedding film? We take a look into the dark depths of the camera bag of Norfolk Wedding filmmaker Benjamin from Race Wedding Videography. Lets check it out!

A Wedding Videographer’s Camera Bag - Billingham

As this blog looks at all the camera gear inside a wedding filmmaker’s camera bag, it would be silly not start with the bag itself! I use a brand called Billingham, which is the most iconic of all camera bags. They are handmade in England and have been in production since the 1970’s. They have top grain leather, solid brass fittings and 3 layers of waterproof fabric. As you can imagine this has various types of equipment in and I know that this thing wont ever fall apart and will be a camera bag for life whatever situations and weather is thrown at it!

The cameras - Sony A7

I have two of these at a wedding, so its quite easy to interchange between them. I usually have one mounted on a Ronin S Gimbal for ultra smooth shots plus one on a Manfrotto tripod. These have great focusing features enabling me to move around the action holding my Ronin. I also have battery grips added so each pack has x2 batteries with of course lots of spares! With filming from 8am - 10pm at night, filming a wedding is a long old day but these always last.

Flightcases - DJI Drone and Ronin S

Whilst these usually end up staying in the boot of my car, these are worthy to mention. These are great as these mean we can transport the gear around anywhere in the world and take on a plane for any destination wedding jobs. As they are plastic with foam inserts they are mega light but protect the gear. I have my DJI drone in one and my DJI Ronin S in the other.

Optical glass triangular prism

You are probably thinking what is this all about!? It gives great visual light effects. I always find the randomness of the outcome adds something different visually. Whilst you can put lots of editing in post production it is never the same as real light passing through the glass and into the camera lens. This is great for blocking out parts of the frame that you don’t want to focus on plus at night at the wedding reception with lots of crazy lights from the entertainment, band or DJ give great nightclub effect to the dance floor.

Lavalier Microphones

Capturing great audio is key to any great wedding video. I usually strap one of these to the groom for the ceremony and vows etc. This will then pick up the bride and groom for those key moments during the ceremony. My main system is a Boya one but I also have a Zoom F1 field recorded as a second mic and back up. As a 3rd back up I also take along a Tascam stereo audio recorder. You can never get enough audio!

An App for everything..

Its true these days in the connected digital world most of my camera gear can be connected via an app on your smart phones. For my drone and Ronin S gimbal I have a host of apps that I can connect to enabling more features and control. I also have a host of apps relating to specifically flying the drone and planning and risk assessing any future jobs. This may mean looking at long range weather forecasts on the UAV Forecast app, which also shows things like wind speeds, NATS Drone Assist which shows what kind of airspace I would be flying in and the Flight Radar app showing any live flights in progress.

Ronin S gimbal

This is my main piece of kit and if anyone has seen me at a wedding this is usually permanently strapped to me! I have added a shoulder strap which is great addition so it is with me at all times. Plus as its lightweight, has a very long battery life and is compact in size compared to a Ronin M, it is a truly fab bit of kit.