Camcorder for Wedding

[DreamFusion]

A friend of mine has asked me to help film her wedding. They're looking at purchasing a HD camcorder soon and I've done a bit of research and am currently looking at the Canon Vixia HF10, or HV30 or a Sony HDR. They're trying to find one for around the $600 - $900 range.

Any thoughts on what would be best for a wedding? The wedding is going to be indoor for the ceremony and reception. I haven't had a chance to scope out the locations so I'm not too sure how lighting is going to affect the video.

I'm not as worried about the post production side of things, but more on getting the great footage I'll need to not screw up someone's most important day. I've been trying to read as many tutorials and articles I can about wedding videography, so any additional tips, suggestions or links would be greatly appreciated as well.

[vfk]

I realize this post is really late, but there are some very valid questions here.... some personal tips I have are:

budget for a spare (ideally extended) battery

Look for a camcorder with forward facing microphones, space saving top facing microphones will record your breathing, rather than the subject

While some prefer camcorders with hard drives, I prefer flash memory as the camera is more shock proof and the batteries last longer as you don't have a spinning hard drive. Flash memory continues to fall in price as well. I have 2 32gb cards and it meets all my needs for a day or two.

HD camcorders work best on a tripod, remember you have 6 times the resolution of a SD camera

Practice, Practice, Practice with your camcorder before the big day. Ideally take it on a vacation and use it. Then play the results to someone else to get feedback. Do others get motion sickness looking at your stuff?

Finally, if this is an HD camera, how are you planning to showcase it? Are you making Blu-Ray discs? Do you have the necessary horsepower to edit it? Does your clients computer have the horsepower and codecs to play the results?

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[AGGIE6680]

A camcorder (videocamera recorder) is an electronic device that combines a video camera and a video recorder into one unit. Equipment manufacturers do not seem to have strict guidelines for the term usage. Marketing materials may present a video recording device as a camcorder, but the delivery package would identify content as video camera recorder.
For casual use, camcorders often cover weddings, birthdays, graduation ceremonies, children growing up, and other personal events. The rise of the consumer camcorder in the mid to late '80s led to the creation of shows such as the long-running America's Funniest Home Videos, where people could showcase homemade video footage.

Thanks,

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