THE FILMMAKER
Pete Lawson
LANCASHIRE, ENGLAND
Our attic contains at least 7 old cameras I’ll both never use again, and never throw away. They’re the friends I’ve made along the way. Plus each new camera, lens, or gadget offers that little dopamine hit that promises that this is the thing that will finally make a difference.
They kind of do make a difference though. That little nudge of motivation to make imagery worthy of the massive hole in your bank account. Plus the unfortunate truth that better equipment really can make things that little bit prettier.
As I was a photographer first, I’m really drawn to kit that is small and gets out of my way – that doesn’t attract attention. Guests usually think I’m just another photographer, which seems to make them more relaxed (although they do try to pose for impromptu group shots around me). I love moments over cinematic camera movement, I’m only good at capturing one of those things, so my gear reflects that.
Having photographed or filmed around 700 weddings, the number of times I’ve almost had a disaster is pretty high. Camera shutters breaking, lenses breaking, cards corrupting, forgotten batteries, mics not recording, half my equipment being stolen from my car. Somehow, I’ve been lucky that it ended up fine. I had other lenses/cameras/audio sources. And the corrupt card was images (no variable bitrate unrecoverable video here), so the recovery software came to the rescue.
Now I try to consciously have backups for everything – cameras that record to two cards, multiple audio sources when possible, too many lenses, too many cameras, too many mics, too many batteries. Equipment doesn’t go wrong as much now, but when it does – it will be when I’m at a wedding.
A-CAM+B-CAM
CANON R5
Love this camera! Doesn’t have the greatest dynamic range, but the colours are beautiful (in CLOG 1) and don’t need loads of tweaks.
We did shoot Sony A7III for a few years, and had no real complaints (other than the lock ups, and the overheating). But they were the cameras that were stolen and we decided to go back to our Canon roots (we photographed weddings for 10 years on Canon, so the familiarity is strong).
C-CAM
CANON R6 MKII
Don’t love this camera. The image is sharper, but the colours are slightly ‘wrong’. We spend twice as long trying to make it look good, and it never does.
LENSES
CANON EF 24mm f1.4 L
Great lens, not used much. Shooting wide requires a whole new level of skill to compose well, plus there’s the IBIS wobble in the corners. Only comes out when the only spot to put a 3rd angle in the speeches is too close to the top table for the 35mm.
SIGMA ART EF 35mm f1.4
Love this lens so much. When I’m photographing – this is my most used lens. But I’m too close to people when filming – as you need to hold the shot for a moment, which gets creepy. Love the perspective though. We also have a Canon 35mm f1.4 for when we’re both shooting. I’ve put a step up ring on this so it takes the same lens cap as the 50mm and 85mm lenses. When filming, I use this lens as my wide during ceremony/speeches, and on a gimbal for confetti.
Also doubles as a backup for my 50mm – cropping in to s35 makes it a slightly less pretty 50mm equivalent.
CANON EF 50mm f1.2
Most used lens. It hardly ever leaves the camera when we’re filming, apart from for the speeches and ceremony. 10/10 would buy again (have broken many, so this is our 4th or 5th). We currently have 2, as Laura also uses this lens all day. Plus a spare sigma 50mm. For me it offers the perfect amount of subject isolation with the shallow depth of field, as well as being wide enough to show the environment and allow for interesting compositions.
CANON EF 85mm f1.2
QTY: 2
Great lens for speeches (usually both of them and a 3rd angle on 35mm or 50mm) and ceremonies, as well as sometimes for portraits or quiet dance floors – the perspective compression makes it look busier!
At weddings where people are super camera aware, I’ve started using this so I can be a little further away.
AUDIO
Zoom F6
and loads of wires
I love to get a feed if possible. I’ve learned to plug directly into the receiver for the venue or band’s wireless mic if possible. The last time I didn’t, the band started doing a sound check in a different room and I got a feed of that for the first half of the groom’s speech. Weddings in Italy often have a band playing background music for the ring exchange too – so that’s fun.
Some people don’t like direct feeds as they don’t have enough background ambience. I do have to bring some of that back in the edit sometimes. But I really hate the boxy, reverb-y sound you get from a clip on mic or lav when they are using a PA. The mic picks up the voice twice – once from their mouth and then a slightly delayed copy from the PA speakers. It sounds bad!
AI software is getting so much better at regenerating voices, and I’ll use it when I have to, but it can also sound a bit artificial. I swear it gave a bride an Australian accent once.
SONY TX650
QTY:6
While I went a little bit diva in my love of a feed, I can’t not stick a little Sony mic on anyone speaking (and sometimes on the mic too). Got to have a backup!
Also, they sound surprisingly decent if there’s no PA system going on. Hard to beat for speed either – I’ve managed to pop one on a surprise speaker before they even made it to the top table.
Rode Wireless Pro
Definitely a step up from the sony mics. If I have time to mess around with plugging in the lav mic and sorting out wires then I use these, usually for ceremonies, for the celebrant and for the groom. They only got bought as I needed to livestream one wedding, but as they do sound better, they come to every wedding. If there’s no mic being used for the speeches I would then use one for the groom’s speech (so he sounds the same).
SENNHEISER MKE 200
on camera mic
It’s not great. With some EQ tweaks (it really lacks bass response) it’s ok – and better than the R5’s mic. I’m still experimenting with using this as I love using ambient sound in our films, but hate building out the camera so much that it draws attention.
It’s very dinky, so it blends in quite well, but it requires using manual audio levels – otherwise there’s lots of hiss. Remembering to change the audio levels when the couple enter for the meal, or for cheering at the end of a ceremony – it’s another thing I have to remember to do, which affects my focus.
I did consider the MKE 400, but as I already own the Rode VideoMic Pro+ (too big, and the connection at the back hits my head!), it seemed silly to buy almost the same thing.
DRONE
dji air 2s
I like to pretend I don’t like drone shots, but I do. I don’t like the feeling of filling the entire day with extra shots that I have to do. Why do I have to fly a drone every time there’s fireworks now? Obviously I do have to do that, because I did it once and I liked it – so I’ll set up two static cameras on the ground and then fly the drone – and it’ll be the damn drone shot that ends up in the film.
Now I’ve started flying the drone for confetti (if there’s both of us). And I liked it. Now I have to do this every time forever.
LIGHTING
Sirui C60x
Love this light! Built in battery which lasts plenty long enough (you don’t need to go over 20% brightness – any more and the guests will not like you). If you like lighting the dance floor, I’d say give it a go.
accessories
DJI RS 3 Mini
It’s a gimbal. I have some tripods lying around somewhere too – they look far too battered to be photographed.
Canon & Meike drop in filter adapters
We prefer not to crank the shutter speed so we use ND filters at weddings. As all our lenses are EF not RF, this lets us use a lens adapter with one built in – this seems to give us better colour and better contrast than the screw on NDs that we used to use. The Meike one is actually my favourite, and it was less than half the price (plus it came with a clear drop in filter, so I don’t need to swap to the standard adapter when it gets dark).
Black Rapid Camera Strap
Because our backs have feelings too.
LOADS & LOADS OF BATTERIES
I take at least 12 camera batteries to a wedding (clearly I took 15 to my last one for some reason), and 18 if both of us are shooting. We tend to go through 8-12 batteries, but sometimes they drain much quicker – such as at hot weddings. I don’t want to hunt for plug sockets and bring chargers with me. I’d rather not be dependent on the venue:
“You can leave your bag in here”
“Will it be locked when I come to get it before the ceremony”
“Of course”
