Importance Of Ultra Violet Filters In Wedding Videos

In the last few years a lot of people have started using photography cameras to record wedding videos. One of the reasons for this is that photographers that already have a photography camera can suddenly start producing wedding videos without the need to buy a video camcorder. The fact is that some of these photography cameras produce great quality images especially if they are full frame cameras.

The fact is the professional camcorder is still the best tool for the job, because it has so many controsl at your finger tips, where as the photography camera requires you to go in to the menu and scroll around to change a lot of settings. The main function that makes the camcorder better for recording wedding videos is the built in ultra violet filters.

So what are ultra violet filters? Uv filters go in front of the lens and help reduce the intensity of the Sun's rays. This is important because on a bright day, even if you reduce the exposure of the camera to its lowest point, the image will be bleached out at a decent shutter speed. By reducing the intensity of the Sun's rays, the camera can still produce a well exposed image, at a smooth shutter speed.

Cheap camcorders do not have in built UV filters. Therefore if you suddenly find that you need a UV filter in front of the lens (the Sun suddenly comes out), you have to physically take one out of your pocket, remove it from its cleansing pouch, and then screw it onto the lens. Then if the Sun suddenly goes behind a cloud, you would have to suddenly screw it off the lens. On a cloudy day you would be constantly doing this instead of focussing on the job of recording great footage.

The other way to shoot a well exposed image, is to make the shutter speed faster. Essentially expose each frame/picture for a shorter time. The problem with this is that it does not record any motion blur, so the footage looks really choppy, because there is no motion link to the next image. Choppy footage is no good for a wedding video, because it gives everyone a kind of freaky motion that is not true to life or the events that happened on the day. By simply dropping down a UV filter we can remove this effect and shoot beautiful smooth footage.

The camcorders that we use have four in built UV filters, which are suitable for varying degrees of light intensity. We simply press a button to flick through the various filters and this means we can adapt to the Sun's intensity with a few seconds.

Obviously, when you are shooting a wedding video, the key to it is always being ready to shoot, because there is no second take at a wedding. For this reason we still buy expensive camcorders, as we feel to shoot with anything else is unprofessional.