R&R Acoustic Duo

Every once and a while we show up to a wedding and we're "wowed" by something we see. Sometimes its the lighting package that the DJ puts together, other times its the location of the ceremony.

This time, we were pleasantly surprised by the appearance of two guitarists and their picking skills.

Take a peak at the DJ Company's event enhancement option, R&R Acoustic Duo:

Read more »

Posted in: little guy productions,RR Acoustic Duo,the dj company,wedding video,weddings

Guide to Picking a Videographer Part 3

Here's the third installment for you newly-engaged couples looking for a videographer to capture your big day.

In Part Two of Our Guide, we talked about a videographer's Style and Approach, and what that means for you. In Part Three, we'll discuss a very important part of your selection process; Package Upgrades.

Often times, when you meet with a videographer, they'll try to up-sell you on certain package upgrades. Let's dissect the more popular options:

Chapter Indexing:
I've seen a videographer charge an extra $50 if you select this option. Let me dispell a popular myth with Chapter Indexing. This expensive upgrade option that "takes the editor extra time" (as was explained to me) is actually the difference of pressing the letter "M" on your keyboard while the wedding video is being edited. Seems a little excessive and smells a lot like someone trying to make a quick buck off of an unsuspecting customer, agreed?

How it Effects Your Video: Allows you to maneuver back and forth between pre-selected scenes during DVD playback (ex: want to skip to the vows? If the editor put a chapter marker right before the vows start, you'll be able to advance straight to the kissing scene)
How it Effects Your Wallet: Most decent humans would include this in the video, not charge you extra.


Additional Videographer:
If you want your wedding video to look more like a movie or tv show, a second camera will create that effect. Its difficult for one videographer to capture everything. Having two camera folks documenting your wedding allows for chances of human error (Aunt Nelly jumping in front of the videographer when you're walking down the aisle to get her "perfect shot") or technical error (tape change at the worst possible moment, ex: during the vows) to be greatly diminished.

How it Effects Your Video: Makes your final video look more like a movie. Your potential to capture "everything" that went on at the reception greatly increases as well.
How it Effects Your Wallet: A second videographer will tack on a couple more bucks in most cases. Don't forget, if you're having the second videographer at your reception, you'll have to pay for an additional vendor's meal.

Cases:
Once you get your video, you're going to want it to be stored in a pretty looking case, right? Some videographers offer a wide range of storage options for your video. Here are a couple:

Paper Sleeve: These are the most basic and inexpensive. If you have 5 cents lying around, you can upgrade to Paper sleeve with a cellophane window to showcase the DVD Face Art.

Jewel Case: There's two types of Jewel cases on the market these days: Slim-line and Standard. Slim-line are shoddy and break easily. Jewel cases are what CDs (remember those) where packaged in. They're nice, but have the ability to crack easily.

Amaray Cases: These cases are what you would get if you purchased a movie from Best Buy or Blockbuster. Your videographer can get creative with the ones that allow for an insert, which gives you the ability to create cover art and tie the package nicely together.

Read more »

Posted in: guide to picking a videographer,little guy productions,videography,wedding video

2010 Wedding Photo Contest

2010 was a year full of wonderful weddings, including our very own Little Guy Couple tying the knot!

So, in celebration of a year full of celebrations, we decided to put together a little photo competition.

We selected eight photos for you to vote on, and come December 31st at 11:59, the voting will end.

The winner of the contest will get a pretty cool prize (in our opinion) so tell your family and friends to vote early and often!

Good luck!

Read more »

Posted in: little guy productions,little guy productions photo contest,wedding photos,weddings

Little Guy Holiday Camera Guide

The Holidays are right around the corner, so that can mean only one thing;

The 2010 Little Guy Productions Holiday Camera Guide is hot off the presses!

We're always getting asked the question "what type of camera should I buy?" So, based off of picture, budget, and ease of use here are our picks for 2010

The 2010 "So Easy My Mother Can Use It" Camera Award Goes To:

Canon Powershot A3100

This camera is perfect for the budding photographer. It has a 12.1 Megapixel Resolution which would allow you to print a photo up to 20" x 30" (great for canvas art prints). It has that cool "Face Detection" mode that's great for a beginner. It auto detects faces and correctly focuses on them to get great looking photos (never worry about fuzzy shots again). In addition, the camera has a top notch built in flash and is actually one of the best entry level cameras in terms of shooting in low light situations.

Cost: Retails for $139.95 at B&H (get the red version!)

Ease of Use: Winner of the 2010 "So Easy My Mother Can Use It" Award. It's Windows 7 ready and if you have a Mac, it works great with iPhoto's plug and play capabilities. 'Nuff said!

Value: Canon cameras rock, and for this price it's almost a no brainer. Don't forget to order memory cards (SD, SDHC, SDXC) because the camera doesn't have its own built in memory.

Added Bonus: Shoots video (files are in .avi format, so Mac users beware).
On Second Thought: Battery drains quickly when using the viewfinder. Bring lots of spares.
LGP RATING: 8 out of 10 Stars

The 2010 "Dark Horse" Camera Award Goes to:
Nikon Coolpix L110 Digital Camera

I'm never one to market Nikon Cameras, but the Coolpix is great if you want to move away from amateur hour and start to get a little serious with your photos. Like the Powershot, it's a 12.1 Megapixel camera, but it has adjustable zoom. With the Coolpix, you can move the lens, instead of your entire body, to get the perfect shot you're looking for. It also had 15 different modes to shoot in if you want to start to experiment with your shots, and a Scene Auto selector if you get a little shy.

Cost: $196 at B&H
Ease of Use: More difficult than your point and shoot, but not as advanced as the prosumer DSLRs.
Value: Great camera for taking photos. It has a built in video camera, but it seems that it was an afterthought.
Added Bonus: Shoots video, but only up to 2GB worth per clip.
On Second Thought: The flash tends to cause some user frustration, occasionally blowing out photos.

LGP RATING: 6 out of 10 Stars (7 out of 10 if you ignore the video function)


The 2010 "This Will Get You Off the Naughty List" Camera Award Goes to:
Canon EOS Rebel T1i

This is the leading camera that teeters on the edge of prosumer-professional cameras. It's a 15.1 Megapixel camera that shoot High Definition video (H.264 files). This camera takes unbelievable photos in the automatic mode, but let's be honest, if you're buying this camera, it's because you or your loved one knows a little thing or two about cameras. As all Canon Rebel cameras, interchangeable lenses come in all shapes and sizes, but with most starter packages, you'll get the basic 18-55mm lens.

Cost: Normally $749 at B&H, but there's a $100 instant rebate offer that ends Jan 8, 2011.
Ease of Use: Difficult. Please read the user manual before use, or call me about a hour training session.
Value: If you plan on using your camera religiously, I recommend spending extra and you'll wind up getting your money's worth.
Added Bonus: Pick up the Canon 430EX Speedlight Flash to bump your photos up to the next level. Built in flash sucks hard.
On Second Thought: You need to purchase high class/speed memory cards (rating 6 or above) in order for the video to look good. Class 4 works great if you're just shooting photos. Higher class memory cards cost big bucks (Class 10 32 GB - $198.99).
LGP RATING: 9 out of 10 Stars

Read more »

Posted in: 2010 Holiday Guide,camera review,canon powershot A3100,digital camera,little guy productions,nikon coolpix l110

Guide to Picking a Videographer Part 2

Here's the second installment for you newly-engaged couples who are looking for a videographer to capture your big day.

In Part One of our Guide, we talked about asking the question "What Type of Cameras Do You Use?" In Part 2, we'll talk about two important topics you should discuss with your videographer; Style & Approach.

Style:

Style is a nice way of determining how the videographer views the world through his camera lens. These days, almost anyone can pick up a camera and film a wedding, but you're obviously going to want someone that sees things a little different than say, your cousin who makes really cool looking Youtube videos.

Ask to see a sample wedding video, not just the highlights. Most often, the highlight video is a collection of the videographer's best work. You're not paying for the 3-4 minutes of the best footage shot over the course of the eight hour day, so you want to make sure that his camerawork throughout your wedding is just as good as the highlight video he's using to make his sales pitch.

Approach:

Your personality can often determine what type of videographer you're looking for. Are you and your fiance shy and not big fans of being the center of attention? Then maybe you should look for a videographer that uses a documentary approach to filming.

Are you the type of person who loves the camera? Look for a videographer who doesn't mind getting dirty on the dance floor. (I've lost count of how many time's I've been elbowed in the head by a party-goer, but it's never stopped me from getting my shot!)

Read more »

Posted in: guide to picking a videographer,little guy productions,videography,wedding video,weddings

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.

Read more »

Posted in: 3ccd cameras,hdv cameras,high definition cameras,little guy productions,videography,weddings