It’s so crazy to go back through all of these weddings from several years ago. When I look at the videos, I’m reminded of so many fun times I’ve had and that’s the cool thing about wedding videos. They help us remember, just like photos, but in a different way. O’Shay and Louie’s Fayetteville Wedding video was one of the first ones we made when we were getting serious about video. The really cool thing is I knew both of them already from high school.

O’Shay and Louie’s Fayetteville Wedding Video

This was a brand new venue for me, so it was exciting to get to be at Airways in Fayetteville. The ceremony was outside in a large field, and the reception was a mixture of outside and in a giant room.

O’Shay is all about doing things big. She wanted her wedding to really be something to remember, and it was definitely a big, crazy party. There was plenty of bling on her dress and her bouquet. Then, she even had a tossing bouquet made of money! So unique! There was plenty of dancing, including a special Smirnoff/Vanilla Ice one, and she had a champagne waterfall for toasts.

Another great thing about the day was that I got to see a lot of people from high school. I didn’t get to talk to all of them because I was working, but I did get to see some people I hadn’t seen in several years.

O’Shay and Louie’s Fayetteville Wedding Video was a blast, and it was also a big start for us with wedding videos. After this one, we knew we could make it in this world, and we kept pushing to do more. So glad we got to be part of it.

It’s always interesting to look back at events in your past and then see how that event affected everything. I’ve had lots of chance encounters that have led to extraordinary things. Meeting Angela was one of those events. When I started teaching at Woodland, I just happened to share a room with her. I soon found out that I knew her brother and that her father knew my father and uncle from high school. We developed a friendship over the years, and then in 2014 I was privileged to photographer her wedding and help with her Pratt Place Barn Wedding Video. 

Pratt Place Barn Wedding Video: Zack and Angela

All brides pray for beautiful weather for their wedding day, but Angela wasn’t that lucky. It rained a few days before her wedding and it was sprinkling the day of. Initially, she had planned an outdoor ceremony, so at the last minute, they had to switch things and do it indoors. It was still a beautiful ceremony and the reception was already going to be inside so that didn’t change. After the ceremony, it stopped raining, so we were able to do some things outside.

At this point in our video career, we weren’t capable of shooting photo and video for the entire day. For Angela’s wedding, we had one of her former students do some footage, but it was really just the ceremony. I was still happy to be able to do that for her, though.

This was a fun start to my relationship with Angela. Before everything was school based, but over the years, we’ve switched more to the wedding world. Since her wedding, I have photographed her brother’s wedding and her aunt’s. Angela has also become a wedding coordinator, so we’ve had plenty of opportunities to work together, including Liz and Alex’s wedding.

I loved being able to create this Pratt Place Barn Wedding Video for Zack and Angela. It was a blast, and a great start to our new relationship. I will be doing more work with her in the future, and I always know it will be perfect.

I cannot believe it’s been three years since Liz and Alex’s wedding! I guess I’m a bit of a procrastinator when it comes writing wedding video blogs. That’s ok though. Better late than never. Anyway, I’m excited to share this Uark Bowl wedding video with you all and this amazing couple!

Uark Bowl Wedding Video: Liz and Alex’s

I really am quite lucky. I always have the best couples and get to have so much fun at weddings. Liz and Alex are such kind and fun people. They also have an interesting background that fit into the wedding. Alex went to Texas A&M while Liz went to Notre Dame. We showed off this rivalry in their engagement photos and it also happened at the wedding. Both brought a gigantic group of college friends to the wedding. The place was packed and at one point, the A&M people got together to do their little hugging, swaying thing they always do. I don’t remember if there was anything Notre Dame related, but one guy did hop up on stage and start calling the Hogs.

The whole day was relaxed but fun. We ended up going to a park right after the ceremony and they had their own party bus. Then, during the reception, there was a ton of dancing. They even had some special ribbon wand dance they had put together. One of my favorite things is they had a live rock band. It was a nice change from the usual DJ.

This Uark Bowl Wedding Video was three years ago, but I still enjoy watching it. These two now have a little girl! I love getting to be a part of their beginning and then seeing how things change. It’s one of the many joys I get from being in the wedding world.

What an exciting weekend! This was the kickoff to the second wedding season of the year where we will be shooting roughly 9 weddings in two months, and this was our first A7sii wedding video! Actually, we shot two different wedding videos, but still this was our first time really getting to try them out. I know these have been out for a long time and there are plenty of reviews, but I thought I’d share my initial feelings.

Our First A7sii Wedding Video

For the two weddings, the A7sii was our main camera, and we had two B roll cameras, a A7s and Canon 60D (our second A7s will be here this week). I already had a ton of Nikon and Canon glass, so we just used adapters on the Sony bodies. The majority of the time the A7sii was on a monopod, but I did use a tripod for some of it and I went handheld toward the end.

Overall, I have to say I’m impressed with the camera. The low light performance was great and the video in general looked good. Surprisingly, I adapted to the new button layout and workflow pretty quickly. I had a few times I accidentally didn’t hit record. That was partially because of the awkward placement of the record button and partially due to the fact that I was messing with the zoom button a lot as well. I was a bit worried about card space, but we shot on one 64gb card the whole day. We weren’t shooting 4k, but it was still a higher frame rate.

There were a few tiny issues we ran into. One, one of the adapters/lens combos was acting strange. Randomly the manual focus would stop working and the LCD would look fine until you hit record; then it would go dark. We could fix it by taking the lens off and putting it back on, but that’s annoying. I’ll have to mess around with it and see if this happens with both adapters and all lenses or if it was a fluke. Two, the battery life wasn’t great but it wasn’t as horrible as I expected. We had a total of 7 batteries, and I think we could have made it the whole day with those.

What really excites me is the editing possibilities. I haven’t gotten a chance to try it out, but this should open up a whole new world. Today I was editing one of our weddings shot on a Canon, and it was pretty rough. Changing exposure or white balance totally destroyed the shot. From what I hear, it should be a lot easier for me now. I’m also really looking forward to slow motion. We shot everything 60fps so we can basically turn anything into slow motion.

I’d say our first A7sii wedding video was a success, but we’ll have to wait and see what the footage looks like. I hope everything is in focus and is easy to color grade/correct. After I get this first one done, I’ll write another post with more details.

Each wedding is special to me, but there’s just some weddings that are way above the rest, like my cousin’s wedding! I really do care about all of my couples, but I was so happy to get to work with Elizabeth. She’s the middle of my three cousins that I’ve grown up with and been around most of my life. Elizabeth and Graham’s wedding video at Central Methodist was a great experience, and I’d love to share it with you.

Elizabeth and Graham’s wedding video at Central Methodist

Both Elizabeth and Graham are pretty reserved. They aren’t shy by any means but they aren’t the extremely talkative and emotional type. I did get to see a new side of them, though, through the whole wedding. I could see how close they were and see the emotions between them even though they didn’t burst out into tears or anything like that. It was in their eyes and just the way they looked at each other.

The ceremony was Central Methodist in Fayetteville. It is such a beautiful church. The aisle is about 40 yards long (longest I’ve ever seen), the ceilings are extremely tall, and there’s really beautiful stained glass. It really is a lovely place, but there were some challenges with videoing the ceremony. The alter is raised up and hidden behind some walls. This made placing my side cameras pretty difficult. We ended up putting them up on the alter behind a pillar. This was really scary because we weren’t sure where the wedding party would be standing, and once things started, we couldn’t adjust them. Lucky for us, it worked well.

The reception was a blast. It was in the Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville in their event rooms. The flowers were amazing, there were pies, and there was even a special choreographed dance for the couple. One big plus was that my family was there and my son was out there dancing and going crazy. It was a great atmosphere.

Elizabeth movie trailer from Bryan Striegler on Vimeo.

Elizabeth and Graham’s wedding video at Central Methodist will be one that I always remember. So far I’ve photographed and videoed two out of my three cousins. The youngest of the three is now a senior in college, so I’m just waiting. No pressure Ellen.

A good amount of the time we are working in places that are made solely for weddings, but occasionally we get to go somewhere special and shoot in some really cool places. For Jessica and Cody, we got to shoot their wedding video at 21C Museum in Bentonville. It was a special night!

Wedding Video at 21C Museum: Jessica and Cody

21C is an extremely popular and modern museum and hotel here in Bentonville. Art is everywhere. Outside they have this crazy basketball statue and their own car covered with pennies. Inside, they have art in the lobby and on each floor of the hotel. They also have all of these green, plastic penguins floating around all over the place. I don’t know if they’re considered art, but they sure are interesting and fun.

Jessica and Cody are a really fun couple, and their whole wedding day was the same. The ceremony was in this long hallway where they have these cool paper pieces floating and several exhibitions on the wall. It was a very cool to have the ceremony surrounded in all that art. Afterwards, the reception was held in a room that connected to that hall. All they had to do was slide a panel and we were there. The reception was full of dancing, glow sticks, a Tabasco cake, and of course, green penguins.

Jessica Movie Trailer from Bryan Striegler on Vimeo.

So far this has been the only Wedding Video at 21C Museum for us. I’m really hoping we get to go back and do more in the future. It’s such a different venue than what we are use to, and that is always exciting. So glad Jessica and Cody let us experience it.

My journey to switch from Canon to Sony is well on its way. I’ve now sold off two of my four Canon bodies and I have a Sony A7s and a brand spanking new Sony A7sii. I’ve managed to figure out a lot of the buttons and settings, and I’m really liking everything about it. One of the main reasons I’m switching to Sony is the ability to edit the files; that was a major issue I had with Canon. There are settings available that make the files more flexible and usable. You can choose different color profiles, adjust sharpness, blacks, and a host of other things. I love the flexibility, but now I’m left wondering what are the best settings for the Sony A7sii?

Best Settings for the Sony A7sii

I’ve been reading blogs and watching videos for about two weeks now, and there isn’t really a consensus on the best settings for the Sony A7sii. I guess that makes sense, though, because people are always going to have different opinions. There are a few areas that seem to get brought up the most.

Best Color Profile

Honestly, I’m not sure exactly how to explain a color profile. It affects the way the video looks and controls how flat the image each, which then affects dynamic range. So far from my research, I’ve mainly heard about S-log 2 and Cine4. I did just have someone tell me they use Cine3, but that’s only one person. All I really know is that S-log 2 is supposed to have the widest dynamic range, but it does have some strange things. One, you have to shoot at ISO 3200 or higher. That’s pretty high, and it could make life difficult if you’re outside. Two, you are supposed to overexpose by 1.5 stops, which might make the ISO 3200 more doable, but it’s still weird to overexpose on purpose. I’ve heard that Cine4 still gives you a lot of range, but you don’t have to deal with those weird things.

Color Mode

Super, another setting that I don’t really understand. I guess I’ll have to go and figure out what these actually affect, but from what I’ve read, most people recommend the Pro setting. I think I saw one or two people recommend a S Gamut mode, but the Pro showed up more than anything.

Sharpness

In general with video, most people turn the sharpness down because it can be added back in later. That’s what I saw with the A7sii as well. Most people were turning the sharpness either all the way down or mostly down.

There were a few other things that people were tweaking, but what I mentioned is what I saw the most. I know this hasn’t been the most informal post, but I’m still learning and trying to figure out the Best Settings for the Sony A7sii. I will keep reading and start experimenting, and next time, I will hopefully have a better answer.

As I mentioned in a few different posts, I’m moving away from Canon and switching to Sony. I’ve already sold one Canon body and replaced it with a used Sony A7s, and I’m pretty impressed. Well, now I’m looking to Upgrade my Equipment with the Sony Trade in Deal and get another camera to be my main camera. I like the Sony A7s, but I’d like some more features, so I’m looking at the A7sii. Lucky for me, right now there is a Sony Trade in Deal, so I’m going to save some money!

Upgrade my Equipment with the Sony Trade in Deal

I have seen trade in deals before with other brands in the past. Basically you sell them an old camera and you get a bonus amount when you buy a new camera. They had this deal with the Nikon D5 first came out. Kind of wish I had jumped on it because my Nikon D3 died right after and now it just sits in my closet. Well, the Sony Trade in Deal is even better. You can sell basically any working digital camera and get an extra $300 toward A7R2 or A7Sii or $100 toward the A72.

This works great for me. I have collected a good chunk of cameras over the past 7 years or so. Many of which I still use, but I do have a Sony A58 that just sits in my closet. Honestly, I really haven’t used it that much since I bought it, so it’s pretty much new, but it does nothing for me. I’m really excited to see that this camera can work with the Sony Trade in Deal, and I’d get close to $200 for it plus the $300 bonus. I never would have thought that camera could get me around $500 at this point. I think when I bought it 4 years ago, it was around $1000. That’s a pretty good turn around after all of those years.

Well, I’m about to head off to my local camera shop to upgrade my Equipment with the Sony Trade in Deal. If you are looking to get some new Sony equipment, maybe the A9, now would be a great time to make that move. Sell off some of your old gear and save some extra money!

It blows my mind how technology has changed in the past 5-10 years. Memory cards have increased dramatically, phones now shoot photo and video better than some cameras, and we can stream live video whenever we want. The live streaming is the newest thing in the technology world. Facebook and Instagram have made it where anyone with a cell phone can start streaming out to the world. The real question, though, is live streaming right for you and how could you use it?

Is Live Streaming Right for You?

People with good business sense amaze me. They always find ways to reach new customers and to sell to them. I wish I had that kind of training and insight. The Live Streaming is the new way to reach customers. I’ve seen so many different businesses using Facebook Live to reach their customers. I’ve seen big businesses, photographers, trainers, Plexus people, and makeup people do these pretty frequently. This is so smart. It’s basically a free way to advertise to a giant market and be able to communicate with them live. So, if you have something to sell, I’d suggest you start doing some live streaming.

I’ve also seen people just use it for random events. This might be cool to stream a wedding to people that aren’t there, but I don’t really see a point in live streaming your everyday life. If there’s no point in it being live, you’re better off just recording the video, and then later you can decide if you want to post it.

How Could You Use Live Streaming

There are lots of ways you could live streaming. One, you could be giving out information. This is usually a good way to attract people and gain a following. In general, it’s a good idea to help people before you do the next option. Two, you could actually sell a product during the event. You could show off what it does and talk about it, and then at the end, you could offer a deal. Three, you can show off what you do. This is what I need to be doing. I go out to shoots and cool weddings, but I always forget to do live streaming. If you’re a singer, you could do a short performance.

Is Live Streaming right for you? I honestly don’t know. If you are interested in reaching a bunch of people and you have something of worth, then yes, you should start live streaming. If you are just trying to get attention, then I’d say go do something else. Either way, live streaming is the new big thing, and I don’t see it going away.

When it comes to making decisions, sometimes it takes me forever. I tend to think about every possible angle and option, and it can be pretty frustrating and overwhelming. As I mentioned, I’m switching from Canon to Sony, and I’m still trying to figure out all the details. I did just buy a used Sony A7s, and it came with a Canon 24-105mm f4 and a Canon adapter. I like that I got a lens with it, but now I’m still stuck deciding which lens to buy for the Sony A7s.

Which Lens to Buy for the Sony A7s?

If money wasn’t an issue, making all of these decisions would be a breeze. I’d just buy a bunch of different lenses and then I’d be good. I’m trying my best, though, to minimize the cost. Right now I only have the one Sony A7s, so this will be my main camera. That means I need a lens that can cover walking around and a variety of situations, and it needs to be high quality because the majority of the film will come from this body. I also just bought another stabilizer, so I’m trying to find a lens that could possibly work with that and be my main lens.

My options

After thinking about it for awhile, these are the main options I’ve come up with.

A. Stabilizer-Canon 40mm pancake lens

Walk Around- 24-105

This is my cheapest option because it’s free. I already own both lenses and an adapter, so I can try this one out without having to spend any money. The issues I see are one, the 40mm isn’t a great lens and is hard to focus, and two, the 24-105 only goes down to f4. If I can get away with it, this would be a nice, cheap way to do things.

B. Stabilizer- Sony 28mm F2

Walk Around 24-105mm

This is the same setup except I’m buying the Sony 28mm and not using the cheaper lens. I think I like the focal length a little better for the stabilizer, and I’m sure the glass is much nicer as well.

C. Stabilizer- Zeiss 55

Walk Around- Same

I’ve heard some really nice things about the Zeiss 55. Most people tend to like that focal distance, but I’ve never tried it with video. I think the quality would be there, but I’m not sure if it’s wide enough for a stabilizer. The other issue is that the lens costs around $700 used, but I could sell the Canon 24-105 to make up for part of that.

I should be getting my Sony A7s and the Canon lens here in a few days. At that point, I’ll be able to start figuring out Which Lens to Buy for the Sony A7s. I’ll start with option A and see how I feel about that. If I don’t like it, I’ll go either to B or C depending on what the issue was. This is a tough decision, but I do love that I’m moving to Sony and going to start raising the quality of the videos up. Keep a look out for an update soon!