Bride Shocked When Videographer Shows up With an iPhone to Her Wedding Ceremony
Videographers who used iPhones to record a bride's special day got called out on social media, sparking a debate on the efficacy of iPhones as professional recording tools.
Published Feb. 20 2024, 1:20 p.m. ET
A viral TikTok uploaded by UK-based wedding coordinator The Bride's Helper (@thebrideshelper) sparked a viral debate on whether or not it's considered lame of a wedding videographer to record a couple's special day using iPhones.
"POV: Your Videographer turned up to film your wedding on their iPhone," the TikToker writes in a text overlay of the clip, which shows a man wearing a black jacket, holding a gimbal with a tri-camera lens iPhone model attached to it.
In the cameraman's defense, it does look like the gimbal at least has image stabilization. As the video progresses, more shots of the camera operation pop up throughout the clip, revealing a second person involved with a similar setup.
It seems like whoever snapped pictures of this iPhone brandishing duo was doing so on a sneak tip and doing their best to keep the videographers' faces out of the photographs.
Let's try and play Devil's Advocate for a bit, however: could it be that the gimbal iPhone footage is only a portion of the wedding video they're creating for their client? Maybe, however, in the brief video portion of the TikTok, it doesn't look like there's anyone else there with a camera of their own.
Is iPhone video footage really all that bad?
It depends on who you ask. Some would say that the iPhone does a really, really good job of replacing lower-priced dedicating video recording alternatives like GoPros, especially the newer 15 Pro Max models.
However, other folks found the recordings from their iPhone Pro 15 Max to be "appalling" and there are tons of folks out there who argue that if you want to do more than just share a video message with your friend or a social media clip, then you should probably invest elsewhere with your camera equipment.
It's difficult to really argue against the latter: there's a reason why even dedicated Vloggers and content creators are shilling out extra money for dedicated video cameras to record their content, like this Sony ZV-1F.
The advantages of using dedicated cameras such as the aforementioned one, or professional cinema-grade cameras over smartphone cameras are numerous: the ability to attach different lighting rigs, and microphones, all while using a gimbal, ready-rig, and different lens packages yields greater potential for just what is just an overall better recording.
Then there are the optics of it: if you're running a professional videography business and you're rocking iPhones on gimbals it just makes you look like a tourist documenting your "wild" Times Square experience after you paid $400 for a bunch of whack tourist trap food and drinks and pictures with Cookie Monster.
The comments section was filled with people who had differing opinions on the iPhone and a professional videographer deciding to use it for an actual client's wedding. There were a number of people who work in video for a living who said that no one, in good conscience, should ever use an iPhone for any kind of serious videography job.
Many pointed out the fact that the lack of complete lens packages/variety also made it difficult to use iPhones on gigs they were getting paid for. That's not to say that there aren't some options out there. Sandmarc packs a variety of lenses that are affixed to its proprietary case...but the total package costs about as much as the dedicated vlogging camera.
Moment is another company that produces attachable/detachable lenses for the iPhone in the form of customized cases, too. But there are other things worth considering: like storage space size and data transfer speed — folks performing run and gun recordings with an iPhone, especially at max quality settings, can fill up internal hard drive space rather quickly.
Unless they get an external hard drive recording set up attached to the iPhone, which it doesn't look like they've got here, swapping out cards isn't happening on a smartphone camera that doesn't have any external storage, which the iPhone does not.
What do you think? Is this a case of "you get what you pay for" and you'd be interested in seeing exactly what the customers shelled out for this videographer team? Do you think it's a bad look for any videographer to pull up with some iPhones on gimbals? Or do you think that people are getting worked up about it and should focus on the results rather than what the perception is?
