Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Hi Guys

Did my 3rd wedding using both EA-50's and thought I might also share a few ideas that I found made my life a lot easier!!

My "A" cam is the static wedding camera that locks onto the couple or the lectern/priest so the order of the day here is definately not any autofocus ... Instead of fighting to get the bride absolutely and perfectly sharp using manual plus peaking plus expanded...I can use spot focus and it really works well! Due to the tripod mount and static camera (and free hands) the EVF can be tilted down so you have LCD access. I have allocated Function Button 3 (originally Face Detection) now to Spot Focus so it's just a matter of switching into manual focus and push button 3 and touch the bride's face and the peaking shows her face in perfect focus...it's a lot more accurate than "push auto" as that might decide to lock onto something behind her.

Just for interest I allocate Peaking to Button 2 and at Button 1 I now get the camera to go +1.7EV ... if I am suddenly confronted with a backlit situation I can stay in auto exposure and now have a "backlight" button.

For indoor weddings PP3 seems still the nicest and cleanest footage so inside the Church and Reception I'm sticking to PP3 .... Still messing with outdoor where I can compromise between bright sun and deep shade and so far PP2 looks quite nice ...it a little less intense that "OFF" and you don't get the heavy contrast looks that the Cineform gammas see to give you ....Just bear in mind it's not a Filmic look ..if that's your desire then the Cineform Gamma looks good!!

Another wedding on Friday for me so I can try maybe PP2 at the outdoor ceremony and photoshoot and then PP3 indoors at the reception.

Feedback from others too would be nice so tell us what you have discovered with the camera?

Chris

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Chris, have you tried pp5 outside? For inside I also tend to choose pp3 or the abel cinerange but when I was doing those quick presets test in the church I last filmed in pp5 seem to give nice saturated and a contrasty look which lack in pp3 and pp5. I would prefer to shoot a bit flatter in camera so I can change in post if needed, if it's too saturated or has too much contrast it's more difficult to change that.

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Hi Noa

So is PP5 less contrasty and saturated than "OFF" ??? Yes I couldn't agree more PP3 and CineAble is perfect for indoors but a bit too flat and unsaturated outdoors. I did last Saturday in "OFF" and the outdoor was fine but still a little too much contrasty ..indoors I had to push Gamma in the NLE up and bring Saturation down to get a decent picture You can easily use PP3 for outdoors but in bright light you need to lift saturation as the colour gets quite washed out ..especially green foilage appears as a dull washed out olive green even filming a bright green lawn.

PP5 seems to be set for Colour Film so surely that would be contrasty? Did you maybe mean PP4 which is still 709 like PP3??? I have never tried PP4 as yet.

Chris

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

pp4 had a bit weird color in the church when I tested it (see also that thread where I posted the framegrabs in the church), pp5 seemed to look more accurate but I haven't used it in any of my films yet, just for a quick test.

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Chris,
You are right on with the touch focus set up. I found face detection to be almost useless so I dumped it from the buttons. Touch focus is awesome.

On my "wish list" for this camera would be something like a "shift key" for the six buttons so you could keep the six factory button set ups and then shift to access your own six, for a total of twelve.

Noa,
I have shot several stills and love it but have not had a need for a frame grab yet. How are they? I saw your comparison PP test grabs and they looked good there. Are they good enough that you could use one for a background image on a blu-ray DVD menu? In theory that should work well if they are not to noisy?

Steve

P.S. I have not used PP enough to have valid input for you guys.

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Framegrabs are with any video camera just "ok" and that's why I use my dslr to take pictures during the photoshoot, I just let the photog do all the work and take advantage of that situation to get my stills for the dvdbox. :)

Also good to know that the face detection thing doesn't work that good, on my sony xr520 the touch focus is fast and accurate but not on my cx730 where the camera seems to have a mind of it's own in that modus, I"ll assign it to one of the buttons too.

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Im assisting a colleague as a 3rd camera man at a large Indian wedding with 800 guests.

What picture profile would you recommend in a vibrant setting rather than a plain church setting?

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Hi James

If you are outdoor then I'm still working on that but for now I'm using default ...if it's really bright the CineAble hilight setting looks really good but you cannot use it indoors, even if the setting is vibrant..there is just too much saturation. Stick to PP3 indoors...if the colours are a little washed just lift it in post...lifting de-saturation in post normally just needs you to lift the colour level in your NLE but trying to drop already over saturated colour is a lot trickier and you will find that your IQ drops as well so you need to add gamma to the mix.

If in doubt, leave the camera on "OFF" in the sun (if you get any) and PP3 inside.

Chris

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

Yes touch focus, I wish my NX5U had as I use all the time on the small Sony cams. The other thing used on XR500 and CX700 is AE shift as this combination is what I use all the time for the unattended cameras. I have never found the face detection to work too well on the earlier Sony's but the Sony HX30V Cybershot camera locks quickly on a group of faces and takes really nice 60P video that is better than my CX700 !!! Not as good in low light though.

Ron Evans

Re: Ideas after my 3rd Wedding
 

So, done my first wedding last week and had the opportunity to do it docu style and almost all handheld. I do have some mixed impressions about the camera that day but let's start with the good parts.

I got myself a Samyang 24mm f1.4 lens and I love that lens, it will become a lens I plan on using a lot starting from the reception. I was able to handhold the camera with the 24mm without any form of stabilization and it turned out great, the shake in the image is very minimal and I love being able to push the background a bit out of focus while standing close to people. Focus otoh was often a bit tricky, even with the sharp viewfinder and the peaking. The peaking would sometimes be a bit misleading and not that correct, especially if there wasn't enough fine detail in the shot and when it was too dark and I had to use the magnifying button a lot to verify.

To my surprise I was also able to handhold the camera with the 85mm from samyang, again a not stabilized lens and the image was quiet stable, something I don't have to do with my dslr, I used that lens during the reception to mingle between the people and get quick talking heads from a distance. Normally I walk around with a tripod with my dslr but often space is restricted and not easy to get a good position. With the camera on the shoulder I could quickly reposition and get my shot. Only, you do get noticed with such a big camera, with my dslr I was somewhat in stealthmode but now I could see people noticing me and then I lost that "natural shot" as you could see on their faces they didn't like me pointing with that camera. Anyway, I plan to shoot talking heads at receptions like this from now on.

In the morning during bride prep I used the stocklens which was ok because there was enough light, I used the camera in both manual and auto and the focussing is quite good but next week I"ll be hanging my dslr with a 35mm around my neck, just for those few eyecandy close up shots, in the morning there is not much time and I don't want to miss a shot while exchanging lenses. I did like the fact that if you zoom in with the stocklens just a little bit the background gets a nice soft blur. Here yteh fact I could quickly reframe with the zoom (I zoomed manually) gives me the opportunity to get different frames quickly which gives me more possibilities in post. I only need to get used to the button position as I was constantly looking where which button was. :)

In church I was not that satisfied with the camera, I shot with the stocklens and had my cx730 as b cam but the small sonys performed better imagewise, the ea50 suffered too much from aliasing that was visible in a row of chairs behind teh couple where no people where sitting, only when I zoomed in a bit to blur that background it was ok. The church was well lit but when I zoomed in to people in the background I had to go to 1600 iso and teh noise shows in the native footage, especially compared to the cs730 as those are noise free. I did find it strange I had issues keeping the lens steady during the vows, the ois was on standard but maybe I need to choose dynamic next time. Again here I could get a nice very soft background which made is visually appealing to look at. I also liked the fact the ea50 can be matched quite easy with my cx730.

Next wedding though I probably will not be using the ea50 in church, just my 2 cx730's as they perform better in those circumstances and when you are shooting alone. F..i. when shooting the vows I had the parents in view as well but I had to open up the iris and up the gain to keep my exposure, the background blur was nice but I couldn't see any reaction from the parents due to the blur so I prefer front to back sharpness here what my cx730's can provide. They also don't have any noise issues, they are sharp and don't suffer from aliasing like the ea50. I could use a prime lens to deal with the lower light, which I"m sure I would have to at some point since this church was well lit but a lot are not and that will be even much more difficult to deal with as a single shooter during a run and gun event like in a church.

The sound of this cam is just awesome, I used my at897 shotgun recording audio to one channel en used the inbuild one to record to the other channel so I could choose in post which audio would be best and that was like night and day compared to my dslr.

At first i was not planning to take the camera with me for weddings as it was to bulky but now I have used it I will, I do have that petrol bag and eventhough it's a very tight fit it holds 5 camera's and a set of lenses now.

For those that would like to see the trailer, drop me a line, I can't show it publicly but can show it with a password for that few that might be interested here.