Swooping in after the bride and groom

[Tom Hardwick]

Sadly (very sadly) many cameras announce that you've made changes to the manual exposure, and the half stop changes (up or down, apertures as well as gain settings) are all too obvious on my old VX2000.

I was giving a tom-talk to Finchley Video Society last night (great interactive audience BTW) and one of my demos is to show how I swoop behind the bride and groom as they enter the wedding breakfast room. Loud cheers greet their arrival as they make their way to the top table.

I follow with my super-wide in place, using my 'special walk' and use the top screen of the Z1 to 'steady-cam' behind them. This can look really good, but on my demo I show how they enter through double doors that needs artificial white balance and f/1.6 and end up 20 metres away in front of a huge window, sunlight streaming in and f/8 desperately needed.

OK, there's little I can do about the white balance change and I have to leave this to the timeline (easy with key frames and the Canopus white balance filter), but the exposure *must* be locked off (white dress, bright window) and manually altered on the way. The Z1 allows me to do this imperceptibly, and my left thumb can roll that beautifully damped iris wheel so that the picture retains locked exposure but at the same time has a smoothly varying exposure.

I always had trouble doing this on the VX2000 because the side-screen (when the camera's used at waist height to avoid converging verticals) gets in the way of the little exposure wheel. The Z1 has it sorted; indeed it has.

tom.

[Patrick Moreau]

If you timed the shot out fairly close couldn't you do the white balance and exposure change the shot transition function. Would take some planning but it would be pretty cool to pull off.

[Tom Hardwick]

Pretty cool, but too dangerous. People are such unpredictable things; setting off from A you can never count on them getting to B 10 metres away 30 seconds later. As I said in my other post - HAL had it right. Eliminate the variables (people) and weddings would be easy to film.

tom.

[Patrick Moreau]

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

Pretty cool, but too dangerous. People are such unpredictable things; setting off from A you can never count on them getting to B 10 metres away 30 seconds later.

Sometimes the dangerous shots make the best shots when they turn out. I personally like to always puch myself to try new and harder shots.



[QUOTE=As I said in my other post - HAL had it right. Eliminate the variables (people) and weddings would be easy to film.
tom.[/QUOTE]

Sounds a lot like corporate work (removing the people), but then you lose a lot of the appreciate and emotional value in the work. Is easy suppose to be a good thing?

[Peter Jefferson]

"The Z1 allows me to do this imperceptibly, and my left thumb can roll that beautifully damped iris wheel so that the picture retains locked exposure but at the same time has a smoothly varying exposure."

Hmm... another option is the scene transition function of the z1..
as for risky shots, im all for em, so long as they get into peoples faces

[Jeremy Rochefort]

Originally Posted by Tom Hardwick

Pretty cool, but too dangerous. People are such unpredictable things; setting off from A you can never count on them getting to B 10 metres away 30 seconds later. As I said in my other post - HAL had it right. Eliminate the variables (people) and weddings would be easy to film.

tom.

The Z1 has good functionality when it comes to shot transition. You don't have to use the "Execute" functionality - use the "check" functionality which is usually a second or two from A to B. I use this very effectively when working in an environment exactly like this.

It just means a cut in your editor with a crossfade from one exposure to the next

[Peter Jefferson]

"as for risky shots, im all for em, so long as they get into peoples faces"

LOL

err that was meant to read so long as they DONT get into peoples faces.. lol