Hello Ted,

You are in Glendale I see, how do you like it there? Have you been to any of the LAFCPUG meetings yet? If not, why not check out the next one? They are free.

Ted, please check out the following links and let me know what you think:
http://www.lafcpug.org/pana_cinetools.html
http://www.lafcpug.org/panasonic_24p.html

Please do write back and let us know what you think. I'm very interested in the outcome of your workflow.

Looking forward,

- don

outdoor wedding with divx100...24p?
 

I will be helping shooting a wedding outdoors in the afternoon with a dvx100. Its for a friend so low pressure, I told them before hand that it will probably look like crap because I've never done this before. My question is that outdoors under the sun would 24 or 30p be the best choice?

I would just shoot in interlaced and perhaps use a polarizer. Don't forget the tripod, and easy on the zooms, pans and tilts. Maybe use a softening filter for a nice close-up or 2.

yeah I got a tripod, and I know enough not to zoom to much, I'll look into the polarizer. Does shooting interlaced just make things simpler? I know that pans have to be slow and such and you lose some functions with 24p, but I'm getting used to it.

I have Vegas 4 so editing the footage shouldn't be an issue. I don't know I just really like the look of 24p. I'm just figuring out why wouldn't someone shoot in it. What can go wrong using 24p? I'm not talking about shooting mistakes, or bad camera work or anything, but the mode itself.

I don't necessarily have a problem shooting interlaced.

Well, it's like this: 24P will make it choppy looking, and I don't think your friend would like this. I would use 24P for special effect such as during a dance scene and perhaps during a couple other short scenes, like perhaps children playing during the reception or the bride and groom's car pulling in and pulling away from their ceremony. You are after all shooting a wedding for your friend, and he's counting on you. I suggest experimenting with 24P once the wedding job is done.

you've got a point. I'll probably use 24p intermittenly in non important parts. Do I have to do anything special in Vegas to use both 24p footage and 60i footage in the same video.

Frank, why will it make it "choppy looking?" To take my DVX for a spin before I start shooting my doc next month I shot over four hours of footage for "Vacation Bible School" at my church (cut together on FCP 4 and laid off to DVD via miniDV) in 24p advanced, as well as about four hours for a wedding a few weeks back. And while I haven't fully attacked the wedding footage yet (still waiting for music, stills, etc. from the happy couple) I've yet to see anything I'd describe as "choppy looking." I've seen over-exposed, under-exposed, screwed up color from forgetting white balancing (all from a lousy camera operator... me) but the footage I didn't screw up looks abolutely gorgeous. The richness of its colors, the warmth, etc. blew me away.

How/where/when does "choppiness" become an issue? They played my VBS layoff to DVD up on a big screen at church, and it was about as close to watching "film" as you can get. Just beautiful. What am I missing?

Marcia

<<<-- Do I have to do anything special in Vegas to use both 24p footage and 60i footage in the same video. -->>>

No, you can freely intermix them. Obviously they'll look quite different from each other, which is the point, but you will encounter no technical difficulties.

If you are shooting outdoors then now is a good opportunity to shoot in 24p. Low light is where you will have a problem because we are unable to adjust the gain in 24p mode and 60i is much better in low light anyway.

I just got finished doing a wedding and it was mostly done in 24p. Now I wish I had done everything in 24p because all the 60i shots look too "videoish" and change the feeling interly. You can view a clip here: http://markthomasvideo.com/clips/

I don't think there is any choppness at all. I think that is just the jitter you will see knocking down to a lower frame rate. Which is good because it looks more filmick. I love it! I will never go back to interlaced again.

Unless you have a highend tripod. Sometimes that will make it worse. Because all you see is sticky tripod pans and you are only limited to up and down or side to side. Most of the wedding tripod shots I have seen look really 80’s. If anything I would bring a Mono pod for stabilization. A tripod for me is big and bulky and you'll have to always put it down when you are not using it.

Anyway good luck. We are all new to this!

Mark, monopod is def the way to go through much of a wedding. I ran around with mine getting the bride getting ready (makeup, nervous giggles) the father waiting for her to come out, their walk together to get to the ceremony... then dumped it for the ceremony itself for my tripod that was set up, waiting. For whatever dumb reason I ran around the reception with the tripod, and while it was more comfortable for the dances, etc., don't know what I was thinking the rest of the time. Too bulky to easily capture the toasts, etc. from interesting angles. Think I was simply tiring as the evening wore on... and as you say, I'm new to this as well.
Marcia

P.S. Someone around here suggested shooting at a shutter speed of 1/24 for low light, which I did as evening set in... worked beautifully.

be aware that slow shutter speeds have the tendency to blur on fast moving action... this is why youll notice the gladiator "effect" (1/250) being used now on sports braodcasts...

moving on...

I use a manfrotto 501 head with the long neck (not the ball), which i detach from teh legs for mobile work.. works as a makeshift shoulderbrace (neck rests on my hip, lever rests on my shoulder) as well as a single arm steadycamish kinda routine thing by holding the base of the head with one arm and letting the cam "float"...

To answer that question, "Frank, why will it make it 'choppy looking?'...What am I missing?" Interlaced will look smoother. I don't know, I guess I'm from the old school for shooting weddings---plus you have more leeway, better control, better low light, as already mentioned. Speaking of weddings, I've got one coming up, and my wife got hired to set everything up, like the ceremony table etc. Good paying gig---.

Well I shot the wedding yesterday. Overall I'm pleased. Some of the footage looks great and some like crap but I have enough to put together a fairly decent wedding video. I used 24p quite a bit actually, It was an outdoor wedding so I used 24p for the ceremony with no problems generated from the mode itself. Nothing was jittery or choppy, and the amount of light wasn't a problem. I had a great position physically but the sun ended up ruining it to some degree. half of there faces...camera side none the less were kind of shadowy because the sun was in the wrong place for were I was. Oh well, thats the only place I really could have been up close.

I also had a tough time getting that camera to look right out under the sun, I was using the nd filters and honestly tried every setting/mode I could think of but under that harsh sun it just wasn't that great. It was towards the evening too so the sun was pretty low in the sky creating these harsh, long shadows. I bet it would have looked better in the afternoon.

After the ceremony, I shot some pre reception/hand shake line stuff that just looks so much better, its sort of in the shade but with enough light.

One frustrating thing though is the audio, they had a relatively low hanging arch for the ceremony. I was like hey this thing is low enough to put a mic in for decent sound recording of the service/vows etc...So I go through the trouble of taping my mic up in the there and hiding it with the flowers etc. I then have my girlfriend stand under at talk as I listen w/headphones...CLEAR AS DAY even at a whisper. Then when it comes time for the ceremony the priest stands about 6ft IN FRONT of the arch, with the groom/bride in front of him. I mean WHO IS RUNNING THIS HORSE AND PONY SHOW!! I kid of course, its no big deal. It was a last minute thing and I have zero experience. Basically an attempt to have all three elements of the production triangle instead of two. We were attempting to do a video fast, cheap, and good. Not happening but it will be good enough for them. I mean they have zero expectations....though they might have increased when I showed up with a dvx100. I'll have to leave out some of the footage that looks no better than an S-vHs cam, not to bad mouth the camera, it was my fault, combined with the conditions and my in experience with it.

As the night wore on, I had to shoot 60i because I needed the gain/low light performance. It still looks pretty good.

But yeah as I'm going over all the footage I can't help but be a bit disappointed in myself, I know what I would do differently but nothing I could have known at the time. I think its just that I'm really picky about picture quality. It comes from my other hobby...home theater entertainment. I need to set my standards a bit lower when I'm doing it myself.

Holy long post. I'm done now. I don't think I will be shooting weddings again, unless as a favor for friends what have you. Heh, I would be sweating right now with the footage I have if this was a paid upfront don't know the people sort of job.

oh and about editing this 24p stuff. Do I have to put the pulldown back in with Vegas. how would I do that with 60i footage mixed in?

Per outside, were you using cine-gamma? Try normal gamma in harsh sunlight as it's easy to blow out highlights with cine-gamma.

Per Vegas & 24p, see the Vegas whitepaper at the top of the forum for complete details.