Sony Z7 Wedding Clip at DVinfo.net

Bruce G. Cleveland · May 29th, 2008, 02:10 PM

Well here is the Z7 clip I promised. I was just at this wedding through a colleague of mine that was nice enough to let me come in and play with my Sony Z7 at his wedding shoot. I am not posting this as a critique of my style, but just so some of you can see what this great camera is capable of. The first part I had the camera on -6 gain, which was not good. the rest of the wedding was shot at 0, which I think is where it should be, and not at -6 or -3 as some people have thought. At least on mine, I think that 0 gain is 0 gain.

Everything was on manual controls except for focus. During vows and some of the closeups I did use manual focus. Also did not do anything with the photogs flashes. To me I didn't even notice anything different unless I freeze frame. Iris was set on 4 and I think the video was all a bit on the dark side, so that should have been 3.5 or so, but there were windows everywhere. I did add quite a few effects to some of the video and some of the video I left alone.

I have decided to remove the link to the link to the clip until I can figure out what happened to the quality when uploaded to my mac site. Sorry about this but the clip looks awful.

Bruce

Bruce Ostrout · May 29th, 2008, 03:36 PM

Bruce, No offense, but honestly, I thought the black levels and color saturation were terrible. Even the exit signs were off color.

John Knight · May 29th, 2008, 04:38 PM

Hi Bruce, thanks heaps for sharing that.

I have my first full wedding tomorrow using the Z7... I'm quite nervous coming from many years using PD170/VX2000 combo.

Clip was great but colours didn't seem to "pop" and some perhaps a little underexposed? In particular, crowd shot just before the kiss, baby with sucker. Final shot of the flowers/bible looks great colour and vibrancy - obviously given some FCP treatment? The drab church walls obviously didn't help and kind of muted things a little... plus the chief bridesmaid scared me a little... :)

Overall - nice style - clean and simple editing, good use of slowmo mixed with realtime, good soundtrack... love it!

I'll be shooting 1080/50i (pal) tomorrow to tape (CF card not arrived yet) Will post results next week... thanks again.

Bruce G. Cleveland · May 29th, 2008, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Knight

Hi Bruce, thanks heaps for sharing that.

I have my first full wedding tomorrow using the Z7... I'm quite nervous coming from many years using PD170/VX2000 combo.

Clip was great but colours didn't seem to "pop" and some perhaps a little underexposed? In particular, crowd shot just before the kiss, baby with sucker. Final shot of the flowers/bible looks great colour and vibrancy - obviously given some FCP treatment? The drab church walls obviously didn't help and kind of muted things a little... plus the chief bridesmaid scared me a little... :)

Overall - nice style - clean and simple editing, good use of slowmo mixed with realtime, good soundtrack... love it!

I'll be shooting 1080/50i (pal) tomorrow to tape (CF card not arrived yet) Will post results next week... thanks again.

Yep colors didn't come out as good once encoded .mac either. The darkness is due to in part to the -6 gain I was using and also I should have had my iris open a bit more. It was on 4 and I should have been letting more light in. Plus some of the filters did not help. It does look much much better on our tv than it does on the website. Thanks for looking and comments. Good luck on your shoot.

Bruce

John Knight · May 29th, 2008, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce G. Cleveland

The first part I had the camera on -6 gain, which was not good. the rest of the wedding was shot at 0, which I think is where it should be, and not at -6 or -3 as some people have thought. At least on mine, I think that 0 gain is 0 gain.

I think for a dimish environment like this, I would have locked the shutter speed at 50, made a call on the gain based on experience with the camera (that I don't yet have), in this case I think I would have used +3, then set and locked the iris exposure on faces/skin-tone. That's my method for the PD170 SD shooting. But I'll stop my theorizing for now and wait until tomorrow! :) Weddings are difficult because capturing the moment as it quickly unfolds is sometimes a lot more important than fiddling with exposure settings - that's why knowing the camera inside out is vital. Wish I could have had the opportunity to test on a live event like this, but we're headed into winter here and this is the last one of the season...

Bruce G. Cleveland · May 29th, 2008, 05:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce Ostrout

Bruce, No offense, but honestly, I thought the black levels and color saturation were terrible. Even the exit signs were off color.

I have to agree based on what this looks like off the .mac gallery. I don't know what is going on, but this doesn't look anything like what I edited. I really need to check my settings for encoding this. I wish now I would not have posted the link.

Bruce

John Knight · May 29th, 2008, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce G. Cleveland

I wish now I would not have posted the link.Bruce

Hey Bruce... don't say that. Nobody learns anything from watching fantastic footage all the time. I think it's invaluable to see this and has made me think carefully about how I run things in manual mode... well done, I wish more people would upload test footage to compare.

Bruce G. Cleveland · May 29th, 2008, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Knight

Hey Bruce... don't say that. Nobody learns anything from watching fantastic footage all the time. I think it's invaluable to see this and has made me think carefully about how I run things in manual mode... well done, I wish more people would upload test footage to compare.

John I have removed the link. I honestly do not understand why the clips looks so bad. It really looks very good from the dvd that I burned, but something went terribly wrong in encoding somewhere. I will re-post once I figure this out.

Bruce

John Knight · May 29th, 2008, 06:45 PM

Time you "upgraded" to a PC I think!!!!! :)

What about registering a Vimeo account for free and encoding/uploading in glorious HD? Here are the encoding specs: http://www.vimeo.com/help/hd

Bruce Ostrout · May 29th, 2008, 07:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bruce G. Cleveland

I have to agree based on what this looks like off the .mac gallery. I don't know what is going on, but this doesn't look anything like what I edited. I really need to check my settings for encoding this. I wish now I would not have posted the link.

Might have had a gamma shift. Looks like the blacks are at 32 instead of 0-16

Robert Bec · June 2nd, 2008, 04:27 PM

Hey Bruce how long before you put the footage up

Is it possible to show us footage at church in slow-mo with flashes going off

I hope i am not asking for to much

Rob.

Bruce G. Cleveland · June 2nd, 2008, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Bec

Hey Bruce how long before you put the footage up

Is it possible to show us footage at church in slow-mo with flashes going off

I hope i am not asking for to much

Rob.

http://brucearoni.smugmug.com/galler...06124216_tmBRC

Wow what a coincidence. I just finished setting up a smugmug account and the video looks much better. There is some slow motion I think when flashes are going off. Lemme know what you think. Again, this is not posted for a critique, but rather for people to check out the quality.

Bruce

May 29th, 2008, 02:10 PM	#1
Bruce G. Cleveland Regular Crew Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Oshkosh, WI Posts: 190	Sony Z7 Wedding Clip - Took clip link off Well here is the Z7 clip I promised. I was just at this wedding through a colleague of mine that was nice enough to let me come in and play with my Sony Z7 at his wedding shoot. I am not posting this as a critique of my style, but just so some of you can see what this great camera is capable of. The first part I had the camera on -6 gain, which was not good. the rest of the wedding was shot at 0, which I think is where it should be, and not at -6 or -3 as some people have thought. At least on mine, I think that 0 gain is 0 gain. Everything was on manual controls except for focus. During vows and some of the closeups I did use manual focus. Also did not do anything with the photogs flashes. To me I didn't even notice anything different unless I freeze frame. Iris was set on 4 and I think the video was all a bit on the dark side, so that should have been 3.5 or so, but there were windows everywhere. I did add quite a few effects to some of the video and some of the video I left alone. I have decided to remove the link to the link to the clip until I can figure out what happened to the quality when uploaded to my mac site. Sorry about this but the clip looks awful. Bruce Last edited by Bruce G. Cleveland; May 29th, 2008 at 05:48 PM.

May 29th, 2008, 04:38 PM	#3
John Knight Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 588	Thanks! Hi Bruce, thanks heaps for sharing that. I have my first full wedding tomorrow using the Z7... I'm quite nervous coming from many years using PD170/VX2000 combo. Clip was great but colours didn't seem to "pop" and some perhaps a little underexposed? In particular, crowd shot just before the kiss, baby with sucker. Final shot of the flowers/bible looks great colour and vibrancy - obviously given some FCP treatment? The drab church walls obviously didn't help and kind of muted things a little... plus the chief bridesmaid scared me a little... :) Overall - nice style - clean and simple editing, good use of slowmo mixed with realtime, good soundtrack... love it! I'll be shooting 1080/50i (pal) tomorrow to tape (CF card not arrived yet) Will post results next week... thanks again. __________________ Over 28 years watching TV

May 29th, 2008, 06:45 PM	#9
John Knight Major Player Join Date: May 2008 Location: Auckland, New Zealand Posts: 588	Time you "upgraded" to a PC I think!!!!! :) What about registering a Vimeo account for free and encoding/uploading in glorious HD? Here are the encoding specs: http://www.vimeo.com/help/hd __________________ Over 28 years watching TV

May 29th, 2008, 03:36 PM	#2
Bruce Ostrout Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Jacksonville Fl Posts: 107	Bruce, No offense, but honestly, I thought the black levels and color saturation were terrible. Even the exit signs were off color.

June 2nd, 2008, 04:27 PM	#11
Robert Bec Major Player Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 358	Hey Bruce how long before you put the footage up Is it possible to show us footage at church in slow-mo with flashes going off I hope i am not asking for to much Rob.