First attempt at slow motion booth ;p

Yeah, the backdrop needs some work. I did this for free for a couple as a test run.

Slow Motion Wedding Booth - Marcel & Shannon 2013 - YouTube

[Buba Kastorski]

beautiful!
what camera did you use?

[Robert Benda]

Oh, goodie, more use of copyrighted music. Note that the original guys, Frog Saves Tokyo, no longer have their videos up using Blurred Lines. The one on their Vimeo account now has a different song, and on YouTube it's got no music. I'm guessing they're about to get hammered with a bill. I actually emailed them a few weeks ago, when I first saw the video, warning them and got the brush off. Oh well.

You need to improve your lighting and color balance. Even just some cheap Cowboy Studio bulbs on stands with diffusion umbrellas will get you good results.

How close are you? Something about this feels off, and maybe it is just the color/lighting, but I was wondering if you were using a wide lens and too close. Sometimes that can feel off-putting.

For anyone trying this, please note the mess. I know in our area, a $500 clean-up fee is common for confetti and the like.

[James Palanza]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

Oh, goodie, more use of copyrighted music. Note that the original guys, Frog Saves Tokyo, no longer have their videos up using Blurred Lines. The one on their Vimeo account now has a different song, and on YouTube it's got no music. I'm guessing they're about to get hammered with a bill. I actually emailed them a few weeks ago, when I first saw the video, warning them and got the brush off. Oh well.

You need to improve your lighting and color balance. Even just some cheap Cowboy Studio bulbs on stands with diffusion umbrellas will get you good results.

How close are you? Something about this feels off, and maybe it is just the color/lighting, but I was wondering if you were using a wide lens and too close. Sometimes that can feel off-putting.

For anyone trying this, please note the mess. I know in our area, a $500 clean-up fee is common for confetti and the like.

Well, alas, you are indeed guessing. I doubt they are going to be hit with any bill. Vimeo took it down. Though I'll replace the link here to the youtube version that has the song acknowledged by youtubes auto-recognition system.

Unfortunately as this is not shot on an 8,000 dollar camera setup, the color balance and lighting is rather difficult to control. For your information, this was done with (5) light setups similar to the ones you mention. This was also squeezed into a tent outdoors, so space was indeed a premium. Overall, it is a bit close but I don't think it takes too much away from it. The camera has a fixed lens so what will be will be. Yes it is messy, solution? 6 dollar tarp on the floor.

[James Palanza]

Originally Posted by Buba Kastorski

beautiful!
what camera did you use?

Buba, a 300 dollar panny LX7

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by James Palanza

Well, alas, you are indeed guessing. I doubt they are going to be hit with any bill. Vimeo took it down. Though I'll replace the link here to the youtube version that has the song acknowledged by youtubes auto-recognition system.

Fixed lens is fine, but pull back when you can. Obviously that's not always an option, but I recall reading a research paper that showed people like photos better that were taken from 7 feet or farther away. Photos of the same people taken from 3 feet made them uncomfortable. Note that the photos were framed to look the same, just different lenses were used.

Just because YouTube recognizes the song and doesn't automatically take it down, doesn't make it legal. All it takes is for the wrong person to spot your video, see that the song is being used commercially, and that's that. That's why I sent a friendly warning to the other guys. Their video went viral. It was on the Huffington Post and dozens of other major websites. It was bound to get noticed. Hopefully they did contact the label like they said they would and got denied, and replaced the music themselves, but with their YouTube channel being muted, I'm guessing not.

Work on your light positioning, and no auto-white balance. We used 4 lights, one on camera, one between guests and backdrop, and two diffused umbrellas at face height and just out of frame on either side. I wish I had slowed this down slightly, though.

Torri & Tyler's Photo Booth Video on Vimeo

[Daniel Latimer]

Nice work.

I know much of the discussion has been about the technical parts of the video, but I'm curious about how well this was received. Did you have any trouble getting people on board to get into the 'booth'? Did they also have a photo booth?

[Buba Kastorski]

Originally Posted by James Palanza

Buba, a 300 dollar panny LX7

Awesome,
thanks!
but i'll need this in 1080

[James Palanza]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

Fixed lens is fine, but pull back when you can. Obviously that's not always an option, but I recall reading a research paper that showed people like photos better that were taken from 7 feet or farther away. Photos of the same people taken from 3 feet made them uncomfortable. Note that the photos were framed to look the same, just different lenses were used.

Just because YouTube recognizes the song and doesn't automatically take it down, doesn't make it legal. All it takes is for the wrong person to spot your video, see that the song is being used commercially, and that's that. That's why I sent a friendly warning to the other guys. Their video went viral. It was on the Huffington Post and dozens of other major websites. It was bound to get noticed. Hopefully they did contact the label like they said they would and got denied, and replaced the music themselves, but with their YouTube channel being muted, I'm guessing not.

Work on your light positioning, and no auto-white balance. We used 4 lights, one on camera, one between guests and backdrop, and two diffused umbrellas at face height and just out of frame on either side. I wish I had slowed this down slightly, though.

Torri & Tyler's Photo Booth Video on Vimeo

Thats a cool video! Yeah usually when something goes viral then you are going to get smacked.
You are right about the lens, I would definitely prefer to be father back and zoom it in a little. Well here are the limitations of the camera I'm using. Firstly, when you are in high speed mode you are unable to control anything manual. Well, the white balance you can, but I think after turning it off/back on it reset the choice and might be why there are some color issues. The other issue is automatic shutter. So as we know higher FPS means needing a higher shutter to keep motion blur down. Well, you cant actually see what the shutter is at, its all automatically controlled. The only way to notice it is the unpleasant surprise once you are in post back home and everything is blurry. It also seems to prefer to open the shutter before pushing the ISO up. My solution at the moment is a lot of light. As you can imagine, with a shutter above 240 or so you have to compensate with a lot of light. That said, now its harder to manage said light for shadows, hot spots, etc. Add the limited space from the location being outside in a tent.. also power was a problem along with space. I certainly plan to position the lights different for the next time. Also the fact of zooming in the lens I'm pretty sure moves the fstop from 1.4 to like 3.0 which again, I'm fighting for light as it is with the camera.

Ideally this would be done with a fs700 or some red camera, but those are priced way out of my budget unless this booth really takes off (which I hope it does!) so I can offer a better product.

Daniel, everyone loved it. Its created a lot of buzz, though I can see this as being one of those things that gets burned out after awhile so it'll be interesting to figure out how to keep it fresh.

Buba, yeah it shoots 720p, though for under 7-10 thousand you aren't going to find 1080p at 120 fps or higher. (that i know of)

[Robert Benda]

We use a simple Canon T3i with 50mm since we put a lot of clicks on the camera for our booths and we don't want to use our 5d Mark 2s. That can do 60fps, which I think would be OK, though not as impressive as the 120fps.

[David Barnett]

I realize this is a bit of an old thread, but I have a question for those who have run one. I did this as a bit of a gag/experiment at a cousins 30th birthday party (informal, like a keg party, not an event). I shoot using a Sony Z5U which can do native slomo when shooting to tape, doesn't work with the MRC1 card adapter. It records 3, 6, or 12 seconds, then plays it back during buffering for them to see. Worked on HDMI out to see it buffer in slomo on a HDTV.

For those who have run one do your cameras display it live in slomo? It is my understanding that the popularly used GoPro Hero 3 Black will not, just play it in realtime at 120fps, then when you adjust it to 30fps it's 4x slomo.

I ask because it took a loooooong time & coercing to explain what it does and why it's better than just shooting anything and putting it to slowmotion like any old way. After a few tries and seeing it live did it come close to catching on (it was a painful, rejection filled first couple minutes tbh. Not sure this is my thing). Anyway I'd rather not use my Z5U solely for this purpose, especially if it ever came to a wedding I shoot & do a slomo booth for (I'd hire an asst), as the Z5U is my A camera, VG20 my B. But I don't think it would work if guests didn't see it live. Anyone have any insight or seen one at a wedding or event?