Sony rx10 sample footage from a wedding

I shot my first wedding of the season last week and had finally been able to put my Sony rx10 a bit more to use, I only used it during the photoshoot as I wanted a very light camera just to take some random handheld shots while the photog was working with the couple.

The sun made it difficult to use the lcd screen and the viewfinder but I was still able to expose right using the zebra's and histogram, I toggled between auto and manual focus often depending on what I was shooting, like the shot in the dandelion field I first zoomed in, pointed the camera at the couple, let the camera autofocus and then switched to manual so the focus would be locked and then made my sideways movement. I shot all in 50p and about the entire film is slowed down 50%.

At a wedding yesterday I used a eyecup from a sony fx1000 that I verlcotaped to the viewfinder of the rx10 and while it was not a perfect solution it made a hugh difference shooting in bright light outside as all incoming light was blocked by that eyecup.

As I use 4 different type's of camera's during a wedding day just to let you know which is used when;
from 00:00 to 00:28: Sony rx10 (outside/photoshoot footage)
00:29 to 00:49: Sony cx730 (when they meet, the legal marriage in the townhall and the priest in the church)
From 00:50 to 00:56: Sony rx10 (the groupsphoto, dinner)
from 00:57 to 01:45: sony cx730 (church)
after that it's simple, all steadicam footage is panasonic g6, all tripod footage panasonic gh3.

I know there where some people keen on seeing the rx10 in action at a wedding, so maybe this might be of help, even if it's a bit limited and doesn't show any ceremony footage. I am not planning to use that camera for that kind of recording anyway. If you have any questions, shoot. :)

edit: Maybe interesting to know; that shot at 01:00 just before the bride walks in the church with her dad was taken from the other end of the church at the altar handheld and fully zoomed in with the Sony cx730, try to do that with any other dslr camera :) Also bear in mind that this is a 720p upload which a is vimeo plus limitation I have with that account so the footage is softer then the 1080p native file.

Tina en Kristof on Vimeo

[Jeff Harper]

Noa, it would be nice if you could change your vimeo settings to add the playbar back for embeds, it's currently not possible to see where we're at timewise unless in full screen, but then we cannot read your post at the same time, if you know what I mean.

Very nice video!

[Noa Put]

But you can't read text and watch the video at the same time! :) Sorry but I can't change it at this moment, The video is embedded in a website and it's intended to look like this when it's not in full screen mode.

I used the rx10 a bit more with last weekends wedding and I still need to get used of it's controlls (that's what you get when you have a mix of different camera), I changed the stabilization mode to active as I got too many jitters in standard mode and I have to say I"m still not happy about the camera stabilization, I still needed to use a stabilizing filter in post which softens the footage a bit, I certainly need an extra contactpoint during handheld shots and while zoomed in.

[Peter Rush]

Great work as always Noa :) How do you feel about it's low light performance? And how accurate is the autofocus?

[Noa Put]

the rx10 seems to need about iso 8000 to 10000 iso to compare with my gh3's 6400 iso at f2.8 but it's a bit less noisy then, in general it's a decent low light performer, you can go to 12.800 iso but the noise gets more apparent then but still nothing that neatvideo can't fix.

Autofocus is average, don't expect miracles, it's quite slow and I have noticed it can loose autofocus in high contrast scenes, even when the lens is wide, noticed that last wedding where it just went blurry for no apparent reason, so you have to watch out for that.

I toggle constantly between auto and manual focus, usually let the camera do the focussing and then switch to manual to prevent it from hunting.

I"m having a love/hate relationship with this camera :) I love how easy it is to control the camera, much that I missed from a regular videocamera is there but I hate that I can't zoom quicker to reframe quickly (a critical feature for a solo shooter) and I don't like the stabilization. It is ok for wider shots but once you start zooming in there is still too much small jitter, even in active mode.

I"ll hang on to it the next months and use it for evening speeches as well for the next weddings but on a tripod, see how it holds up then.

[Noa Put]

Here is the autofocus issue I was refering to, it slowly lost focus, maybe because of the bright sky in the frame? Who knows, my nex-ea50 used to display that kind of behavior while I was shooting a oldtimer that was approaching me on a sunny day and it had a high gloss paint coating, when the car was near me the ea50 also turned all blurry and it was a error I could repeat afterwards by pointing again at that same car, there I also needed to lock the focus as the camera refused to recover focus again.

password: rx10

Private Video on Vimeo

[Dave Blackhurst]

I think that's a "Sony feature" sometimes - run into it a few times myself where focus "gets lost" and just doesn't want to come back - a zoom in and out "fixes" it, but that's not a great solution!

Not sure if you've got any flash brackets laying around, but you might want to try one to help with stabilization (sort of a mini fig-rig). I keep a mini folding one handy in my bags (Stratos brand), and I have "better" ones. Another "mostly portable" option is a monopod either kept short and stuck into a belt pocket (or your pants pocket in a pinch), or extended to the ground when needed. I like the "standard" Manfrotto 560b with the little feet for the RX10, and have a couple "mini" Hakuba ones (best used "short", too wobbly fully extended!).

I suspect we've all been spoilt a bit by the "magic eyeball", and have to revisit "mechanical" stabilization "rigs". I love the results I'm getting from the RX10, and an AX100 should darken my doorstep soon, but I'm dusting off the old "stabilizers" as these feel like they "need" that little extra where the gimbal would have ironed out the kinks and wobbles!


All in all, your cameras match well (OK, so you have to remember a bunch of different menu systems!), proving it's not the camera, but the operator!

[Noa Put]

Edelkrone has shown some very interesting concepts which will be good to help stabilizing a camera while shooting handheld, they have the pocketrig where at nab they have shown a new version, you can also find cheaper rip-offs on ebay but I think Edelkrone has much better support if some things fail to work as advertised so would be worth the premium price. I do like that very small shoulder support that once folded in is the size of a battery grip and it stays attached to your camera ready to be folded out.
I just now saw they will be bringing out a 20cm travel slider that fits in your pocket! :) love that miniature stuff.

[Dave Blackhurst]

I actually have that "pocket rig", it's rather large and quite heavy compared to the RX10 - concept is good, it actually works pretty well, but far more heft that is useful, meaning it defeats the whole "small/light" part of the equation! Compact, but not something I'd add to my current gear bag - I'm going for small/light! I have full size aluminum shoulder rigs that I think weigh less!

I designed a lightweight folding rig from parts from those Stratos folding brackets, and some other parts that were laying around... even put together a prototype, but never got around to trying to have something made. The guy at Stratos expressed interest, but I never heard back...

MOST "rigs" are built for larger, heavier cameras, so you end up with more "rig" than you really need. This is particularly true of cameras like the RX10 - you mainly just need a "little" help to prevent "roll" (just adding a bracket does that quite nicely!), and for longer shooting, a simple shoulder component helps smooth out the rest. That or the monopod in the pocket trick. The tricky part with a camera that lends itself to manual adjusting is you want at least one hand on the camera at all times, so the less "rig" getting in the way the better! And of course this is where the internal stabilization can bite you in the rear...

[Noa Put]

Good to know about the weight of the pocketrig because that is something I'd like to keep at a absolute minimum, how does this folding rig from Stratos folding brackets look like? Do you have a picture of that setup?

[Dave Blackhurst]

I'll have to shoot some pix of the setups I use - right now I'm working the bugs out of the new "4K ready" computer! That Seiki TV took some tweaking to get it close to color matched, but it's at least usable! Backlight and color factory settings were WAAAAAY too "hot"! And lots of other "life on the bleeding edge" nuisances, but all in all, a worthwhile upgrade!


My cobbled up rig isn't "pretty", but it is actually very effective, though I find just a bracket works for most uses, as I want to keep my right hand on the ready to make adjustments rather than off on a "handle". I've got another idea for a small light rig I've been meaning to try as well... I'm really at the point where I can see using the RX10 for just about everything, but a rig of some sort would probably be warranted.

There is an interesting guest post on SAR today that ends up being mostly about the RX10... another user finding it covers so much ground for the typical user in a small package...

[Peter Rush]

Hey Noa the groom had his jacket on for the entrance through the doors, but then it's off as he walks into the room with his bride - did you get two shots at that?

Nice work BTW

Pete

[Noa Put]

Ha! You are the first one to notice, was waiting for that to happen :) If you look at the windows you"ll see that the first shot is during the day and the second in the evening when it was dark. The couple did a double entrance, they had a large group of friends that came in the evening so decided to redo their entry, my first glidecam started good but was a bit wobbly halfway and the second started less good but looked better halfway so I mixed both. :)

[Peter Rush]

Noa that particular shot seems very sharp end to end - I'm guessing (especially the evening part) your G6 lens was pretty much wide open as it the lighting seems not so bright, so would have expected quite a shallow DOF but seems not in this case?

[Noa Put]

The lens I use is a 12mm f2.0 and in most cases it's not wide open but during the first dance it often is, then I try to keep a certain distance to the object I"m shooting to increase my dof, if I get closer the dof gets much smaller but on the steadicam maintaining focus gets very difficult in that case so whenever I can I will increase the distance. This is also an advantage of m4/3, you still get the advantage of a f2.0 lens but you dof is much more manageable.