Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Crop factor is 1.6 and I think you can get almost any lens adapter for the e mount. The real big drawback for me on older lenses is no stabilization. They look fantastic on a tripod but can be a bit shakey if hand held. Getting the stabilized 50mm 1.8 is highly recommended.

Yes you can see real time display on those items while recording. The really cool thing is all the menu screens are almost identical to the cx760 so no real learning curve. What I do really like is I can for example set a function (like shutter speed) and then go and change another function (like gain) without the first setting going back to automatic.

I really love my VG20 and I know it sometimes gets a bad rap but I personally will use this camera until it dies one day. Can say enough about the elegant shots I can get with it. Whole reason for the CX760 for me was to lock it down on a tripod and just use those as cutaways from the vg20.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Thx Dan, cropfactor is the same then as my 550d and stabilisation issues are a problem with the dslr also as the Samyangs are not stabilised, I"ll be watching the vg30 to see how it performs once the first user videos appear. Think the kit lens will do just fine for those stabilised shots with autofocus and have an option to attach fast prime lenzes on a tripod when necessary. I hope they don't increase the price too much on the vg30.

Can I ask how the viewfinder is, is it usable for focus checks?

I"ll probably will hang onto my xh-a1 if I need it for certain shoots but 95% of what I do at this moment I can do with my cx730's and my dslr's (as a solo shooter), the last weddings I did I left the xh-a1 at home, I was a bit nervous at first but now the cx730 are starting to become a second right hand :) I always have one camera attached to my belt when I"m operating the dslr's and have it ready for recording in seconds, with weddings you often have to react quickly if something unannounced happens, if I don't want to miss such a moment and get it right the first time, I prefer my cx730 instead of my dslr.

On tip I can give when using the cx760 fixed and unmanned on a tripod, set a AE shift a bit lower as the camera tends to overexpose if you leave exposure in automatic mode. Also try to avoid dynamic stabilisation unless you need the extended zoom, active steadyshot is also very good and at least you keep the widest angle and should have the best image quality (dynamic zooms in on the image so you loose some on the wide and eventhough I have not tested it yet, there should be some quality loss. And most important set the OIS to off when on a tripod, the OIS goes haywire when you zoom in a bit and then pan. This function can be assigned to a button on the lcd screen so it's fast to change when needed.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Yep, Already playing with the AE shift. the Viewfinder on the VG20 is VERY usable. in fact 90% of all my recording is done through the VF. as an example I find the CX760 VF a bit frustrating and not super great but works okay for when I need it. always seems like I am trying to tweak the doppler adjustment as it is just a little too small for my old eyes maybe? My VG is a whole different story and I really using the VF

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

and a couple new flavors in the pot with the latest Sony announcements. VG30 is looking pretty sweet!

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

yeah, it looks pretty much the same as the vg20 except for the lens, I"m sure there are some improvements to the camera as well but I"ll see what it looks like when the first user video's appear. I have been looking at a lot of wedding demo's on vimeo that where shot on the vg20 and somehow it seems to be difficult to get a good image out of it. Especially how the camera seems to deal with highlights. Often I also see quite some whitebalancing issues (maybe because they have it at auto?) and overexposure. Sometimes there is some dslr footage used as well and then it becomes even more obvious as you can pick out the vg20 footage easily.

I did find only a few good looking videos meaning they can get it right but the camera needs an experienced operator to get the most out of it, that's at least the impression I get when browsing through all those videos.

This one looks pretty sweet as well, a vg30 on steroids? :) (full frame so no cropping!)
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/digital-...rst-image.html

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Ok, shot a wedding short time ago with my two Sony cx730's, a xr520 and my two Canon 550d's. I made a trailer which I feel does show the potential of those small handicams, only the steadicam shots are from a blackbird with a 14mm f2.8 lens, all the rest are my sony camera's (only 2 short shots with very shallow dof are with the dslr as well)

It might not seem that way but it was quite dark at the venue, my dslr was wide open at f2.8 and 1600 iso all the time and some zoomed in handheld shots I did during the speeches to catch reactions with the Sony camera it was at 24db gain and 1/25 shutter which explains the motion blur you will see in a few shots. At other times the camera was close to or at 21db gain. Same for the church, not that much light available.

It's also the first trailer I have where you hardly see any very shallow dof that DSLR's can provide but I"m not sure if that would have added anything, I actually prefer the very wide dof to show the large church and venue.

the Sony's where at 50p (except for the xr520 which was positioned on the church balcony was at 50I and the dslr was at 25p.) The very first slider shots in church where slowed down to 50%.

What do you guys think? I"m pretty satisfied with the images, especially the colour in a darker environment and while at 21 to 24db of gain and the fact they match quite well with my dslr. (have to say the Sony shots have been colour corrected with a bit more saturation and the blacks where crushed a bit as well.) and I used only available light, so no cameralight was used.

This was a solo shoot, which brings up another advantage of those small handicams as running 2 to 3 camera's simultaniously is possible since your gear is easier to carry alone (5 camera's in one backpack - 3 handicams and 2 dslr's) and as focus is not so critical as with dslr's you have much more usuable footage on your unmanned camera's.


password: noa

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Wow Noa - you and the photog are in soooo close to get them putting the rings on! - Here in the UK we'd get promptly ejected from the church if we tried to get that close - I'm jealous!

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

That's pretty much standard position during the vows here, placing a camera left and right on a tripod, like one for a medium shot and one for close up would be a very big risc at ceremonies here, often the couple turns towards the priest and like in the above video the priest also comes up very close sometimes holding the mike or the page containing the vows for them to read from. This would render any camera's on the side useless showing you only the backsides of the couple.

The only safe position is always just behind the priest (never had a priest complain about that) and in this case I had to move in real close as the priest was almost sitting on the couples lap and he was holding the page in front of their hands which made it even worse :) I had the camera on my shoulder support with the beachtek and hoodloupe attached to the lcd screen like I showed in a video in this topic, that together with the great OIS gives very stable footage handheld, better then I could do handheld with my xh-a1.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Noa, I find the same as Peter, in any church here I'm sure I'd be ejected or at least reprimanded or even banned from future weddings by the vicar if I tried that sort of move in on the ceremony, even civils would not be too happy with that. That seems to be one of the thing that causes celebrants to set up rules and restrictions. Here it's strictly stay put. Another example how different societies as well as cultures have contrasting approaches and tolerances.

I spend much time in France and there churches have a more relaxed attitude to photo/video than here in UK.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

To be honest, I would very much prefer to stand on a fixed position with the photog and myself not coming near the altar, like I see in many videos here where the couple is facing eachother standing up and stay in that position. In that way you could have 3 camera's on a locked position and capture it all without blocking any guests view or without being in the frame of the photog and vice versa. Here it is the priests that are causing all the trouble by often letting the couple facing the altar all the time or by holding the sheet which they have to read from in front of the rings and holding the microphone for them right in front of their faces. Sometimes that leaves me with a very small window to get the ring exchange. I could stand on the other side but then I would be blocking the families view. I wish they made it a lot stricter and just have the couple facing eachother so I don't have to struggle to get my shot.

You should see how intrusive photogs can get here as they walk around all the time, also behind the altar while the priest is talking, I have had a few occasions over the past years where the priest stopped talking and eyeballed the photog because he was to much present but beside that they allow a lot here.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I was filming a wedding a couple of weeks ago where the vicar called a halt & told the second photographer to stand in one place instead of prowling about up & down the aisles. He said that it was just too distracting & as it was a small church I could see his point.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

This post almost has 10k views so there seems to be some interest in small camera's :)

No reactions so far, that usually means it's bad and people don't want to offend you :D

It was a user on this forum but I don't recall who it was that said he had to move to dslr's from his regular videocamera's as he started to loose clients that wanted that specific look which his regular camera's couldn't provide. My video I posted a bit up does contain steadicam dslr footage but none of the footage does have that distinct dslr look, especially because there is hardly any shallow dof. In fact I think my cx730 on the blackbird could provide a better look as I would be able to nicely slow down 1080p 50p footage and not have to worry about setting the focus manually or about the 12 min recording limit. The lens only would be a little less wide but the image would be sharper. I think that at the wedding I have this Saturday I"ll give my cx730 a go on the steadicam and see what that gives.

I only wonder wether that very shallow dof and typical dslr look would make my video look better, or more professional or get me more clients or even allow me to charge more money? It took me some time to get over that "uncle sam has the same camera" kind of feeling but as I feel very pleased with what comes out of it, how do you perceive the video, does it have that handicam "video" kind of look or do the image of small handicams and the large dof make it look more amateuristic?

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

A camera is a tool... use the one that does what you want it to do... small cameras have their place, DSLR (SLT) have their place. If the results "speak" for themselves, that's what matters.

And as always, it's the "nut" behind the lens that makes all the difference <wink>!

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Hi Noa,

I'm one of the lurkers of this thread (loved it from the beggining) and I have to say the CX730 should work perfectly on the blackbird, stabilization may give you problems or even make it better so I would like to know how it went if you make a test of it.

I think the clients are looking for shallow DOF but won't see the difference through all the shoot and definitely I would go for the use of more cameras.

Some beauty shots pre, post, and during the ceremony and that would be set. You're right in a lot of points; you can carry more cameras, breathe in more of the beauty of the church and enjoy the people and their reactions in the venue. Beautiful video.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Hi Ivan! Yes, I think the OIS on the cx730 will do some unwanted corrections but when I have time I"ll do some test runs at the venue, I"ll have to add my beachtek and shouldermount to it as well to add on some extra weight as the cx730 alone is too light for the blackbird.

In the video above I had an hour prep time in church before the couple arrived which gave me some time to set all up right (3 handicams) and to gather some beauty shots but usually it's nothing like that with often practically no set up time, but even then I can still manage to set up 2 camera's, put a zoom h1 on the altar, a iriver on the lectern (both with lavaliers, I just clip it onto the church microphone) and the groom has already been supplied with a yamaha c24 with lav mike when they leave to church.

That only leaves me with setting up my tascam dr40 at a loudspreaker as backup which I do when the ceremony already has begun. That can be very stressful but just the fact that I can carry 5 camera's in one go into church in my backpack (my tripods are on a small carry on cart that can fit 4 tripods that I fasten with straps) is one less worry that it might get stolen in the car. My backpack also contains 2 dslr's and lenses but that I never use during church.

When you shoot solo in these kind of stressfull situations your unmanned camera's need to be light, have a deep dof, can autofocus right and that have good autowhitebalance (on a sunny/cloudy day when sun appears and disappears all the time the Sony gives accurate colors)

A "advantage" is also when your gear gets damaged, imaging having a 7000 euro camera (just take a xf300 as an example) drop onto the floor (at crowded events that's not impossible) instead of a 840 euro camera (what I paid for my Sony)
Buying a new camera always hurts but my bank would survive a 840 euro hit, not a 7000 euro hit. :)

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

David Lynch shot Inland empire on some Sony pd150's and he definitely is a nut... :)

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Just wanted to share my latest work with my 2 sony cx730 coupled with my 2 canon 550d's, there is not much movement in this thread anymore but maybe anyone interested in using small camera's might find it usefull.

I have been doing quite some events now with these camera's and eventhough they do have drawbacks, I still am very happy with what they can do, especially considering what I paid for them.

Is it all sunshine? No :) I noticed that the touch focus is quite unreliable on both my camera's so it's no bug, the touch focus on my cx520 is much faster and more accurate. Maybe it's because of the much wider lens or because of the improved stabilization, something has changed for sure and it's not for the better. I now assigned "manual" focus to a button on the lcd screen so if needed I can manually correct pressing buttons on the lcd screen, works quite well.

The lack of real controll can be frustrating, like I wanted to set the shutter at a fixed value because a lcd screen was flickering, that worked but I couldn't manually change the exposure at the same time, this meant the camera took over resulting in a underexposed image. Not sure if I should be complaining about this because it is a handycam , just the fact that there is a dedicated control wheel for different functions is already a luxury, but sometimes I need to rely on the auto features more then I want to.

Below film was filmed this Tuesday and is still a draft and there are some animation errors to be fixed, maybe a text to be changed or a song here and there but it's 95% ready, it's quite long, a short version will follow but it's easy to just skip through the longer interview parts.

The only dslr material in there is easily to recognize, it's either very shallow dof shots or steadicam (a blackbird) shots, all other ones done from a slider or tripod are from the cx730's. It's only during these business type of events I bring my homemade slider along, usually it stays at home at a wedding because then is too difficult to handle alone. At a business event I have much more time to get creative shots. I do love he fact that I can slow down my slider shots 50% and still get smooth motion.

The cx730 footage was 1080p 50p and the dslr 1080p 25p.

All sound you hear was recorded through a soundguys mixer with my tascam dr40 but the interviews starting at 06:52 where done with a shotgun mike connected to a beachtek (with a 3 meter xlr cable) that again was connected to the sony, these interviews where done handheld with my small shoulder mount and without use of extra light. It was quite dark, only candle light in the center but spotlights on the sides of the venue. The reason I didn't use the inbuild videolight from the Sony was because I noticed one interviewee had red dots in her eyes from the light, eventhough it was very dark the camera managed to do without light so I decided to leave the light off, I think during the handheld interviews the camera was between 18 to 21db of gain.

The shot at 02:57 and 03:37 was done handheld at 17x zoom! I had one camera on a tripod and the second one in my hands and supporting it on my legs (I was sitting down). The wide angle shot at 03:06 was also handheld. The 17x zoom is partly digital and there is a loss in resolution but after sharpening in post it holds up pretty good.

I love the color these camera's give me in lower light and even if it's not sony ex1 resolution the images turn out pretty sharp.

password: noa

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Beautiful camera movement and editing. Thanks for posting.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Noa, your work is outstanding. I was engrossed in your video and watched it entirely. Too many good things to comment on, I just like it. Well done!

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

It's not me, it's the camera that's all doing this :D I don't know if you noticed but the live interviews done handheld at the end the interviewees where a bit soft, there did't seem to be enough light for the camera to automatically focus right as the background is a bit sharper. I do have to try the face detect function, or whatever it's called, as I read that it uses that to focus better on faces which is perfect for interviews but have not tried it yet. At least it doesn't hunt focus once it locks on.

About cameramovements, my homemade slider sucks and I have to do a lot of trial and error before I get it right, I ordered separate parts and assembled it myself for about 70 dollar but I would be much better of with one that had real bearings but as I use it only a few times a year it's hard to justify the cost. But I do get a kick from controlled motion and am always looking for that perfect move. I think it does give your video a bit more professional look.

I am looking at the panasonic ac90 now as it is real cheap, has a very sharp image and offers enough manual control to finally have a reason to place my xh-a1 on sale. I like the small formfactor and would be a perfect addition when I film dance performances with the 2 cx730 at fixed angles and the ac90 for following the action. The sony's don't keep focus well if you zoom in, lock focus and zoom back out again, something I found out the hard way last time I filmed a play. So I need something more reliable for that part.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I agree, very nice work!!

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Noa have you some experience yet of the AC-90? I am going to retire my Sony Z1/FX1 cameras for next season and have been looking at a couple of these - I've had the Sonys for so long and I love working with them but the lack of definition and poor low light compared with newer units has forced my hand.

Pete

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Hi Peter

I was seriously looking at the Sony EA50 for 2013 but for over $4K it's pales in comparison has no ND's whatsoever (the 90 has auto ND's in the camera) and the Sony at more than double the price seems to have unimpressive low light performance with the stock lens They give the camera a huge APS sensor and then bottleneck the whole thing with a slow F3.5 (at wide) lens.

The AC-90 is awesome value for money and the NR with gain applied is unbelieveable!!! 24db gain and the image just has no noise at all...it's also pin sharp up to 24db but softens just a little at 30db.

Chris

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

That's good to know Chris - The Z1 is very noisy at 12db!!! Fortunately Neat video comes to the rescue for me!

My only concern is the price - my budget is about £3K per camera but I can get 2 AC-90 units for that price! surely too good to be true however if it outperforms the Z1 (which originally cost me £4K) then I'll probably go for it

Cheers

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Dragging this thread back to consumer camcorders I saw a Panasonic TM900 yesterday for the first time & was seriously impressed with the image quality so much so that I have been looking at the current models the X900M (32GB on board memory), the X900 (no onboard memory) & the X800 (dumbed down X900 with mostly auto everything). They all seem to share some of the same core specifications as the AC-90 e.g. 29.8mm Wide Angle to 12x zoom, 5-Axis Hybrid OIS, 3MOS sensor. Could be handy as C&D cams or even as a better quality alternative to a GoPro (the X800 is around the same price).

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Hi Nigel

My buddy Chip in the USA bought an X900 and said he was extremely disappointed with the image. He returned the camera after a week! I'm just wondering if the quality and end result is not anywhere near the normal TM900 ??? I have heard other reports on other forums also saying the X900 is not anywhere near the TM900 in IQ ...No idea why???

Chris

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I have two of the TM900's and one of the TM700's (its predecessor). The image quality is excellent until the light gets very low (1st dance conditions). Whats more they are very intelligent in their use of autofocus and exposure compensation - using a function Panasonic call backlight compensation. They can be relied upon to work unattended, for example if the bride and groom are backlit by a large window and outside the sun is varying because of clouds they will cope fine with the changes. I have to resist the temptation to fiddle with the settings - not an easy thing to do if as a pro you are used to doing most stuff on manual.

I am not familiar with the X900 though, but I would be very surprised if the image quality were inferior. I would suspect user error.

All mine have internal drives (as well as SD card slots) but if I were buying again I'd get the versions that just have card slots. You can then use USB3 via a reader to download the card contents very quickly.

You can use Panasonic's free software to trim out unwanted footage with no impact on quality and no need to rerender.

These cams are also light enough to put in all sorts of unobstrusive places on brackets / window suckers etc. Biggest problem then is guests not seeing them and blocking shots.

But the wide end is nothing like the Gopro for field of view and can be somewhat restrictive. I have a cheap wide-angle convertor for emergency use.

Question re the new AC-90 - as it almost qualifies as a small handicam :- ) The spec looks very tempting but I think in f-stop and ISO terms; is it going to be a 5DIII killer in low light?

Pete

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Absolutely not, the ac90 low light capabilities are "ok", but nothing more then that, A test I saw in another thread showed that at 30db gain the ac90 was comparable to 9db gain on a sony fx1000. This was not taking noise into account, just the exposure on the fx1000 was set to the ac90 at 30db to match and then the fx1000 was at 9db.

My cx730 at 21db gain can match the fx1000 when it is at 15db of gain but also up to 21db of gain on the fx1000, meaning 24db gain and 1/25 shutter on the cx730. then the fx1000 image has excessive grain while the cx730 still produces a usable image, not noise free, but way better then the fx1000.

I do think the ac90 is a very good "small" camera, especially for it's price but I do worry a bit about it's performance in harsh light conditions, it does have build in ND's but they seem not to be enough in bright sunlight. there was one video I found where you clearly saw the camera was having issues with very bright and shadow areas in one image. This I think is normal with very small sensor camera's but having the exposure spot on is, like with my cx730, essentials to get a good image. It's even better to have a bit underexposed then to over expose. If you overexpose colors look over saturated and you start to get this video look.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

It's 29,5mm I thought which is more or less standard on more professional camera's with a fixed lens as well which is a good wideangle for most conditions, only the 26,5mm I have on the cx730 is really awesome :) Helps a lot in tight spaces.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

The TM900 & TM700 have a lens that is 35mm at widest so the 29.5mm lens on the newer models is quite an improvement. The fish-eyed super-wide of the GoPro is too much for me so I generally use it on Narrow (whatever the 35mm equivalent is).

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

No, was interested in one. Here's a store that sells it for 1880 euro which is the same price as a canon xa10 and even 400 euro cheaper then a sony nx30. Just the fact that is has 3 rings on the lens makes it a much better camera in terms of controll because that is what I mainly miss on my cx730. I often don't like it when I have to let the camera decide what to do.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I have a Sony xr520 as well and that is a 35mm lens I think which is very restricting, don't like that narrow fov at all, 29,5mm hits the "sweet spot" in terms of usability.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Today I noticed one thing on my cx730 which made my heart skip a beat, last wedding they where blowing bubbles when the couple came out of church, one of these bubbles touched my lens and left some soap spots.

So today I noticed that and tried to clean the lens, The lens itself is very well protected when the camera is not in use as some kind of metal shutter instantly closes if the camera is powered down but it also makes it a bit more difficult to reach the lens because when the protection is open the lens sits a bit deeper.

I was not sure whether to leave the ois on or off, the lens is in a round ball that can move around in it's housing, if you disable to ois the lens stops moving so I figured that would be the safest way to carefully clean the lens. Then I noticed the lens ball is still loose in it's case which made it difficult to clean when I was rubbing the front of the lens with a soft piece of cloth as th elens kept moving the whole time and I was not able to block it from moving.

And then it happened, I hardly applied any force to the lens, was very carefull, but when I turned the camera back on I got a error message and saw that the lens ball was leaning towards one side and it didn't react to setting the ois on or off. I tried gently pushing the ball inside it's housing to different directions and turning the camera and ois on and off and it took a minute untill I heared that the ois mechanisme grabbed the lens and pulled it back into position. Now it does work again but it shows how fragile that new OIS thing is.

I think next time I will leave the OIS on, once the camera"s ois responded again I cleaned the lens a bit more with ois on and that seem to do the trick, that's not very reassuring as I need the camera tomorrow at a wedding. Good that I have 2 more of these small camera's.

One advantage of having such small handicams is that they are usually cheap enough so you can buy 2 or 3 to cover for one that might not work when you have to shoot, a disadvantage is that they are not as well build as the larger (semi-)pro camera that are designed to take a bit of a beating.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Please can anyone recommend me Sony vegas project and rendering settings? I was filming with Sony CX730 in 50p and I want to make DVD in high quality as possible. Not blu-ray.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I edit in Edius but maybe you can try it as well, after a lot of trial and error I finally settled for a 1080p 25p project setting to edit my 25p and 50p footage in (Use both formats in one project), I export to a 1080p 25p file and then import that into tmpgenc authoring works as a 1080p 25p file and then just export to dvd as interlaced and the endresult looks great on dvd.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Thanks for your reply Noa, but it will be better if someone could give instructions on Sony Vegas and later DVD Architect for making SD DVD's. I have created one DVD and I can see the loss of quality when objects are moving.

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

Edgar -
First off, set project settings to match the source files - you may have to tweak them to match depending on Vegas version.

I render an HD version - you can go up to approx 18Mbps and burn it to a DVD and it will be readable with some BR players. BR can handle higher bitrates. Watch the bitrates with SD output as well - the lower the bitrate, the less data, and the lower the quality.

That's a "general description" of what you're after, I'm not in "editing mode" right now, too much else to do with the holidays and year end, and I don't recall my tweaked/saved settings offhand, but it'll get you pointed in the right direction.

If you're still stumped, you might poke around the dedicated Vegas portion of DVi. There you should find intricate details of all those settings in Vegas and what they do (I'll admit Vegas leaves me feeling a tad lost within the complexity sometimes!).

Hope that helps get you better results. Unfortunately, it's hard to get "SD" output to keep up with the expectations that HD creates... AND stuff it onto a DVD. Quality and detail are at least in part a function of bitrate and compression considerations, and data rapidly expands to fill and exceed the space available...

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

apologies for digging up an old thread but i'm looking for info from anyone that has experience of small cams for weddings and events.
Until recently i was operating a Sony HXR-NX5 and HXR-MC2000 as a B cam, I've sold off the MC2000, i didn't like the tiny LCD screen and the camera wasn't really up to the level i was expecting. The form factor was ok and it looked good but it unfortunately it didn't perform to expectations.

So i was thinking of adding another cam something along the lines of one of the Sony prosumer cams, the CX730 or the new CX410V (this has great stability and good reach & very affordable)

I had considered the HXR-NX30 but this works out around €1000 dearer than the CX410V, all i'd get for that is XLR capability and a shotgun.
My partner works the B cam, apart from framing a shot, she knows little about cameras etc. so just points it in the right direction, so manual controls and all that would be extras that are not a great advantage.

What are people's opinions of either the Sony CX730E or the CX410V to meet my needs here?

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

I have posted below video before but just to show you what a Sony cx730 is capable of, only the steadicam shots are done with a dslr, all the rest (slider, tripod and handheld shots) with 2 sony cx730. (only in the church there was a 3rd sony xr520 on the balcony)
password: noa5

Re: Shooting weddings with small handicams
 

thanks for that Noa the footage is excellent, i'm leaning towards the CX410V it's cheap enough that if it doesn't work out i can sell it on at a reasonable price, it's not available til next month.