Is DVX100/100A/100B Suitable For Wedding Shoots?

A

andybiz_2005

Well-known member
Hi all,

Recently, I met up with one the chief videographers in a videography production house in my country. This production company specialises in wedding videography & is considered the premiere, most respected & high-end company. It is currently the leader in video production in my country.

When speaking to the chief videographer, he told me that the Panasonic DVX100A/100B is not really suitable for capturing wedding videos because it's audio is hard to control. He cited examples when the camera's external XLR microphone got near the couple & there was a loud noise for example, the audio would suddenly spike to a loud volume. And he said the cameraman will then have to quickly adjust the 2 independent volume channels on the camera to bring down the volume. Therefore, the volume will have to be constanly adjusted depending on the sounds it records. This is the main reason why he insists that all his videographer use Sony camcorders like the VX2100 or PD170 because they don't suffer from this loud audio spike when a loud noise source is nearby. They have tried using DVX100As in the past for wedding shoots, but quickly realised it was not suitable.

But he did mention that the DVX100A excels at reality-TV videos, event videos & budget film-making because the sound from the external XLR mic is very good.

Have many of you here used DVX100A/100B & found this to be a problem? How do you set your volume levels so that nearby loud subjects don't spike up the volume? Do you have to constantly adjust the levels depending on where & how you shoot? Thanks in advance.

Andrew
 
I've shot plenty of weddings using my dvx, and I've never had this problem. Any audio problems I've come across were because of the house speakers, someone hitting their wireless mic, mic drop-out, etc. But I've never had any problems with the camera's audio itself.
 
Thanks CaptianWhacky for your feedback on the DVX. I did notice that my audio captured from the external XLR microphone did spike suddenly when I was shooting a seminar & the speaker nearby my camera began to raise his voice. The volume increased substantially, even though I kept the volume levels the same throughout the recording. I guess the volume can be adjusted in post.
 
That's the result of having a good microphone that will pick up the nuances of the sounds around you.

You do not need to record stereo for your events. You have two audio tracks, so my advice is to set one mic level 20db lower than the other mic level. If there is a spike you have the -20db audio track as a backup.
 
StormFactory said:
That's the result of having a good microphone that will pick up the nuances of the sounds around you.

You do not need to record stereo for your events. You have two audio tracks, so my advice is to set one mic level 20db lower than the other mic level. If there is a spike you have the -20db audio track as a backup.
Click to expand...
Seems strange as to why sony's video cameras are not facing this problem ? Anyone could explain ? Is the audio recording mechanism different ? JUst curious
 
I run into this problem all the time with my shooters (I edit and shoot). Two of them shoot on 100a's, and to be perfectly honest, they're not "experts" with their camcorders. Well when they give me the tapes back for edit, the audio is always all over the place, making it a much longer editing process than it should.

I have to CONSTANTY remind them to "WATCH YOUR AUDIO LEVELS!", and still I get scene's that are too loud or too quiet, and I have to spend more time in post to clean it up.

In my experiences, Yes, the DVX is much more difficult to get supreme audio during a wedding shoot... and I shoot a LOT of weddings (about one a week). I don't discourage my guys from using them, I just scream and ***** when I'm in the editing room spending 20 extra hours fixing what should have been done during the shoot.

On another note, I just picked up an XL2 a couple weeks ago, and have used it on 3 shoots so far. I have to admit, the audio is MUCH easier to control than the 100a (Even much easier than the XL1s). I can pretty much set it to where the levels stay in the upper greens, and only have to change it when I'm standing right in front of a speaker during a reception.

If you are really good with the camera, you can accomplish good audio just fine. But on wedding shoots, there's a lot to keep track of in a fast paced shooting environment, and even when I'm shooting on a DVX personally, I can run into a spike here and there.

Like others said, you could always set one level high, and one level low if you want.

-brown

EDIT: p.s. My shooters got these camera's (100a's) from MY ADVICE, becuase I think the downside's don't even come close to deterring me from buying, or recommending, the DVX.
 
I don't understand the problem here guys... what are you blaming for the at-fault? The XLR mic preamps? The Auto-Level Control (ALC) ? If ALC is off, the preamp will not compensate for quiet audio and you'll get signal strength based on the mic you're using.

It's hard to go between extremly soft audio to blaring loud audio with the same mic, in which you would use a different type of mic for if given the chance. If you don't have the chance then turn on ALC and live with a high noise floor when the preamp compensates for quiet audio.
 
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