AF100 for wedding shoots, any advice?

C

cowbananas

Member
I'm 5 days away from picking up the AF100 or Pani AG AC160. I'd like to go with the AF100 but am not in the position of being able to try it out beforehand as the camera I buy is overseas and I leave on Sunday.
If I had the Af100 with a fast autofocus lens, do you know if this would be a suitable setup for shooting weddings, especially indoors when I can't use extra lighting, only available light.
I've used the Sony Z1 till now and that's been great. How would the AF100 compare to that handling wise? I do need AF sometimes off tripod so that would be important.
Is the AF100 going to be a handful in this situation? Again, I would want a fast AF lens on this cam.
Thanks very much for any advice you may have, guys.
 
Fast AF lenses are this cam's biggest problem, as you'll see from the various threads. Fast primes are plentiful and great on it, but that's going to be awkward for weddings. I know people do use it for weddings - there was an amazing one posted a few weeks ago though I can't find the thread at the moment. By and large I think most people would say that the 160 is a better bet as you'll get your shots much more easily and safely. If you pair it with a GH2 for a B cam to get your shallow DoF shots you'd be in a good place. Just my opinion of course - the Af is a great camera, but it does take more careful setting up for each shot than the 160.
 
Thanks Tom, the 160 would put me in familiar territory for sure. I've seen some of Philip Bloom's work with the AF100 which has just blown me away but really, I have no experience with this type of camera. I don't have a GH2, just a Canon EOS 550D I've just bought which I wouldn't use for weddings. I've yet to investigate the video side of that camera.
As you say, sometimes with weddings you just don't have the luxury of setting up each shot. The AC160 would make life easy....the AF100 would give me the opportunity to really learn my craft.
 
cowbananas said:
Thanks Tom, the 160 would put me in familiar territory for sure. I've seen some of Philip Bloom's work with the AF100 which has just blown me away but really, I have no experience with this type of camera. I don't have a GH2, just a Canon EOS 550D I've just bought which I wouldn't use for weddings. I've yet to investigate the video side of that camera.
As you say, sometimes with weddings you just don't have the luxury of setting up each shot. The AC160 would make life easy....the AF100 would give me the opportunity to really learn my craft.
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Yes, the AF100 would give you the opportunity to learn your craft for sure, but are you sure you want to learn this craft while shooting a wedding? I mean, the couple is paying you to record one of the most important days of their lives and you want to learn your craft while shooting it?

If you're doing a one-man one-cam shoot, I'd highly recommend against using the AF100 unless you already have extensive experience doing it and are comfortable.

As far as I know, there's no such thing as a fast autofocus lens for this camera with the exception of the 20mm pancake, but there's no zoom. You should have a zoom since you'll need to frame shots from various distances. There are a few zooms out there (Olympus I think) but the zoom is weak and I'm not sure if the autofocus works on the AF100.

I highly recommend that unless you are very experienced in this area, shoot the wedding with the AC160. Having said that, the autofocus on the AC160 is messed up so be prepared to use MF anyways, however it's still much easier than rolling with the AF100.
 
AC 160 all the way for weddings and run and gun. The fact that the 160 can record to two sd cards redundantly is a must for any type shoot where there will be no retakes.
 
I can speak personally from your point of view, I was shooting weddings using the A1, which was a great camera but it wasn't nearly where I wanted my quality to be. I had no real experience using a DLSR or any sort of interchangeable lens camera. I decided to make the plunge and get this camera and a GH2 as a backup and I couldn't imagine not filming without this camera or a DSLR going forward. I am pretty involved in the wedding film industry and if you are as well, you'll know that any company worth booking is using a DSLR, mostly GH2's or Canon's. I just came back from the in[focus] conference, which is heavily based on wedding filmmakers, and not one of the top dogs are using anything but DSLR's. I will tell you that the AF100 is WAY easier to shoot with than any of the other cams on the market, but you'll still be able to achieve great looking images. I guess it's a matter of where you want to be with your company in 2 years. If you want to stay in the game and be competitive, your decisions should be pretty clear and going with the AF100 or some other type of large sensor camera should be a no brainer. All you have to do is look around in your market. I doubt many are still using smaller chip camera's, but if they are, this is an even greater incentive for you to move forward with better equipment which will set you even further apart from your competition. I understand it's easier shooting with something "more suited" for ENG, but 100% of the people that I talk to for inspiration which are Event DV's top 25, are using DSLR's. The ones that say DSLR's and the AF100 are not suited for run and gun, clearly don't do this type of shooting. It's not the best suited for it, but the industry has made it the norm now and the decision to move forward with it, or stay behind is up to you. I'll tell you that, I would be bored out of my mind shooting with anything less than these systems now. It unlocks your creativity and really helps push your style forward. If you're immersed in run and gun shooting all the time, you begin to be proficient very quickly, and what one may see as a hinderance is really a creative opportunity for another. If anything you should be embracing this technology and make it payout for you.
 
Some quite mixed opinions, for sure. Phil, of course I don't intend to learn the cam on the job, not until I was experienced with all it's quirks etc. As I mentioned, my DSLR experience is at the beginning, it's always been conventional video cams for me.
Swanny, very interesting points and as you say, practice makes even better shots. We are at a crossroads and that is exactly my problem. I really am leaning towards the AF100 and of course, I would only bring it in to play when proficient. Is there a good zoom AF lens, Swanny, that you would recommend to start with for weddings in particular as I need the reach?
 
The only fast video-style autofocus lens right now is the 14-140. Good lens but not fast, it's f4-5.8. Sometime soon Panasonic will release the lenses you want, the lumix X pro lenses, 12-35 f/2.8 and 35-100 f/2.8, both with optimized video autofocus. But we don't know when those will hit the market.
 
I didn't have one bit of experience with DSLR's before I purchased the AF100 either. It took some time to figure out just the terminology of lenses and what not. I purchased the AF100 and the panasonic 14-140, since I didn't know what focal lengths I would like. Coming from a video camera, I would just zoom until it looked right, not knowing what focal length I was at. I didn't shoot one gig with it. I quickly realized I needed faster glass for indoor weddings so I purchased a tamron 28-75 f/2.8, and a tamron 70-200. The 70-200 get's very little use now. I then purchased the Olympus 14-35 and the 35-100, which were my primary lenses last year since they were both f/2.0 throughout. They are not without problems by I worked around them to achieve fast "variable primes". A good 17-55 f/2.8 a 28-70 f/2.0 or a 24-70 f/2.0 and something around 85 or 100mm will be very useful for you. My 35-100 although bulky is great for Toast's and the early part of the reception. A 24-70 would do the job as well, but it will be a tad slower on the aperture.
 
I didn't have a whole lot of experience with manual focus before I got the AF100, but you will pick it pretty quickly, especially when the stakes are high. You'll want to be on your A-game, and will pay attention to the LCD like you never have before. It's now a non issue for me and soon becomes second nature.
 
Shooting with the AF100 will definitely sharpen your game. I was using eng style cameras but i would never swap back now. An additional monitor is essential though.
I use a Snallhd dp6, I have recently started using a hacked gh2 as a bcam. I bought the Canon 24/70 2.8 and the kipon adapter but the adapter is not tight on the cam.
I got the Canon to use with the Birger adapter, but I doubt thats going to materialize now, so that will be going on ebay soon as the new panny x's come out.Just got the
Pan/Leica 25/1.4 but havent used it yet. This was shot with the AF using the 14/140 and the 20m pancake
http://vimeo.com/25482258
 
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TomLenham said:
ah, found it! http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?267317-Same-Day-edit-Wedding-Music-Video
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Tom, that wedding was shot on the 5D, but for some reason, posted in the AF100 section.

cowbananas- as you learn your camera and craft, perhaps you can take some of the pressure off by having a second camera/shooter using a small chip cam for safety? Then as you gain more confidence, use a second large sensor camera, as most weddings are multi-camera.

Best of luck! (especially on lenses!)
 
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