HMC150 + Merlin (First Time Use at Wedding)

O

offstandard

Member
My friend had asked me to shoot her Wedding.

This is the first time (other than practicing constantly by myself in front of friends looking stupid) at an actual event.

This is a single long clip of their dance. I shot from behind them as they walked in because I didn't want to block the photographers. They paid $5000+ for the photographer and it wouldn't be nice for me (a "will shoot for food" friend) to block all the shots haha.

I'm amazed how nice it looks... but this is my first time so I would like some criticism and improvements I can make to better myself. This is raw footage, no color/contrast edits done yet.

Thanks!

http://vimeo.com/8415572
 
720p 25fps, I would guess from the shutter speeds he listed. Very nice work. Yeah, the 1/25th shutter speed does give it a bit of a "video" look, but in that low light, maybe it's a good trade-off for a less noisy picture.
 
hmm, could you elaborate on the "video" look? I've been reading tons and tons and my understanding is to shoot at 1/25th shutter to get a more "movie" look, but maybe I got it wrong. haha. And yes it was 720p 30... for this I decided to do a 720p 30 because I used a second camera (the GH1) and that only has 720p 30. =/

should I have shot at 1/50th?
 
offstandard said:
hmm, could you elaborate on the "video" look? I've been reading tons and tons and my understanding is to shoot at 1/25th shutter to get a more "movie" look, but maybe I got it wrong. haha. And yes it was 720p 30... for this I decided to do a 720p 30 because I used a second camera (the GH1) and that only has 720p 30. =/

should I have shot at 1/50th?
Click to expand...

Well, standard film is shot at 24fps, 1/48 sec shutter speed, using a 180 degree shutter angle (shutter is open half the time). That gives the picture a certain set of motion blur characteristics. The shutter on a film camera can't be held open for a full 1/24th of a second because there has to be a point where the reel rotates to the next frame.

So exposing for the full duration of the frame gives you a lot more motion blur. 1/24 sec speed with give you twice as much motion blur as 1/48.

Same difference between 1/25 vs 1/50. I assumed the European 25p frame rate because generally the PAL standard shooters will expose in multiples of 25.

If you're shooting 30 . . . is it even possible expose at 1/25th? That doesn't seem to make sense. That would make the shutter speed slower than the frame rate. The slowest you could expose would be 1/30th. Unless I am totally off-base . . .

For 30p, 1/60 is probably ideal for motion. Maybe a little slower if you want to avoid judder in pans. But like I said, the footage looks fine. And considering the low light environment, a fast shutter speed would have forced you to boost gain or something to compensate, giving you more noise.

It's always a trade-off in less than ideal lighting. Either more blur or more noise. There is no "right" answer, and everything looks great, so I'm not going to presume to say what you "should" have done!

However, I would double check your shutter speed and frame rate again. That doesn't make sense to me.
 
Great shots. Looks like it was a fun place to shoot.

I can see this is raw footage and I don't know what the final product looks like. Or maybe you had a second, hard cam. However, if I had to make a suggestion, it would be to slow down or limit your movements. It started to get a little dizzying with all the spinning. Maybe just stand still for a little while or just stick to slowly dollying in and out.

But other than that I can tell you've been practicing with the Merlin. I like it a lot and wish I had one.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top