shooting my first wedding,on my hmc150 /thinking 720p30- what do u think

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burning holmes

Member
i am shooting my first wedding this weekend and i just got my hmc150-i only have one-16gig card -and two 4 gig cards..i was thinking of shooting in eitheir 720p30 or 10801p30---they will use the same amount of time on the card correct, i am shooting outside then inside for reception, any info would be great, thanks-HOLMES
 
All the frame rates in PH mode use the same amount of space. I would get yourself another card if you can. Is it a Catholic wedding (they tend to be LONG)?

A 16gig card is going to get you about 99 minutes in PH mode. 4gig is about 25 minutes. So you've got about 150 minutes... or about 145-150 minutes.
 
720/30p will work fine, but go practice with the camera as much as you can. Seeing that you just got the camera, you don't want to screw this up by not be familiar with it, and there are little things that can pop up. I had a few minor issues on my first wedding shoot with it, and I had had the camera for 2 months to practice with it. Yes, 720 and 1080 use the same amount of space on the card as long as you use the same bitrate setting. You may want to get at least 2 more 16g cards. While SD card failures are rare, they can happen. Besides, you may need more card space if you want to shoot in max quality. If you are just shooting the ceremony, it shouldn't be a problem, but add the reception and you won't make it with one 16g and two 4g cards at max quality. Be careful with the 4g cards, its almost guaranteed that the point at which you run out of card space will be in the middle of a critical moment that must be captured.


I like to use 60p because I use a lot of slo-mo stuff in my wedding videos, but 30p will give a nice look.
 
i shoot all my wedding stuff at 24p. i have 2 8gbs, 1 4gb and 1 32gb card. usually i stick with the 8's and am always fine. i set my laptop up somewhere for offloading my cards with folders created for offloading in advance. so its just stick the card in and drag and drop. but i always speak with the wedding director before hand to find out how long the ceremony will be, and then add 20 minutes to that for safety.
 
i shot two weddings at 720/30p recently and they both came out great! I prefer the look of 30p for my projects since it splits the difference in film and video look.

Definitely get more memory than you need... I had to offload a 32gb p2 card during a reception and missed a good chunk of shooting time since my camera was down... Wish I had the 150's long recording times at that wedding, but someone rented all of them that weekend and I had to use a 170.
 
If I want a final output of 30p, but I shoot 60p, vegas can remove every other frame of normal speed shots, while still allowing me to get 50% slo-mo, correct?
 
I too shoot my weddings in 720/60p. I like the look and as others have said it is great for slo-mo. At a typical jewish wedding we use 3 x 16gb cards, that is with 2 cameras at the service and one at the reception. For the typical Catholic wedding usually 4 x 16gb cards. Then add another card in there if we let one role while the venu is flipping the room from the wed to the reception.

See if anyone else in your area has any cards that you can rent/borrow. We just lent one last week to someone in our local video association because she thought that she could go to Best Buy or someplace to get the cards.

Why change from 60p to 30p? Blu Ray supports 60p, so me personally that is what I burn when I am finished with the editing...

I guess another option as someone else pointed out is to take a laptop with you and dump the 16gb card off and use the 4gb in the meantime. Personally though I like to have it in two spots. When I shoot a wedding with one, after I am done with the card I dump it onto a laptop, but I leave it on the card. If I am going to need that card then I also put it onto a external HDD.

Phil
 
Phil B said:
Why change from 60p to 30p? Blu Ray supports 60p, so me personally that is what I burn when I am finished with the editing...
Phil
Click to expand...

Final Output to SD DVD, ability to get 50% slo-mo, and less video look.

It all depends on your workflow.
 
You didn't say what the end result is, so depending on what you want, will be what you should select.

If a SD video on DVD, the 720/60p makes sense; one can do slow motion a lot better than the lower frame rates.

If the output is shown in HD, then depending on the TV (1080 or 720), will decide the resolution.

If you chose to use the lower frame rates like 30p or 24p, remember that the shutter speed should be long to avoid a strobe like effect. (30p use 1/60 of a second and 24p use 1/48 of a second)

BEFORE THE WEDDING: Be sure to try several test shots to see what looks best to use.


Bob Diaz
 
DEFINTIELY....buy another card or two. i wouldnt go 32 but rather 16's or even 8's. safety in numbers.

i havent shot a wedding with the 150 but i have shot quite a bit of other stuff in low light. i shoot @ 60fps most of the time. i like having the option of creamy slomo. if light becomes an issue you can always take it down to 30fps and it will still match nicely with your 60fps.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
final output wil be a dvd for them and them i am going to compress it for a video example on my website....so i think i am going to use the 720p60---so i can get that sexy slow mo of the bride tripping : )lol)
 
I think you need more cards. I shoot weddings in Chicago for a typical Catholic, Cristian wedding 2.5-3.5 hours is what I record and that includes PreCeremony, Ceremony, Park, and Reception. I shoot Arabic Weddings as a 2nd shooter just for the reception and shot 4-5 hours. You definitely need more cards IMHO I bring 8 8gig cards to each event I've yet to record more than 3.5 hours since I've gotten the HMC150 but I don't like to chance it. I also don't like to but all my eggs in one basket hence all the 8gig cards if I do get a bad card I don't lose 1/2 the event or a big part of it. (knock on wood) I also don't erase or format my cards until I download them to my macs internal HD then an External HD and also a DVD-DL. I know that sound pretty wild to some folks but this is someones wedding you can't chance having a Hard Drive Failure. As I write this I have my other mac running Disk Warrior cause of friend of mine Hard Drive failed and guess what he has no backup and there's weddings videos and pictures and TV shows on it.
If you can't buy more cards in time shoot in HA mode should be fine especially if you are delivering in SD.

This is that drives current status
http://www.eliasneris.com/Sample/rebuild.jpg
 
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burning holmes said:
am i able to get a slow mo effect if i shot 720p30-or do i need to shot 720p60? thanks in advance for all the help.
Click to expand...

yes, of course you can get slomo from 720p 30, but going to half speed (50%) it will end up being only 15 fps. not horrible but a typical looking slomo from most video. 60fps however, slowed to 50% will give you 30fps....creamy and preeeetttty!!! very smooth.

david
www.davidprobst.com
 
can i take my cards and dump them to my macbook pro on the set simply by dragging the folder to my desktop...then when i get home i wil back it up on a hardrive...point being is i have to scratch my whole harddrive, install snow leopard , then upgrade my fcp 5.1 to 6.0.......thats why i am just thinking of using my laptop like a portable hardrive to offload footage when i am on set...that would work ...right???
 
burning holmes said:
am i able to get a slow mo effect if i shot 720p30-or do i need to shot 720p60? thanks in advance for all the help.
Click to expand...

Let me add to what David had said....

With 720/60p, 50% speed is 30 FPS. If you go to 33% (1/3) speed, it becomes 20 FPS; which is not too bad either. In fact you may like the dream like effect this has. At 25% (1/4) speed, you are about as low as you can go without a bad strobe like look.

With 720/30p, as David pointed out, 50% speed is 15 FPS. However, going to 33% speed gives you 10 FPS and you will see each step in the slow motion movement. AT 25% speed, it becomes 7.5 FPS and seeing every step stands out even more.


Now if you like the look of 50% speed of 720/30p and don't want to use any other speeds, 720/30p is OK for you.


Bob Diaz
 
Make sure you have plenty of cards... not just one 32GB, but maybe 8-16GB cards. If you use 8GB cards you can burn them to a DVD+DL and also back them up to a couple of hard drives... Never backup to only one place and delete/format the card (i've seen many people crying because the drive where they had all their stuff failed)

also make sure you have enough batteries, at least 1 high capacity and the one that comes with stock **Note that if you only have 1 high capacity battery you will need to bring a charger** get 2 high capacity batteries if possible.

Also like Elias Neris mention, if you can't get more cards you can also shoot HA mode witch is 1080-60i... for SD projects thats more than enough quality, and would look really good on HD as well!
 
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