Wedding shooting - camera setting suggestions

J

Jeff

Member
I have new HMC150PU and will be filming my first wedding with it in 2 weeks. The test footage so far looks fantastic, and I like the way the camera feels similar to my old DVX100.

I need some advice on shooting settings. Now that the camera has been out for a while, is there any consensus on the best recording format? A couple of notes:

1. I will be editing on a Mac, probably in FCE4. In Steve Mullen's book on iMovie09, he states that iMovie works best with progressive, but that 24p is bad for slow motion. So that would suggest shooting in 1080/30p if I want the best resolution? Or can FCE handle interlace just as well as progressive?

2. My B camera will be a Canon Vixia HF11. Suggestions for best settings to match the Panasonic?

3. I have been burning some Blu-ray AVCHD DVDs with Toast, and they look great on my home setup. However, some of the family members don't have Blu-ray players, so I'll have to distribute on DVD. So - might as well just shoot in 720?

Thanks in advance for any help. I have been looking to buy Barry Green's HMC150 book, but can't find it on Amazon and assume it's not available yet? Jeff
 
You ask a lot of good questions Jeff.

I started shooting 1080 30p but I wasn't satisfied with the results. I like 60i better (the codec seems to hold up better) but I don't like shooting interlaced. I shot a wedding in 720 60p and I like the results better. For me the 720 images do look quite a bit softer but sometimes (like bridal prep) that can be a good thing. 720 60p I can also view with VLC in real time on my macbook. The 60p is awesome for slow motion. Already I've taken several 60p clips and conformed them to 24fps. Then in FCP I speed them up to 2.5x (as instructed by Barry) for real time playback, then when I want solid slow motion I just drop the speed to 100%. It looks amazing! Plus I deliver my online videos on vimeo which takes 720 video.

It's completely up to you. You're the only person that can decide what will work best for you. I like 720 60p.
 
Thanks, Jordan for your thoughts. I will try the 720/60p as you suggest. Just a couple of follow-up questions:

1. Is 60p worse for low-light situations (like dancing at the reception)? If so, are you able to maintain good exposure by adding gain without excessive grain?

2. My Canon Vixia says it can shoot in 60i, PF30, or PF24 if I read the menus correctly -- no 60p. Is this a problem for my B camera? Or can FCE mix & match well?

3. I am also new to Vimeo, but like the forum and have gotten good suggestions from others there. Can you put an entire wedding video (getting ready + ceremony + reception), which might be an hour, on Vimeo?

Jeff
 
1) The higher the shutter speed the less light that can get in.

As I understand it...

60i records at 1/60
30p records at 1/48
24p records at 1/48
60p records at 1/60

So yes recording at 60i or 60p will yield a very slightly darker image then 30 or 24. However the smaller format (720) yields better low light performance.

2) That will be a problem if you want to do a multicam edit using the HMC-150 and your Canon. I think I might sell my HF100 and buy the GH1. It can shoot in 720 60p. I rarely use my back cam (I have 2x HMC-150s), I only use it if I have to (both HMC-150s don't have usable shots). If you don't want to multicam edits then it would be less of a problem.

3) Vimeo is great. I'm great with h.264 encoding and JW Player but I've yet to have a client complain about not being able to view a vimeo video. There is a 1GB file limit PER UPLOAD for Vimeo Plus members. So you could upload a lot at a time. If you wanted to upload all those sections I would suggest having each section it's own file. That would make it easier on the user as well.
 
JeffSwain said:
Is 60p worse for low-light situations (like dancing at the reception)? If so, are you able to maintain good exposure by adding gain without excessive grain?
Click to expand...

The difference between 30 and 60p in low light is negligible. What's good about the 150 is the image is so clean compared to other HD cams that it's very easy to tweak the brightness in post without adding a lot of noise.
 
For the 60i, you should be able to convert it to 60p when you interpolate the fields with glaussen blur?

I have a HMC70 that shoots 1080/60i and I also will be shooting a wedding next week. I haven't used it as a C cam for a wedding yet, so I wanted to see what you guys recommend.

I most likely will be shooting 720/60p on the 2 HMC150's and I am limited to 1080/60i on the HMC70. I'm thinking about converting the 1080/60i down to 720/30p and not useing it for any slow motion.
 
MadHMC150, what do you think of the HMC70, how does it compare to the 150... low light? noise? manual controls?
A friend of mine asked me to look into it, he wants to buy one... i tell him to get the 150 but thats not an option!... he's also considering the Sony FX7

Anyone has a comparison on the FX7 vs HMC70? mostly interested on lowlight and camera controls!

For my work i shoot PH 1080 30P and so far it looks good! =)
 
I've been using the HMC150 with the HV30 for weddings. I set the HMC150 at 720/60p at 1/60 shutter speed, and the HV30 in shutter priority, 60i at 1/60 shutter speed. I transcode all footage to Cineform 1280x720 60p. It all matches up quite nice.
 
I always shoot in 24p because I prefer a film look to a video look. You can also adjust the syncro scan all the way down to 1/24 for low light shooting.
 
Superfresa66 said:
MadHMC150, what do you think of the HMC70, how does it compare to the 150... low light? noise? manual controls?
Click to expand...

Since we have 2 HMC150's we haven't used the 70 in low light situations yet. This will change when we do a 3 cam wedding on the 27th. The controls are difficult to manipulate on the fly, so its a better auto-cam and it does a pretty good job. When in M, the gain is clean up to 12db. The quality is great but the colors are slightly washed out when compared to the 150. For the price, you cant beat it if you need long record times, xlr audio, and a big pro looking camera. I do wish it had a progressive setting, but this can be done in post.
 
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