My first real manual shoot with the 5D

[HankCastello]

Suffice to say though 2 hour wedding videos and I are finished.

Put me down as saying that a complete, doc-style wedding video with preps, ceremony, photo shoots, between stuff, reception & exit should never exceed one hour by very much.  45 - 65 minutes generally.

FX1 does not shoot 24p and forcing 24fps with pull-down differences in post never quite achieves the desired effect.  As far as I'm concerned, we shoot "video", not "film", thus 30fps is fine.

[damian]

Well, offering an uncut ceremony, when local Catholic churches run 75-80 minute ceremonies, having a 65 minute video is pretty impossible.  Furthermore, you and I shoot a VERY different type of video.  It would be hard to put into words...lol.

[HankCastello]

I try to cut all the dead time from the ceremony, so that things keep moving.  That means not showing communions.  We show seating, starting with grandparents, but by having multiple cameras, we can cut out over half the actual seating times.  When officiants get overzealous with prayers, I'll cut one or two out.  Either the brides don't mind or they don't notice because I've never been asked to put them back in.

[damian]

Yeah, I feel you on that, we just have some long talkers out this way.  Several priests seem to really want to give the couples "a talking to" and that has led quite a number of my ceremonies to really take some time. 

Part of my changes to come will definitely involve cutting some ceremony time up, but I'll leave options opened for those that really want it all.

Anyway, back on topic, I'm liking these camera's a lot.  I wonder if the shutter life of these newer Canon's has improved any.  Average shutter life between Nikons and Canons is quite the difference.

[kwshaw1]

Our local association president bought a Canon 5D and described the low-light capability as only slightly better than some of the better recent video cameras (e.g. Sony Z5U), and said the images get too grainy at the super-high ISO settings. He also made similar remarks as some here about the difficulties of shooting video with a DSLR, particularly in terms of keeping shots stable - he said to plan to shoot mostly on a tripod.

But on other forums I've seen people raving about the DSLRs and one guy is getting ready to sell his Canon XH-A1s in favor of DSLR models, so I guess they work for some folks. Interesting times.

[damian]

I think doc style shooters are going to find them fairly useless, but cinematic type of guys that have the stabilization equipment to work with will run with them.

You said that guy commented on the graininess at high ISO, but doesn't that camera's ISO go to something crazy high?  Nikon D60 gets grainy at 800ISO and definitely at 1600 (the max on that cam)...that canon goes to 6400 or something crazy.  Are ISO levels comparable between brands?

[kwshaw1]

I don't have any comparison information about graininess between DSLR brands, but yes they do have some very high ISO settings which may not be desirable.

I wasn't initially impressed with the low-light response of the Canon 7D, but I shot a clip last night of a fire truck going by our house with Santa Claus in tow, and the playback of that scene looks impressive on the camera LCD screen. I'll need to get it into a computer to take a closer look, but it sure seems better than what I get from my FX1s in similar situations.

At a recent association meeting someone asked our former President how he likes his Panasonic HMC150 cameras, and he said, "they're fine, but I'm mostly shooting with the Canon 7D now".

[BillGrant]

It's very important to avoid paying attention to people's opinions on graininess and low light ability (even mine) the clip I posted here was shot at 3200ISO. I find the 5D footage clearly exponentially better than the A1 even at 6400ISO. So, no the Z5 is still a 1/3" video camera. He is right about stabilization though. I use 2 things primarily with the 5D, 1 is the CB-105 shoulder mount which works great, or I use my monopod with a z-finder LCD HOOD and that works great. It is nearly impossible for me to shoot in low light or mixed light anymore with my A1 since I've been using the 5D. It is that much different.
Bill