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Question about shooting wedding videos with a DSLR.

A couple of people asked me to shoot their wedding videos, but I am reluctant to do it on a DSLR (which is all I have now), because of the shallow DOF. Since most weddings are done in low lit interiors I would either have to keep the aperture wide open, in which case i can only have a couple of people in focus at a time, and have to pick and choose...

Or I can shoot around f8, and have the ISO way up at 6400, and take out the noise later. Cause that way, I won't have to worry about not everyone being in focus. Since it's a live event, I cannot plan the focus pulling ahead of time, of course, so I was wondering, if anyone had any advice on how to shoot such a live event on a DSLR?
 
I was wondering, if anyone had any advice on how to shoot such a live event on a DSLR?

You don't... and especially YOU. Just don't ruin someone's special day.

"I now pronounce you..."

"Wait, wait, the camera cut. Damn. Can you go to take 2? You're going on your honeymoon now???... but my lav mics... Bye.... Don't get them wet."

Even if, by some miracle you did manage to capture all you needed, they'd be divorced before you had it edited.

Just don't do it. Stop wasting your film school money. Stop being an idiot. Get back to work.
 
Needing to ask this is the proof you are not ready for such a responsibility yet.
Don't mean to be harsh, but shooting a wedding requires realistic self confidence, knowing the technical side of shooting from the heart, an eye for beauty and the ability to improvise quickly.
At the moment you seem to have to work on at least 3 of these.
 
Did you finish the client video for the manufacturing place, or abandon it at the rough edit and just give that to them? You don't want to piss off a bride or ruin their day, and you have a reputation for never getting anything done.

The gist here is, wedding videos are NOT what you learn on. You BETTER assist on a LOT before you try to be the main videographer.

Maybe someone will answer technically but you should also consider the other advice.
 
.. in which case i can only have a couple of people in focus at a time, and have to pick and choose...

Or I can shoot around f8, and have the ISO way up at 6400, and take out the noise later. Cause that way, I won't have to worry about not everyone being in focus. Since it's a live event, I cannot plan the focus pulling ahead of time, of course...

So, either you cannot keep up with focus or you sacrifice a sh*t-ton of color and resolution by cranking the ISO? It's a no-win. And the T2i's sensor was terrible at higher ISOs... lots of noise, lost colors that turned out plasticky. Same with the T3i. No noise removal software will save you there.

And I'm sure you've completely failed to consider:

- Sound coverage on a wedding is make-or-break. You're gonna have to have a whole lot of resources, including wireless lavs for - at MINIMUM - groom and officiant, ambient mic to grab the room, and either a feed from the house system (if there even is one) or other ways to mic for singers and readers and musicians. Oh, and you'll want to record all of these things on individual tracks, right?

- Single-camera coverage on a wedding sucks. Big time. You're gonna have to know how to zoom your lens smoothly and to be very selective with what and how you frame... treat it like a live broadcast where your camera is ALWAYS hot.

- The 12:00 recording limit of your T2i. What happens when your camera hits the 12:00 mark and stops recording? And/or when in the service do you stop and restart, sacrificing about 20 crucial seconds of coverage? You have no B-cam rolling to cover that gap, so what do you decide to lose?

- Do you even have a good tripod? Almost everything I have seen you shoot so far has been shaky hand-held. That ain't gonna cut it for a wedding film.

Politely say "Thanks, but no thanks." Then walk away.
 
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It's almost impossible to do a good wedding video with a single cam. You'd have to know the Ceremony on the back of your hand in order to pull it off. Even then it's still pretty hard.

DSLR's, in particular, are good for highlight videos instead of full ceremonies due to a memory cards write size limit.

I would suggest going 2 cam with a lot of coordination but I know where that's going to eventually end up at....
 
I shot a wedding video on several DSLRs. It turned out great (especially thanks to the multiple angles) The shallow DOF adds to the image, and was never a problem since weddings don't involve a whole lot of moving around.
 
Okay thanks. I guess it depends on the wedding. There will be a lot of moving around at the reception, if they want you to do that as well.

I would like to get jobs doing sound for wedding, cause I did the sound only before for a wedding and did a really good job, I was told, but a lot of people want me to do both audio and video, and that is where it gets tricky as the want it to be a one person job.
 
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a lot of people want me to do both audio and video
When will you learn to read between the lines? Stop being an idiot. Don't do it.

If you screw up someone's wedding video, you can hope you're only given a broken nose by the father of the bride. Maybe you'll piss off a magician and he'll perform a disappearing trick on you. Wait... go do an Italian wedding.
 
I shot a wedding video on several DSLRs. It turned out great (especially thanks to the multiple angles) The shallow DOF adds to the image, and was never a problem since weddings don't involve a whole lot of moving around.

It's not a question of can it be done shooting with DSLR. This is strictly a question of Ryan's equipment and expertise. First and foremost, I don't think he has enough practical experience to be able to keep up with a wedding.

But he's shooting on a T2i with the kit lens. The T2i isn't as clean in lower ambient light as some of the newer models. It also cannot bridge files up to the 29:59 mark. It has to stop every 12 minutes. Not exacly a deal killer IF you have two cameras and two operators, and a functional sense of coordination. And the kit lens is not constant-aperture, so zooming in and out will change exposure. Last, he's working with a single camera, and almost no sound support.

To review: just, no.
 
Okay thanks. I was wondering for the sound support, is the FR2LE a bad system to plug the mics into? As for the wedding, I told them I would do the audio, since I have the FR2LE and mics, but refrained from doing video. But is the FR2LE not good enough?
 
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Doing indie films and working on them, we all say go for it!
Doing that corporate video for your boss and he knows you want to learn, great! (did you finish it??)
Doing camera or sound for a wedding with no experience and with a high chance of error or not finishing, NO, JUST, NO! NO!
We totally support you working on as much as you can so anyone reading this as non-support is wrong. Don't ruin someone's day, that day represents a lifetime together. And that's probably as long as it would take to finish it.
 
Okay thanks. I did sound before on a wedding and I was told I did a really good job. I didn't do the video just the sound. So I thought maybe after being told I did a good job before, with the audio, maybe I could do it again. But I would just do audio only for now, since I have been told I am much better at that.

And yes I finished the video for my boss.
 
So the people in charge of the weeding are hiring a sound person separate from a video person, when they don't even have that video person yet? That is odd!

Oh well, best of luck. Sounds messy.
 
Okay thanks. I am saying I applied to do the audio only instead. But haven't gotten a response back yet.

Before when I did audio for a wedding, I offered to just do audio only, and they already had a video person. So I just recorded the audio. Basically I just plugged the FR2LE into their sound system, and recorded the sound from everyone's mics that were used in the ceremony, and on the speeches later on.
 
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Okay thanks. I am saying I applied to do the audio only instead.
When you get beaten to a inch of your life for ruining daddy's girls special day, come back. Let us know. I'll be sure to ask, "Yes, but did you film it?"

I'm sure you'll answer, "Yes, but he wouldn't wait so I could get coverage."
 
A good friend of mine is an event photographer/videographer who
does a lot of weddings. Every month he has couples walk out of
his little stripmall shop because he charges too much. They know
a guy who has a good camera who makes movies who will shoot
their wedding for less than a third of what he charges. About 6 out
of 10 return AFTER the wedding with a terrible video asking if there
is anything he can do to make it better.

The guy with a top of the line DSLR, a great eye and wonderful intentions
usually can't do what is needed to shoot on the fly like a wedding needs.
Rather than understand what is needed to capture this one time event they
ask about depth of field and ISO and try to come up with a work around for
the technical things. And they miss the important moments as they fiddle
with the technical challenges.
 
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