First full wedding shot with the Canon 5D Mk II

You can watch it here:

Laney and Zach on Vimeo

Or, on my blog AT: David Robin Films 1.Wedding Music Video

It was a VERY interesting experience, that i will expand on, when i get some time.

I would love your feedback, here, as well as on the blog!

Cheers,

david robin

[Joachim Hoge]

Looks nice, all ambient light?
What ISO did you use?

[Noa Put]

Looked awesome, especially those colors.
One thing though that shows the camera is not so stable to handhold is that there are many minor shakes in the footage. Think that with this camera you need to do everything on a tripod (or merlin) or use a very wide near fisheye lens.

[Sean Seah]

U r BRAVE!! Thanks for sharing David. My burning question is, was that an SDE? If yes, would u mind sharing yr workflow? I cant imagine how to resolve that colour representation issue without a few extra steps in post yet...

[Don Miller]

Looked great. I agree, you are brave.

Looks like you used auto white balance. People are yellowish in some scenes when the WB was too low. AWB on Canon will often choose to low of a WB in artificial light. I think to you could have reduced contrast and had less clipping. But people seemed well exposed, which is all anyone notices, I guess.

What's impressive about this video is that it wasn't staged. A few demo wedding videos around are lifeless. Yours really captures the moment. The brides a babe too, which certainly doesn't hurt the quality of the video.

[David Robin]

So here is the skinny:

I had two of my guys shooting the wedding as normal with Sony EX1's. I was there purely to experiment. To see if this camera was a viable tool.
FORGET hand held. Aint gonna work. Way too much camera shake with the lenses i was using (with the exception of the fisheye).

Lenses used here:

24-70mm 2:8
70-200mm 2:8
15mm fisheye

I used a monopod the entire time. To obtain absolutely no shake a tripod is required (but who the heck wants to bother with that right?). So the happy medium was the monopod, but believe me i cut out a lot of great footage in the edit ruined by the shake. The 70-200mm had image stabilization and this helped on the few shots i used it for. A 24-70mm with IS would be AWESOME. Canon????

I used available light most of the time, sometimes a 10w fill (at reception), sometimes just utilizing the other videographers lights that were already on the subject.

I went through about 14 gigs of card and came away with 5 minutes of usuable footage. FCP was a bear to edit with. It is clearly not set up for this format yet (ihear apple is beta testing a fix). The timeline would hiccup, making it really hard to nail the beat changes. The simplest dissolves and color correction had to be rendered.

Audio is unusable at the reception. Distorted beyond repair. Casual conversation in a normal setting sounds fine. Could not figure a way to monitor the audio with headphones.
I used AWB most of the time, but as soon as I can figure out how to WB manually (LOL!!!) I will do that next time!

Had this highlight uploaded, edited and put on line in about 5 hours.

I do love the look. VERY MUCH. I am hoping to have this as an add on (ill call it the 35mm recap or something). For SDE's this will be the sh*t, as soon as the timeline issues are worked out. Like everything, this is very new and has bugs. I would never dream of shooting an entire wedding with this camera (or even two) just yet. But as a special efx cam that gets a whole different look and feel, it is wonderful, and so much fun. I was like a kid with a new toy. I was a kid with a new toy!

So, i wont be selling my EX1 anytime soon, but must say, i see a bright future for the Canon 5D MkII.

[Michael Galvan]

Very nice, looks good.

Definitely gives those in the event market something new to tout!

The wedding also put to the test the CMOS/Rolling Shutter Issue (and you can see it quite clearly at the end with the flashes from the photogs).

But it still looks good :)

[Oleg Kalyan]

David, Good looking video, agree on shaking, little non typical for wedding video, but It's OK for my taste, some directors like external shake for "live feel"...The very last shot seem to have much less contrast, how did you manage that?

I can't believe, I used to live just a few blocks away, Pico and 11th street, it's on my way to/from a bike ride at the beach !:))
will be visiting Santa Monica in January, my friend stays at the appartment, do you live nearby?
Sorry for the off topic :)

Got the camera, love it got the tripod as well, my two shooting sessions are coming in winter Moscow...
Exciting!

Cheers! Mazeltov!

[Yang Wen]

I noted that you said you had two guys shooting the wedding as usual which makes sense. I don't believe the 5D2 can be used as the primary camera to shoot the entire wedding. There are parts of the wedding day where a 10-12min limit per clip is way to short. I think using ultra fast Canon primes f1.4, f1.2 etc... is the best way of utilizing the advantages of the 5D2 especially if you're only utilizing it to shoot B Rolls..

[Drew Long]

What about the 24-105 IS? Sure it's f4 but with my tests on the 5D it eliminated quite a bit of shake. If you are using a tripod, try using the Manfrotto shoulder brace which may help steady the camera a bit more. The other problem with having IS is the battery disappears pretty quickly without the grip extra power.

[Sean Seah]

Sounds cool. I have the same idea to pair the 5D2 with the EX1. Its amazing that u managed to put it together in 5hrs. In my country, we have about 4-5hrs for an SDE usually. Would be great to use the 5d2 for those closeups that the EX1 would have problems with.

[Mike Williams]

Hey guys.

I shot my first wedding SOLO using the 5D and an EX1. I have the footage and was wondering if anyone would share their workflow.

How do you resolve the 30p vs 29.97p issue? I feel that I actually could almost sell the ex after shooting in near darkness with a Nikon 5omm @ 1.4 almost a religious experience :)

I use a Nikon 18mm 2.8 with excellent results. Just manual focus really sucks in a bind and at the wider apertures. Gives a beautiful look for sure.

.... I did post here that I was hating this thing and there was a time I did until I used it in anger for a few months. Now it's truly the shizzle IMHO.

[Ray Bell]

to work the 30p to 29.97p issue.... use Cineform neoscene.. works perfect

[Jon Fairhurst]

Originally Posted by Ray Bell

to work the 30p to 29.97p issue.... use Cineform neoscene.. works perfect

This can actually *cause* a problem when cutting between the two cameras.

NeoScene stretches the 30p output to 29.97p. The latest version slows down the audio to match. This is awesome when using just 5D2s, but once you try to cut it with another camera and other audio, you might have problems.

The two solutions I see are these:
1) Just use the 30p output as 30p. Let it drop the occasional frame. At least everything syncs.
2) Use the 30p output slowed down to 29.97. Every time you cut to the 5D with externally recorded, sync'd audio, you have to slow down only that part of the audio. Where you cut to your other cameras, leave the audio alone (assuming that the audio isn't from the 5D).

[Steev Dinkins]

Originally Posted by David Robin

FCP was a bear to edit with. It is clearly not set up for this format yet (ihear apple is beta testing a fix). The timeline would hiccup, making it really hard to nail the beat changes. The simplest dissolves and color correction had to be rendered.

First off, amazing job, as you've heard by most by now. Regarding FCP editing, I'm shocked that you edited the raw 5DMkII footage, without transcoding to something like ProRes or DVCPRO HD first. I can't imagine how long the editing process took, but it sounds excruciating.

Again, killer visuals. The couple must have been floored to see it.

-steev