Doing Combined Video/Photo Shoots

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

The thread about this is well buried somewhere so just a word of thanks to both Peter and Roger for convincing me to add combined shoots to my website. My last three enquiries (all turned into bookings) were all for dual packages where I do both the video and the stills. Great suggestion guys!!

One small question how to do avoid making the bride think that she might be getting only screen grabs of the video and not genuine stills with a stills camera ... the one I booked yesterday did ask me that!

Chris

[Noa Put]

You will be supplying photo's taken from frames of your videocamera? Or will you be taking photo's with a dedicated photocamera while you are filming (on a tripod)?

[Adrian Tan]

One thing I'm very, very curious about -- is the C100 good enough to pull stills from, and could you offer a combined photo/video package on that basis?

Nigel has said a couple of times that he thinks the C300 is good enough...

[Chris Harding]

That's what I DON'T want people to think I'm doing because I'm not and I doubt whether it would really be practical in terms of composition either. I don't want brides to say "Oh no, I want a photographer with a proper camera" and that is what she gets from me!!

Like Roger and Peter I shooting video with two Sony EA-50's (when I use two cams, yes one is on the tripod and the other is on my shoulder) With photos I simply put down the shoulder mount EA-50 and shoot with either DSLR which are clipped to a shoulder harness so they dangle near my waist and don't get in the way. The dual shoot is only a little tricky during the ceremony. During formals I simply neglect both Sony's and use the Nikons for group shots and bridal posed shots ...the bridal party then take a break and I switch to one Sony on the stedicam and do a short video shoot for them then continue with the Nikons for the rest of the stills. Guest tables are a double take as I first do the tables on video and after that do stills of tables that are more posed so they are all in the frame..even at 11mm you still have to squash them in a bit. The cake is a mock cut on stills and then the live cut on video. Works very well so far!!

Chris

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Adrian Tan

One thing I'm very, very curious about -- is the C100 good enough to pull stills from, and could you offer a combined photo/video package on that basis?

Nigel has said a couple of times that he thinks the C300 is good enough...

It's good enough BUT if your shutter speed is1/50 or 1/60 you are going to get an awful lot of frames with motion blur. It's no replacement for a stills camera.

[Robert Benda]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

It's good enough BUT if your shutter speed is1/50 or 1/60 you are going to get an awful lot of frames with motion blur. It's no replacement for a stills camera.

plus, capture stills are nice for those very random moments that weren't caught by your stills camera, but when it comes to those VIP photos, you're going to want RAW.

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Robert Benda

plus, capture stills are nice for those very random moments that weren't caught by your stills camera, but when it comes to those VIP photos, you're going to want RAW.

Actually JPGs from modern cameras are pretty damn fine. I know pro photographers who shoot RAW & JPG but only ever use the RAW files if they need to rescue the shot because it's wildly underexposed or the WB is totally wacky. It's much quicker & easier to use JPG.

[Rob Cantwell]

i always shoot RAW & .jpg and yes, nine times out of ten the jpegs require minimal processing, the RAW is for thosse times that it's nice to have a huge amount of wiggle room to correct exposure, white balance etc.

Fair play Chris doing both yourself, I once did a photography shoot and video by myself, way too much, for me at any rate to do without losing the run of myself.
If i get a booking for both services, i'll hire a guy to look after the camcorders while i concentrate on the stills. It does add one more step in the booking procedures because i have to confirm the guy first before anything is finalised,

recently at a family event i had a dslr and for fun did both video and stills with it, no tripod or lights or anything, it worked out ok but was hard going switching between the two!! wouldn't try it for mission critical work tho!

[Peter Riding]

I know pro photographers who shoot RAW & JPG but only ever use the RAW files if they need to rescue the shot because it's wildly underexposed or the WB is totally wacky. It's much quicker & easier to use JPG.

I would never use a mixed RAW and JPEG workflow when dealing with the very large numbers that are routinely shot and expected at mainstream all-day coverage weddings. You are just making more work for yourself. My gross number of stills averages around 1700-2100 and of these around 35% are keepers. If you don't get the workflow right it will kill you. Remember Nigel the SWPP is mainly populated by part-timers and vendors selling seminars and stuff :- )

RAW v JPEG has been one of the longest running debates in the stills world. Once upon a time RAW required expensive extra cards and storage, more powerful computers to get a usable workflow, not to mention additional technical skills. But these are all largely irrelevant now.

However at weddings in my view there is no point in not shooting RAW as there are so many unrepeatable occasions when you can do no more than guestimate things like exposure compensation, and the more leeway you have to push the pixels afterwards the more usable shots you will have, including the ones that you MUST have. Remember there is no such thing as a multi-cam stills shoot - you don't have an alternative viewpoint or two to cut to :- )

Even set piece shots such as posed photos of the bride where you seem to have all the time in the world (certainly compared to shooting a speeding couple making their way back down the aisle amid guests arms clutching mobile phones and videographers clunking around with their gear) can nearly always benefit from a little editing of the RAW files to bring out more detail in the highlight and shadow areas.

The best skin tones bar none "out of the box" can be obtained from Capture One. There is a non pro version that costs a lot less than the Pro edition. You can fart around forever in Lightroom and ACR making profiles but C1 is a revelation. There is a reason most of the World's top portrait and fashion photographers use it :- ) Capture One does catalogues sessions etc as with Lightroom - you can even import Lightroom into Capture One, but for weddings I would say don't bother with all that nonsense. Its far easier to go back to your original RAWs and reconvert if you are for example needing a new version of an image in a different aspect ration for an album design. Catalogues are one of Adobe's tricks to get you dependent on them, then they gouge you ..... no wait, they already have gouged you!

Shooting stills and video combined soon becomes an exercise in logistics and you are likely to try out all sorts before you get comfortable. I would say that you need to work like a formula one pitstop - tyres and fuel within split seconds. The slightest thing you can do to shave time off is valuable but after awhile it becomes second nature; in that regard have at least one proper stills cam ready to fire at all times and have a flashgun on it or on your belt as you will use fill-flash a lot.

Chris, one of the single biggest changes you might make would be to run your main video cam on a tripod or lightstand (if a lightstand can deal with an EA50) more frequently to free yourself up to shoot the dSLR stills. You might try the dSLR on a tripod and fire it by cable or wireless but thats unlikely to work well as framing focusing and getting the exact right moment are much more demanding with stills.

Pete

[James Manford]

Have to applaud you guys for juggling both. (especially if your clients are happy!)

I wouldn't have the balls. The way I shoot film requires pure attention from me at all times just so I don't miss something. Don't know how I would juggle a DSLR and my EA50 at the same time ... worries me just thinking about it.

[Roger Gunkel]

If the Bride asks me if I take the still photos with the video cameras, I carefully explain that I use a mix of DSLR and video cams. The DLSR is used to take stills for formal and romantic shots and when it doesn't interfere with important video moments. I agree with Peter to always keep a flash on the DLSR for fill flash etc. I take stills with the video camera while I am filming, with a remote stills button and point out to the couple that this means that, as it is totally silent, I can take stills during the ceremony that may not be possible with a stills camera, so they are getting stills that may not otherwise be possible.

I also point out that I am able to take stills at a lower resolution from the video, which gives an opportunity to make a useable picture from any one of up to 90,000 frames per hour of video. That usually impresses them when they realise that video is a continuous series of still frames.

This of course also brings up the credible possibility of using a 4k video camera to take stills, particularly as you could take a series of 1 second clips for posed shots. It would give a great opportunity to not have to worry about those shots where the bride blinked, as there would be so many to choose from.

I suppose the day may not be that far away where the joint video/photo package with one camera will be the way to go. One 4k camera will be able to supply video that can be cropped for simultaneous close up and long shots of different parts of the scene, together with pans and zooms all without the need for synching or colour matching. Of course it will also be used for stills in a similar way.

Roger

[Rob Cantwell]

I dont think it'd be possible for me to do both without compromising a lot of the way i shoot.
For stills i use two 1 series bodies with a 35mm prime or a 24-70mm zoom and another with a 70-200 lens, both would have flash attached.
For video i have three cams running.
and I have a DSLR in reserve.
As i've said I've tried doing both, but it and it aint for me!

On the RAW issue, well i did a job last Friday (stills) I use Lightroom and i just imported the lot into LR and quickly rate all the images, discarding those that i consider are not keepers, then do a second sweep, if there are any that might benefit from some processing i'll use the RAW versions and the rest are jpegs and turn out fine, i'm used to Lightroom and I find i can get through the task pretty efficiently, at first it's not very intuitive, but like everything the more you work with it the more adept you can get.

Version 5 of LR is out now, costs €129, I havent used Capture One, but i'm sure it's a good product, the pro version is a little more spendy at €100 more than LR5.