Exciting times as we upgrade to a new camera for our wedding film services.
When people take the cost of wedding videography at face value they often find it very expensive. Yet, when considered that it may take up to two weeks to full edit a wedding and we also have all our own business costs to cover, including insurances, licences, subcontractors, office rent, software subscriptions, etc you can rest assured that we are not lighting our cigars with your £20 notes.
It would perhaps be tempting to sit on our laurels and just make do with the kit we’ve been using for the past few years. While that would be fine, because the HD cameras we use are absolutely superb, by investing in higher spec equipment we can play to our strengths and film with more freedom which, ultimately, means a better, more creative product.
So recently we took the big step to upgrade from our Canon DSLRs as main camera to a Sony a7sii. The Canons were great and we’ll still have them as secondary and back up, but the Sony is an amazing little workhorse. So much so in fact that it is basically the industry standard for any indie DSLR filmmaker.
Some of the features which the Sony brings are;
- Low light sensitivity up to ISO 409600, which means we can almost turn night to day
- wide dynamic range;
- 5-axis image stabilisation;
- internal recording of 4K movies in full-frame format featuring full pixel readout and no pixel binning;
- extra-fast, precise AF;
Which basically means we can film more stuff hand held, at a higher resolution and be more discrete. We can’t wait to get stuck into using it. In terms of wedding films, the low light capability will make the evenings come alive. I’ll still throw a light up and use that to get some flare breaking out as people are silhouetted but essentially darkness is no longer a limitation.
The 4k recording is great, but probably won’t be used that much, unless I want to get multiple compositions in an HD timeline for one shot filmed.
The 5-axis stabiliser will mean that I can shoot handheld and therefore in much smaller confines with no issues as compared to the Canon models.
Finally, the variety of image profiles mean that I can have more control over the final image.
Oh actually slo-mo at 100fps in PAL and 120fps in NTSC allow for even silkier shots.
Watch this space.
