4k Wedding

[Tonaci Tran]

Perhaps the first wedding shot in 4k? I did do tweaking to the stills but did not add sharpening. Shot with RED Zoom. Image and footage is stunning. I'm lovin this camera.
You can see fingerprint smudges in the table decor pic. hehe

http://redmodz.com/images/wedding/earring_sm.jpg
http://redmodz.com/images/wedding/tabledecor_sm.jpg

Full size jpeg of earring shot:
http://redmodz.com/images/wedding/earring.jpg

[M.Halsell]

I guess everything looks better in RED. Thanks for sharing.

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

To the bride and broom! Cheers :).

[vinodkumar]

wel i have plan to buy red as soon as possible

[Rudi Herbert]

Tonaci,

How about some lens information? what focal distance, aperture? I know the 18-50 Sigma is supposed to be a bit soft towards the wider end at anything less than 5.6, so I'm trying to see how you shot these because they look very sharp...

[Emmanuel Cambier]

Is this shot with n°102 ?

Emmanuel

[Brook Willard]

Rudi, if you're referring to the RED short zoom, it's actually surprisingly sharp [for its price] all through the range. Simply put, it out-resolves the sensor. The downsides to the lens don't have to do with its ability to resolve crispy images.

The hard clip in the earring is rather odd... the specularities look pretty... specular. Did you process it in any unusual way? They look harder than normal.

[Jeremiah McLamb]

I've been thinking about 4K weddings...but am I kinda hesitant as it seems very difficult to pull off.

Tonaci, did you shoot an entire wedding with the red? If so, how difficult was it to keep focus? How did it handle in low light? How did you work with such short takes on the CF cards? And did the Red begin to feel like a bag of rocks on your shoulder at the end of the day?

[Warren Kommers]

nice. yes the highlights do look a bit hard and videoish?

[vincelucero]

We plan on shooting some weddings here in hawaii for sure. As for highlights, that's for the beauty of post. The brides like it all glowy and soft.

[John Tissavary]

Rudi, if you're referring to the RED short zoom, it's actually surprisingly sharp [for its price] all through the range. Simply put, it out-resolves the sensor. The downsides to the lens don't have to do with its ability to resolve crispy images.

The hard clip in the earring is rather odd... the specularities look pretty... specular. Did you process it in any unusual way? They look harder than normal.


Looks like sharpening artifacts...

jt

[Casey Green]

Nice shots, Toni.

Say, any comments from the bride about the beyond HD detail? You didn't have to follow her around with special eye lights, did you? :biggrin:

[Tonaci Tran]

Looks like sharpening artifacts...

jt

I think you guys are right, the still grab out of red alert, I probably didn't deselect output sharpening. I have to double check the file. What I should have clarified was that I did not add additional sharpening in photoshop where I did some black push. I'll upload more stills later and I will reupload the original earring file with output sharpening deselected to verify whether it was the case. gotta run

[dvpixl]

Toni, please post a clip at your earliest convenience. thank you much.

[Ryan Patch]

As someone who has done both wedding videography and worked with 4K footage, these things don't go together too well in my mind, mainly because of the speed and cost-effectiveness that the wedding videography editing and post has to be done with.

Although the depth of field obviously adds a lot to the image, since I assume you're delivering in SD (or HD at the most,) why not just use an XL-H1 with long lenses? Also, how is your workflow setup as to not incur enormous headaches, costs, and storage needs in post?

[dvpixl]

I have to say that one has to probably make compromises. You dont have a focus puller, not all shots are perfect but in a way it all lends itself to a certain asthetic... esp good for handheld. In anycase, if a company really wanted to do a RED wedding, there could be systems set in place. I dont think it's completely uneconomical. Just different standards.

[dvpixl]

but seriously though I dont think Toni was shooting the entire wedding with the RED. of course not. That wont be economical for years to come...

[Stuart English]

Wedding budgets cover a lot of ground. So I can see a specialist market for 4K coverage - after all its another source of stills... :innocent:

[Tonaci Tran]

To answer a few questions:

Why shoot 4k?
Because I'm crazy about the resolution, sheer image quality, the depth of field and the ability to pull stills. If it can be used for movies, I certainly can..and did use it for a wedding.

"yes the highlights do look a bit hard and videoish?"
I pulled stills which IMO look as good as digital slr pics. If they look a bit hard, you can blame the way I tweaked the still in photoshop. The beauty of processing red footage is that I can give it many different looks which I will demonstrate when I get a chance.

"And did the Red begin to feel like a bag of rocks on your shoulder at the end of the day?"

I don't go handheld/shouldermount the whole wedding. There is no need to. You can fly it and tripod it. When I do run n gun, I use a lightweight configuration so it makes it comparable to those Sony Dsr shouldermount cams that are commonly used in weddings.

The biggest challenge, and of course, Jim Jannard pointed this out long before is pulling focus.

Once the red drives are out, I have no problem using the RED the entire wedding. Due to CF limitations, I had to record in 5 minute increments throughout and had a person dumping footage. The primary time you need long recording for a wedding is during the ceremony.

Casey, thanks for the compliment. I know a great deal has been written regarding makeup challenges when shooting HD. For RED, the footage can be silky smooth or super sharp if you want to dial it up.. so at the end of the day.. I don't see as much of a big deal.

"these things don't go together too well in my mind, mainly because of the speed and cost-effectiveness that the wedding videography editing and post has to be done with."

My response is to charge accordingly to make it worth the time.

"why not just use an XL-H1 "
I am building my non-wedding business around my RED. I like 4k better than 1080i. XL-H1 doesn't overcrank.

"workflow setup as to not incur enormous headaches, costs, and storage needs in post?"
Processing times are longer and amount of data storage is higher but the workflow is not much different than working with p2. But now the difference is that I get to work with RAW footage allowing me for much more flexibility to tweak the footage. It's like playing with photoshop. Record, dump, red alert/redcine grade, drop footage into final cut pro, edit, color, export. There many ways to do work with it.

Delivery format. Thats the big drawback right now since the blu-ray hd-dvd war hasn't ended yet, but this does not deter me from shooting HD. You could always export 1080p/720p h264 quicktime version that can be viewed on a computer in addition to a DVD. Thanks to slingbox and appletv, more and more consumers are using their computers to watch content.

For those who feel it is not cost effective or not worth it, we are then aiming at different clients =).

Right now, I would love to do more commercial/feature film work if those jobs come up for me, but outside of those, I certainly don't mind shooting 4k weddings and I do plan to establish a full fledged 4k wedding business down the road.

A couple RED pocketcams will serve great for extra coverage.

[Casey Green]

Thanks for the update, Toni.

I think you have the right idea. You can establish yourself as a high-end wedding production company and word will get out to those who can afford it.

People will soon be asking for "RED Weddings" instead of White ones. :love:

[Jonathan Cruz]

Very good points Tonaci, everything can be done with red if you plan acordinly, i think resolution and DOF with red on weddings is great with the filmic quality red provides, go for it.

[Paul Hazlett]

Wedding budgets cover a lot of ground. So I can see a specialist market for 4K coverage - after all its another source of stills... :innocent:

Stuart brings up an interesting point here. If you could sell them on the idea
that you could do both video and stills from the one camera, you might get some of the fat paydays Photographers get.

Now all you have to do is be able to deal with the mothers, aunts, sisters,
cousins screaming at you to "shoot this and get that"

[Ivan G]

I can see and understand a RED owner to shoot a wedding for a family member or a buddy but not for just anybody. Just curious to what you would charge? Actually, I'm very curious?

[Tonaci Tran]

http://www.kimchy.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/drevil.jpg:biggrin:

[Tonaci Tran]

I do have to mention that at the end of the day, my goal to get better rates will be more dependent on the final product rather than how good my camera is. I have to admit though, shooting in 4k does help :biggrin:

[J.D. Frey]

An interesting business model- you could potentially replace the videographer and photographer with some nice stills. ;)