I bought a new camera recently, the start of February. I have shot two weddings with it, on the 2nd and on the 15th.
It is called the Sony PMW-EX1 and it really is an impressive piece of kit.
The one difference with this camera is that it records onto Express Cards, which are a type of memory card. Why is this posting caller “Fear”?
Well, I am used to shooting onto tape, and these original tapes would always be stored. With the new camera, the work flow is a little different. I just copy off the footage onto my hard drives, make backups of it and then wipe the cards to be used at the next wedding. If I had a wedding on the Friday and again on the following day, I would need to copy off the footage when I got home, and have them wiped for the next day.
After my first wedding with the camera back on the 2nd, I avoided wiping the cards until I really have to.
Basically, I was sitting outside the church yesterday, poised to wipe the cards. This is when the fear set in! Did I copy off all of the other wedding correctly? Even though I had double and triple checked what I was doing, that felling of fear and dread was amazing!
I suppose a small does of paranoia is a good thing!
February 18, 2008 at 7:22 am |
I face the same concern when I start shooting weddings with the EX1 as well. The thing is to remain focused and have a pilot’s check list. My solution is to have enough cards on hand to do the whole job, copy and archive at the end of the shoot.
It’s a brave new world, but for the picture you get, it’s worth a little ‘fear’.
February 21, 2008 at 10:22 am |
Hi John,
Ah, the wonders of digital technology….
Couldn’t you just get an extra couple of memory cards so that you’re not under quite so much pressure to wipe the cards for the very next wedding? Then, as Mark suggests, have a defined workflow check-list for each wedding so that when you get the jitters you have proof on file that you’ve actually carried out each step.
The other thing is to make sure you back everything up — I’d suggest having the work mirrored on at least two HDD and also archived onto DVDs.
Just out of interest how much space does an average high res. wedding video occupy as a digital file? What’s the next step up from “tera-bytes” when you’re talking about storage capacity?
Have fun with it….
Cheers,
Calvin!
February 21, 2008 at 11:39 pm |
Hi Calvin,
I would love to buy a lot more of the cards, but the Sony Express cards that it uses cost USD 800 for a 16 gig card. I currently have 2 16 cards which I bought and I also have 2 8 gig cards that came with the camera.
The 16 gig cards hold 70 minutes, the 8 gigs, 25 minutes.
The last wedding I shot filled the two 16 gig cards, whereas the wedding before that filled the 16 gig cards and one of the 8 gig cards.
Each wedding is different, longer speeches, longer ceremony etc, hard to give an idea as to the duration really, it varies so much.
June 24, 2008 at 9:53 am |
Hi John,
Welcome to the world of us wedding photographers. Been living in fear for over 5 years now. Never lost a picture, though.
See you on the circuit.
Roger