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Back button focus and video
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May 18, 2018 11:10:37   #
jmizera Loc: Austin Texas
 
Countryboy has some good advice here. It is vastly easier to shoot with a good camcorder. In the consumer realm, a Canon Vixia would do fine. Or rent a Sony NX5 for a bigger gun.

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May 18, 2018 11:17:57   #
ToBoldlyGo Loc: London U.K.
 
jmizera wrote:
In fact, these, and most every modern DSLR, can shoot amazing video if operated correctly. You are correct in that they are not easy to shoot with. Using a loupe, or better yet an external monitor is pretty much a must.


I agree. I've shot amazing video with my D500. But with a wedding, if you mess up the moment is lost. As soon as anyone moves, it's almost impossible to see if the focus has changed, and if you're in constant AF on a D500, it'll continually shift randomly. You need to output the image to a larger screen and correct focus on the fly. Like the OP, I'm not an experienced DSLR videographer, so if I don't know how it's done, he's unlikely to either. Hence he should get some help, whatever he chooses to use to film and edit with. Just my opinion of course.

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May 18, 2018 12:52:14   #
Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona
 
jmizera wrote:
With all due respect, you might see if you can get an experienced video shooter to help with the wedding. Secondly, this is impossible to answer without knowing what camera you're using. If you have a late model Sony or Canon, you can actually get away with full auto. Others are best done as one shot, on a touch screen. BBF can be useful on some cameras while shooting video.


I totally agree. Find someone with experience to take the video. Events like this are too important to make mistakes at while you are learning.

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May 18, 2018 15:31:05   #
orrie smith Loc: Kansas
 
sounds like I need to decline taking video, thanks for the advice

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May 19, 2018 18:24:05   #
nikonuser750 Loc: Monroe, LA
 
orrie smith wrote:
I have not done video, as I prefer stills, but a family member has requested me to do a video at his wedding. As part of my research on how to do this, I am asking this forum. When recording the video, will I need to constantly hold the af-on button down while recording to maintain focus. Thank you in advance for any information.


I don't like doing weddings but my cousin recently asked me to video her daughter's first dance at the reception. I have the Nikon D750 and had never shot video with it before.

This is what I learned. Modern DSLRs are limited to 29 minutes 59 seconds of video because if the do 30 minutes then the EU considers them video cameras and charges a higher tarrif. I thought that was pretty stupid but it seems that might be so. However, at higher resolutions and frame rates that time limit is even shorter.

I also learned that if you use auto focus and the camera's built in mic then you pick up all the motor noise of the lense focusing. I decided on manual focus and used Nikon's external mic which I thought did a good job.

Since I was just doing the dance, time wasn't an issue for me. I used my 24-120mm lense that I bought with the camera. The lighting was on the dark side but I set the camera to auto ISO that I normally never use but needed because I had to set the shutter speed to 1/60 to match double my frame rate of 30 fps. There are technical reasons for this you can research if you wish but that is how I understood that it should work and it did for me. I also had the apature wide open.

I used my tripod. That is how I managed to keep from moving all over the place with my video. I set up in a corner and had the entire dance floor in my view. When the father of the bride stood in the center of the dance floor I manually focused on him. The bride and groom entered from the left so I slowly panned to the left and followed them back to the dance floor. With my lense zoomed out I was able to capture them as they moved about without having to do a lot of panning and zooming. I was very pleased with the results, even the audio.

The recommendation is that you manually set the audio levels but in my haste to change all my settings to do video I left the audio level set to auto and it came out pretty good.

There are a number of YouTube videos that explain this better than I have but you can do it with your D750 and have a video of great quality.

I recommend that you do practice before hand and check out the YouTube videos. Set your video settings, (1080 at 30fps or whatever) and video until it stops to see how long you can video before time runs out so you won't be surprised at the wedding.

Best of luck.

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