Expanding to add videography

[Jonathan H]

Does anybody here offer videography as well as traditional still photography? I'm thinking of expanding my services.

Ideally, if someone could point me to a POTN-type forum dedicated to event videography, I'd really appreciate it. I'm sure I could pick your brain, but why reinvent the wheel? I'm sure all my questions have been already answered somewhere on the web.

Also, any forum with a Buy&Sell thread would be especially helpful so I can start getting an idea of what I'll need to shell out.

Before I even start researching my local market and the business viability, I need to at least get a handle on the basics. Of course, I realize it's an entirely different ballgame, I realize I'll have to invest at least $10K just to get started, and I realize I'll be battling the learning curve for several months, maybe more, before I can even think about advertising my services.

Thanks!!!

[PhotosGuy]

Before I even start researching my local market and the business viability,
&
I need to at least get a handle on the basics. I'd start with the research! You can't imagine the huge can of worms you're opening when you transition to video? It's not just moving pics. Sound is even more important than great images. And if your market won't support the time & effort you spend to make the transition...

OTOH, Canon makes some great video cams that allow using the lenses you already own, so you're already a (small) step ahead.

If he doesn't jump in here, PM Jon, The Elder. He's got decades of video experience... and he's shooting stills! ;)

[I.K.S Production]

Hi just joined the forum looking good. I do a lot of videography of old abandon tunnels and urban sites like hospitals, have a look and let me know what you think.:)

http://ca.youtube.com/iksproduction

All the best

Ian

[PhotosGuy]

Pretty nice work, Ian. Re: Chernobyl - I hope you've had all the kids you'll ever want? ;)


Welcome to POTN!

[trantz]

video is potentially more work then photography, and it's a lot less appreciated, especially in the wedding world. expect 15-30 hrs of editing to put together a single wedding video.

[kona77]

video is potentially more work then photography, and it's a lot less appreciated, especially in the wedding world. expect 15-30 hrs of editing to put together a single wedding video.

trantz hit the nail on the head, 15-30 hours to edit a video, at a minimum. video is an entirely different beast. PhotosGuy raises an excellent point, sound. There is a lot to adding video, someone needs to be dedicated to just that.

It is very difficult to do both, trying to get THE shot with either one of them at the same time you may lose THE shot altogether.

Good Luck

[bieber]

Someone said you'll be able to use your existing lenses, but keep in mind that the necessary converter has roughly a 7x teleconverting effect, I think due to the size of the sensor, so it's not a very practical method.

Anyways, I do some part time work with video (mostly concerts, but they'll use me for the occasional wedding, too) and it's a ton of work. Just for me, it's tricky because I have to worry about not only getting a shot, but finding a camera movement that works well with it, then making it last until whoever's switching moves on to one of the other cameras (and if there's only one camera, you have to make perfect transitions between shots). As far as editing and such goes, I don't even want to imagine how much work my boss is doing.

[Alexajlex]

Someone said you'll be able to use your existing lenses, but keep in mind that the necessary converter has roughly a 7x teleconverting effect, I think due to the size of the sensor, so it's not a very practical method.

Anyways, I do some part time work with video (mostly concerts, but they'll use me for the occasional wedding, too) and it's a ton of work. Just for me, it's tricky because I have to worry about not only getting a shot, but finding a camera movement that works well with it, then making it last until whoever's switching moves on to one of the other cameras (and if there's only one camera, you have to make perfect transitions between shots). As far as editing and such goes, I don't even want to imagine how much work my boss is doing.


I do video stuff as well and have done weddings in the past.

As far as switching between the cameras I normally have crowd reaction shots to cover my cuts.

During the service I would use one of the MOB to show the emotion.

Every time I work on a project I make sure to get my esatblishing shots and "cover your cuts" crowd reaction shots as soon as possible. If I'm the only person there I get those before the event starts and while people seated.

[Alexajlex]

Does anybody here offer videography as well as traditional still photography? I'm thinking of expanding my services.

Ideally, if someone could point me to a POTN-type forum dedicated to event videography, I'd really appreciate it. I'm sure I could pick your brain, but why reinvent the wheel? I'm sure all my questions have been already answered somewhere on the web.

Also, any forum with a Buy&Sell thread would be especially helpful so I can start getting an idea of what I'll need to shell out.

Before I even start researching my local market and the business viability, I need to at least get a handle on the basics. Of course, I realize it's an entirely different ballgame, I realize I'll have to invest at least $10K just to get started, and I realize I'll be battling the learning curve for several months, maybe more, before I can even think about advertising my services.

Thanks!!!

Dvinfo.net is the largest video forum on the net.
They have a dedicated wedding forum that is very active.

To get started from the top of my head I would look at the follwing:

SD or HD?

HD since you want to future proof yourself.

#1 problem thing to worry about: Low Light (as usual).
The king of lowlight is Sony.

For HD you want to go with 2 Sony FX1s (rated at 3 lux).
$6000 for 2.

If you think that you want to get started with SD and not spend that much money in it then I would recommend:
Sony PD150 $1500 each.
$3000 for 2.
You get 2 lux lowlight rating (the reason why it is better than the HD FX1 is because they still need to work on the CCDs on HD to get them to be so light sensitive).

Either way you go you need audio.
I would go with a Samson Micro 32 UHF unit (about $300 on e-bay).
UHF with 32 channels (and the option to activate another 32) will assure no signal interference.
I have this setup and ran it in churches where they had 3 different Shure wireless systems and I got no interference.

Some people swear by the Sennheiser ew100engg2-a as far as wirless audio.
It is nice. I used it and I can say that my Samson UHF does the same job for half the price (the Sennheiser is $600).

2nd audio source.
I would go with wired lavalier.
I use the IRiver 89X (older units, search for 895 or similar) and the Giant Squid Lavalier
http://stores.ebay.com/Giant-Squid-Audio-Lab
This setup is really popular with the wedding videogs and it works really well.

Regardless of HD or SD you should look into FireStore (HD SD hard drive unit) at a later point if you are moving forward with the video.
This will allow you to capture directly to a hard drive and you don't have to spend time capturing to your PC.
This is important because capturing DV or HDV is done in real time (you got 5 hours of footage, it will take 5 hours).
You also minimize the wear on the camcorders by not using them as a deck.

Editing:
Sony Vegas 8 Pro (I'm biased).
The reason a lot of people use Vegas is because of the easy learning curve. As an added bonus if you are familiar with Sound Forge then the Vegas timeline is very similar.
You can get started for $500.

Adobe Premiere is quite popular. It is a solid program and is very popular.
I could never get the hang of it for some reason.

[tenoverthenose]

Don't forget all the post production hardware / software! I do both photo and video and have a lot invested in each. Generally speaking, customers don't want to spend as much on video as they do on photography, but there are always high end end customers for high end work.

[bieber]

I do video stuff as well and have done weddings in the past.

As far as switching between the cameras I normally have crowd reaction shots to cover my cuts.

During the service I would use one of the MOB to show the emotion.

Every time I work on a project I make sure to get my esatblishing shots and "cover your cuts" crowd reaction shots as soon as possible. If I'm the only person there I get those before the event starts and while people seated.


Sorry, I meant to say at live gigs. For recorded things, there's always something you can fall back on if someone messes up somewhere, but when the video's on a screen live, the best we generally have to fall back on is some static shot of the drummer or something to that effect, which you have to make sure to use very sparingly...

[Alexajlex]

Sorry, I meant to say at live gigs. For recorded things, there's always something you can fall back on if someone messes up somewhere, but when the video's on a screen live, the best we generally have to fall back on is some static shot of the drummer or something to that effect, which you have to make sure to use very sparingly...


I hear you man. The live gigs are tough.

[bieber]

I hear you man. The live gigs are tough.

But ohhhhh so fun, once you get into it ;)