Am I crazy to think I could shoot weddings with just medium format?

I have been a Fuji user for a few years now and I love the XT2 a lot. However the look of the GFX is pretty amazing - especially for portraits.

After thinking about it I could sell my whole kit and get a GFX. Which got me thinking - would/could I shoot with just a medium format camera? After thinking about it I think I would be fine up until the reception where things get a bit more fast paced.

Thoughts?

I’ve been considering ditching my canon gear and having an Olympus OMD1.2 kit and medium format kit. Between them there’s very few limits

My other thought was keep an XT2 and 50-140 and compliment it with a gfx and 32-64.

Of course you could. But start practicing your manual focus skills now. I played around with my friends gfx in a well lit studio on a non moving subject. Took about 5 seconds to lock focus in the center of the screen. The autofocus is completely unacceptable for any "live" part of the wedding or reception. As a bridal / couple portrait camera however......

5 Seconds! Wow, I found it locked on pretty quick, for a medium format, but still no where near that slow. Must get another borrow soon as perhaps my memory is a goldenly haze due to it being a Fuji.

You could, depends on what/how you shoot, I'd sure bring it on for the bride/groom/family shots but I'd still like the smaller camera for the reportage aspect. Be good mix as far as I'm concerned.


EDIT:

Two Hot Shoes wrote in post #18580613
5 Seconds! Wow, I found it locked on pretty quick, for a medium format, but still no where near that slow. Must get another borrow soon as perhaps my memory is a goldenly haze due to it being a Fuji.

You could, depends on what/how you shoot, I'd sure bring it on for the bride/groom/family shots but I'd still like the smaller camera for the reportage aspect. Be good mix as far as I'm concerned.


EDIT:

I was focusing with a 50mm equivalent (not sure the exact lens) but the subject was quite small in the frame and it would hunt for a good 5 seconds before achieving focus. Even the example video you shared would be far too slow for a wedding. You rarely get stationary, contrasty subjects that fill a large part of the frame in a wedding. Also concerning that even after focusing on an object, when refocused the camera would take a fourth of a second to refocus. I would not trust that autofocus when you only have one chance to get it right. It's a heck of a portrait camera though.

That moment and gone part of weddings, always fun.

Probably great for the ring, candle lighting, kiss, those little glances over the shoulder at the bridesmaids, the groom looking worried etc.. though, like I said above, I'd still prefer the smaller Fujis for all the reportage stuff, I don't see using a GFX too easy there. David Stanbury shoots weddings on MF, but only the posed stuff.

I'd happily bring it out for the more static shots, but yes probably manual (or back button) focus it a lot alright. At least at the start. Now there is a whirring sound in the back of my head.

OMG, the world has turned into a bunch of 'instant' gratification freaks! Focus taking 3-5 seconds, that washing out the use of a camera for weddings.

Back in the days of film SLRs, do folks think really we could achieve accurate focus with that same speed, in dimly lit settings no less?!

The only limiting thing about the Fuji GSX that i could identify without pouring over the specs is the fact that X-sync is limited to 1/125 second...that is like reverting to the vertical metal focal plane shutters predating the EOS launch...the horzontal cloth 135 format SLR had only 1/60 for x-sync shutter. Synchro sun flash fill is out, with that limitation. That is the reason that Hassy and Bronica were so prevalent among wedding shooters...leaf shutters that permitted X-sync flash up to 1/500 shutter speed.

Least HSS is usable now a days, even with the power drain.

HSS can sync up to full shutter speed though right?

Yep, 1/4000 is the max shutter speed for the mechanical shutter (1/16,000 for the electronic shutter but no flash with that) or use ND filters to lower the ambient light.

benji25 wrote in post #18580673
HSS can sync up to full shutter speed though right?

But due to the way the flash has to spread out its light output over time, to permit the shutter slit to move across the frame, the light intensity drops by 2-3 EV, depending upon flash unit, and that is even at 1/3 EV faster than X-sych speed. Then for every additional -1EV faster shutter speed, the intensity drops yet another -1EV.

For example
X-sync at 1/125
with another -2EV (or it reaches 1/4 the original distance)

• At 1/160 output is down a minimum of -2EV (or it reaches half the original distance)
  
• At 1/640 output is down -4EV total, (or it reaches 1/4 the original distance)
  
• At 1/2560 output is down -6EV total, (or it reaches 1/8 the original distance)
  
  

Yeah, nah. How many weddings have you photographed?

It might work for a real wedding expert who's very experienced like @Wilt, but otherwise... nah. Too slow.

I don't think it's very practical. Also, the benefits are far outweighed by the downsides.

tim wrote in post #18580816
Yeah, nah. How many weddings have you photographed?

It might work for a real wedding expert who's very experienced like @Wilt, but otherwise... nah. Too slow.

I don't think it's very practical. Also, the benefits are far outweighed by the downsides.

All of us had to learn at one point, so why is it that folks think that today's photographers are less up to the challenge of using a 'slow camera' to cover weddings?! Autofocus is generally so much faster than manual focus, especially so in the somewhat dim lighting encountered at receptions. Nobody has to change film magazines every 24-30 shots, or change film out of magazines. The days of 1fps top speed with motor winders are gone.
Is it merely the rush to shoot and deliver 3000 digital shots, rather than 300-500 film shots?! Denis Reggie used to offer his high end clients thousands of shots with a Hasselblad with NO WINDER!

I am old enough to admit I shot lots of weddings with medium format (hassleblad) no af, no zooms, no ttl, no hss. I actually attended a few seminars with Dennis...yes he shot very fast, cranking his film advance with his eye in the viewfinder, he used the big mecablitz flashes with a battery pack so the recycle was fast. His mantra was to be "reactive, not proactive" his posed shots actually kind of sucked. The real challenge those days was loading your 220 film backs quickly while following the action at the same time...you usually carried three backs, reloading as you went along....heaven help you if you started the ceremony sequence with a half full back....quite unnerving to change mags when the bride is sauntering up the aisle at a faster than normal pace! There was also the problem of the dark slide...I remember shooting a killer sequence of BG formals only to realize i had left the dark slide in the whole time. And you never carried two camera bodies on you. Our average image count at a wedding was about 350....you really couldn't afford to shoot more, given processing and proofing....unless you charged 50 grand like Dennis did. In some ways, I miss it , because you had to be very deliberate and make each shot count....today we can afford to be quick and sloppy, hoping to get one good shot out of 10.

I adopted digital early, but only as a novelty in addition to the hassies....I was finally in heaven when the canon 5d came out ...a digital camera with good af, great resolution and finally a replacement for film...whoah, you could actually shoot a wedding with zoom lenses! and ttl was quite good too. The files from that camera were so good, that I still have a few of the old portraits hanging...honestly, you can't really tell the difference between that and a 40 mpx image at normal viewing distances.