Need lens recommendation

[DigitalBard]

My wife's friend's daughter is getting married in a few weeks and the videographer took off with their money (and a lot of other people's). So my wife asked me to shoot it.

It's indoor in a catholic church and no external lighting is allowed. So I am looking for lens recommendations for my T2i (and a borrowed T2i which will be on a tripod).

I have a 50mm F/1.4 and a 28-75mm F/2.8. I'm wondering if I should rent a 70-200mm F/2.8 or if the 27-75mm will be sufficient with the camera's crop factor figured in.

Also, neither of the lenses I have has IS, so for the shoulder mount stuff I'm wondering if I should rent an IS lens instead of the 70-200 (maybe the 17-50mm IS)...?

I read on a blog that I should shoot everything at 720/60, but I'm concerned about the additional loss of light from the 180-degree shutter.

I've never shot wedding before with a DSLR, so any advice is welcome.

[Bif]

It's indoor in a catholic church and no external lighting is allowed. So I am looking for lens recommendations for my T2i (and a borrowed T2i which will be on a tripod).

I have a 50mm F/1.4 and a 28-75mm F/2.8. I'm wondering if I should rent a 70-200mm F/2.8 or if the 27-75mm will be sufficient with the camera's crop factor figured in.

Take the T2i and the lenses you have into that church and do some quick tests, you'll have to "imagine" wedding party in place but you will have a chance to assess lens field of view and how recording might look.

The 28mm end of your zoom will approximate "normal" perspective while the 75mm end will give you moderate telephoto. The 50mm will give you portrait telephoto and great available light capability but at a bit of a "standoff" distance.

Also, neither of the lenses I have has IS, so for the shoulder mount stuff I'm wondering if I should rent an IS lens instead of the 70-200 (maybe the 17-50mm IS)...?

The wide angle is what you're missing if you have to do any work up close. I can find no Canon 17-50mm (there is a Sigma) but there is a Canon 17-55mm f2.8 IS lens and if you are going to rent that would by my choice.

I have the 17-40mm f4L without IS and find it a very useful lens but I don't mind "kicking" up ISO if I need to.

Your tests I suggest may show you can do the wedding with what you have, though.

I read on a blog that I should shoot everything at 720/60, but I'm concerned about the additional loss of light from the 180-degree shutter.

Nonsense.

For one thing we don't have a 180 degree shutter on these cameras, we have a "rolling" shutter that (I believe) scans from top to bottom, you shouldn't experience any special "light loss" from that. Also the 60fps modes may increase chances of overheating with prolonged use.

720/60p might not be a good idea. If you have much in the way of straight lines you may get a lot of "aliasing", I would do it at 1920x1080 30p. Set shutter to 1/60th, aperture for desired DOF effect, ISO to AUTO temporarily. Press shutter button lightly to see what ISO the camera will select, then "dial" that value in manually.

Exposure is now "locked" (if you leave ISO on AUTO the camera will adjust exposure as it "sees" lighting changes when you pan for instance. You may want it this way but for me it would drive me "nuts" with bright-dark-bright changes).

You should be using a loupe of some kind, I recommend the Hoodman "Cinema Pro Kit" so you can see focus clearly (focus manually, autofocus will drive you nuts hunting all over the place and may not be accurate anyway).

I've never shot wedding before with a DSLR, so any advice is welcome.

You'll need to find some way to get decent audio also. I don't do wedding video, I used to do still photography for weddings in my studio days.

Good luck

Bruce Foreman

[drapeama]

[...] I'm wondering if I should rent a 70-200mm F/2.8 or if the 27-75mm will be sufficient with the camera's crop factor figured in.
[...]
I read on a blog that I should shoot everything at 720/60, but I'm concerned about the additional loss of light from the 180-degree shutter.

1) Crop factor on the T2i is 1.6x > using 27mm would give you ~43mm equivalent. So you figure out if you want it to look closer to your subject or if you prefer to capture it more wide-open with something more like the kit-lens: 18mm > ~28mm with that crop factor.
2) 720/60 is reported to have more negatives (bending as one of the worst) than 1080.

[Flozem]

If you can get / borrow a decent HD camcorder for A-roll, that'd help as well... put it up on the balcony (with the organ) for a wide shot (with you out of view).

For my next job I checked out the church today.... was pretty bright even on a dim day... the indoor light just lights up the church perfectly.

I can plug in the line-out of the church's soundsystem to the line-in of my Olympus LS5. The second LS-5 is on ambient recording.

[DigitalBard]

Great idea on checking out the church, unfortunately it's 300 miles away so that's not likely to happen. However, I will go to several different churches where I live and run some tests. That should give me a basic idea on lighting conditions (I'll probably do it a couple of times, including tomorrow where it'll be overcast and probably raining).

I don't know anyone with a decent HD camcorder that isn't using it. My two friends who have them are actually "working" weddings that same day. My plan is to use my business partner's T2i on a tripod to record the main ceremony with my wife running it using a wireless remote and a wireless 5-inch monitor. I've done that before successfully at other functions. The bride and groom live together, so they'll both be in the same house getting ready for the wedding. So it'll be easy to get those pre-wedding shots.

I have a Zoom H1 for recording audio and I confirmed that it will be okay to stick a wireless lav on the priest. I've used a single lav to record two people having a conversation before, so hopefully I'll get everything with it. In any case, I'll stick my Rhode Shotgun on the camera my wife will be running. Between the two, I'm hoping to get the important stuff.

My concern about shooting at 720p is that with the "180 degree shutter rule", the shutter speed needs to be 125. However, I'm going to take the advice here and shoot at 1080p/30. I can't see anything at the ceremony that I need slo-mo for.

As for the 17-50mm, you are correct in that I was talking about the Sigma 2.8 with VC. I can rent it for $35 over a weekend in town. My only problem with shooting anything that wide is the distortion which looks odd to me, but other people don't seem to notice it. I haven't found any plugins or tutorials on how to fix it like you can with stills in Lightroom.

And I do have a loupe, I have a Hoodman for my camera which I use when I do shoulder mount stuff. Also, for the reception I have a small LED light I can mount on the camera for additional lighting.

[Bif]

Great idea on checking out the church, unfortunately it's 300 miles away so that's not likely to happen. However, I will go to several different churches where I live and run some tests. That should give me a basic idea on lighting conditions (I'll probably do it a couple of times, including tomorrow where it'll be overcast and probably raining).

That will do you more good than anything else I can think of at this point. It will give you some insight into where to take up "position" and where you might want to change lenses. Since you're going to rent that Sigma 17-50mm I would reserve the 50mm f1.4 for where you absolutely will need the extra aperture width for low, low light. You will have that 50mm focal length available on the Sigma.

My plan is to use my business partner's T2i on a tripod to record the main ceremony with my wife running it using a wireless remote and a wireless 5-inch monitor.

Be sure she understands the need to stop and restart the recording about every 10-11 minutes or so to avoid having it stop on it's own at about the 12min mark (4GB)

My concern about shooting at 720p is that with the "180 degree shutter rule", the shutter speed needs to be 125. However, I'm going to take the advice here and shoot at 1080p/30. I can't see anything at the ceremony that I need slo-mo for.

Forget the 180 degree shutter rule. It doesn't apply to our gear the same way it used to apply to "film" cameras. The tests I've run on 720 60p were with the same 1/60th I try to use for 1920x1080 30p and the ONLY problem was color aliasing on straight lines.

With the old film camera rotating shutter disks the shutter speed was a direct result of the size of the opening on the shutter disk. With our cameras you are NOT TIED to that (I just pulled out my T3i and set it for 1280x720 60p and ran a short video trial with the shutter set at 1/60th. Now in that mode the shutter will not go below 1/60th where in 1920x1080 30p it will go down to 1/30th if I need that).

So FORGET that 180 degree shutter rule. It may be used by those who feel they need to but you can set and use anything the camera will let you in video mode.

If you have time and can squeeze it in, a "take" or two where your imagination tells you a "dream" sequence could fit in, switch quickly to 720 60p, leave your shutter at 1/60th (so your basic inside exposure remains the same), just remember to immediately go back to 1920x1080 30p.

Take a "model" with you to test this when you do church interior tests.

As for the 17-50mm... My only problem with shooting anything that wide is the distortion which looks odd to me, but other people don't seem to notice it. I haven't found any plugins or tutorials on how to fix it like you can with stills in Lightroom.

On a 5D MkII 17mm would be an ultrawide and there would be obvious visible "wide" distortion, especially at the edges and corners. But on the T2i (and other APS C "crop" sensors) the outer part of the image formed is not seen by the sensor, so that focal length behaves close to what we used to get with the 28mm "wide angle" workhorse lenses on film SLRs. Very little distortion. The 18mm end of the kit lens is very close so mount that on your camera, do some quick video at the 18mm setting and see for yourself. I love the 17mm end of my Canon 17-40 f4L.

And I do have a loupe, I have a Hoodman for my camera which I use when I do shoulder mount stuff. Also, for the reception I have a small LED light I can mount on the camera for additional lighting.

I think you've got what you need. Good luck!

Bruce Foreman