Best BMD Camera for “photography”

I’ve been tasked to “take pictures” at a wedding of a friend.
They have seen the stills that I post and love what I do.
But… it’s been all from BRAW footage!

So I have my 6k Pro which I plan on shooting with in HFR pretty much the entire time.
But I’m wondering if renting a 12k would be better?? (I recently had to return mine due to sensor issues)

Seems more logical to rent a stills camera if the output is just stills…

Also do make sure expectations are in check. It can be a huge job shooting a wedding, don’t miss out on your own enjoyment of the day.

I’ve been tasked to “take pictures” at a wedding of a friend.
They have seen the stills that I post and love what I do.
But… it’s been all from BRAW footage!

So I have my 6k Pro which I plan on shooting with in HFR pretty much the entire time.
But I’m wondering if renting a 12k would be better?? (I recently had to return mine due to sensor issues)

6kpro had best for photo use, using braw to shoot short sequence to extract single frame, had a viewfinder to do good manual focus, you can use Blackmagic Design autofocus to smart focus instead to do manual focus (very lens related the speed and quality).
I did two days ago a models shooting with my 6k, to have different color and ability to select single frame from motion in water, but …
- remember that shutter speed of photo is different from video
- you can do or photo or video, the same at same time is a worst choise
- is different from a photo from a photo camera
- pocket is way heavier than a classic photo camera. I use also use fujifilm x-t4 with adapter to use canon lenses, and I never think to use 6k where I can do wrong photo or cannot repeat (wedding for example).

12k was born like cinema camera, horizontal shooting, less run and gun more shoulder camera (excellent for this use).
Don’t think only to resolution but the usability of camera during shooting.

I did a post about it years ago

https://www.macchiavello.com/wp/it/foto ... cineprese/


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The 6k Pro should be easier to manipulate for taking photos than the Ursa 12K. The 12K stills will be higher resolution and on another level of image quality, of course, but the 6k would be more practical. Resolution isn't everything: I get nice 2-megapixel stills from my original BMPCC and Micro Cinema Camera. You can upscale them in post if necessary. The main issue with lower-resolution stills would be if the couple wants you to make big prints. The other thing to consider is motion blur, but you may have that covered by using high frame rates. When I'm using my original Pocket or BMMCC for stills I set the shutter angle to 45 or 90 degrees to reduce motion blur, which makes for better stills but choppy video.

I've used the Pocket 6K Pro for stills with short video bursts. One trick is to enable Timelapse mode so that only 5 frames are captured in a second burst.

Otherwise, I have now purchased a Sony A7IV for stills photography. Using the Mirrorless Mount with an adapter is super easy for adapting any kind of glass. Plus there's a lot more lens selection from third party manufacturers. I'm probably going to get some Sigma DG DN Primes for it. For now I'm using my vintage Minolta glass.

The URSA 12K might be too big and bulky for stills. I'd say it's great for video. But stills is another thing. You want more fluidity. Even the Pocket 6K Pro feels too big and bulky in comparison to the Sony A7IV. The Pocket 6K Pro is definitely better for video than the Sony, but when it comes to stills the Sony is my choice.

Alternatively, I've also gone back to 35mm Film Photography with my Minolta SRT-102. There's something magical about film. Maybe offer doing some film photography for the wedding to give it a vintage and classic look.

Alternatively, I've also gone back to 35mm Film Photography with my Minolta SRT-102. There's something magical about film. Maybe offer doing some film photography for the wedding to give it a vintage and classic look.

This is a good idea as long as someone is covering the traditional wedding photography. The 35mm shots I have are some of my favorites.

thanks for all the input, guys!

I have an old Canon AE-1 with some really nice FD lenses. So it would also be fun to implement that into the mix.

For now, i'm planning on doing the 6k Pro in HFR.
The couple are friends of mine and they are very laid back. I'm also really comfortable with weddings. The day will be slower paced and very casual. In fact, it might even be harder to gather people when i need!

Really, everyone is going to suggest filming with a 6k and extracting frames?

If you have the budget to hire a 12k, please take the logical step and hire a Canon R5 or similar. It will result in vastly superior stills. The eye detect autofocus is absolutely incredible and reason enough to make the switch, let alone all the other benefits you get from shooting with a tool designed for the task.

I’ve been tasked to “take pictures” at a wedding of a friend.
They have seen the stills that I post and love what I do.
But… it’s been all from BRAW footage!

So I have my 6k Pro which I plan on shooting with in HFR pretty much the entire time.
But I’m wondering if renting a 12k would be better?? (I recently had to return mine due to sensor issues)

I don't really see an upside for taking photos with footage from a video camera. For something like a wedding I imagine you should use something that's better suited.

YES, you can technically take a frame from a video, but typically the shutter speed for good photography isn't so compatible with the shutter speed for good videography. They don't mix.

RED tried this over and over but it's never taken really. They had a couple of high profile covers in 2009.

You can't have both without compromising one of them...

https://filmmakermagazine.com/4154-red- ... w_ZFi295B0

JB

I’ve been tasked to “take pictures” at a wedding of a friend.
They have seen the stills that I post and love what I do.
But… it’s been all from BRAW footage!

So I have my 6k Pro which I plan on shooting with in HFR pretty much the entire time.
But I’m wondering if renting a 12k would be better?? (I recently had to return mine due to sensor issues)

I don't really see an upside for taking photos with footage from a video camera. For something like a wedding I imagine you should use something that's better suited.

YES, you can technically take a frame from a video, but typically the shutter speed for good photography isn't so compatible with the shutter speed for good videography. They don't mix.

RED tried this over and over but it's never taken really. They had a couple of high profile covers in 2009.

You can't have both without compromising one of them...

https://filmmakermagazine.com/4154-red- ... w_ZFi295B0

JB

I sometimes forget that RED attempted that hybrid approach. Ironically Canon is now doing it with their R5C.

Like I said above, I bought a Sony A7IV specifically for stills. "Use the right tool for the job" is the saying that comes to mind.

A still camera will of course do an objectively better job, but as long as you're willing to sacrifice good video by using a 45 or 90 degree shutter angle to reduce motion blur and you don't need to produce large prints, a cinema camera can be an interesting option for stills and provides a few benefits:

1. Capture: When you're shooting even 24 frames/second, there's a good chance you will get many good shots you might have missed if you were pressing the shutter manually on a stills camera. Sure you can "spray and pray" with a stills camera, but unless you're using silent shutter (which can cause bokeh artifacts as well as rolling-shutter artifacts under artificial lighting at high shutter speeds) it's noisy and distracting. And stills cameras can't maintain burst mode for long due to the need to clear the buffer.

2. A unique look: The lens makes the biggest difference, but a camera's color science and other attributes can help your images stand out.

3. A familiar workflow: If you're shooting raw on a stills camera you can adjust everything to your heart's content, but stills processing and cinema color grading are two different worlds. If you're a cinematographer who's used to grading your images in Resolve you'll have a learning curve if you have to start processing stills-camera images in Capture One or Lightroom, etc. Color grading in Resolve uses completely different workflows from any stills processing application I'm aware of, with a different tool set and different scopes. As far as I know Affinity Photo and Darktable are the only two that even have a vectorscope, and Darktable's doesn't include a skin tone reference line because they claim it's misleading (there is of course quite a lot of variation around the line, but I still find it a useful reference for getting into the right ballpark).

If you're routinely asked to take photographs, by all means get a stills camera. But if you're primarily a cinematographer who might get asked to take stills once a year, it's a different story. However, as noted above, what generally doesn't work for moving objects (like candid shots of people at a wedding or other party), is shooting at standard shutter angles and extracting stills from that footage, because there'll be too much motion blur. Unless you're doing portraits of people posing, or shooting other things that don't move, you'll need to sacrifice video quality if you want good stills.

Really, everyone is going to suggest filming with a 6k and extracting frames?

If you have the budget to hire a 12k, please take the logical step and hire a Canon R5 or similar. It will result in vastly superior stills. The eye detect autofocus is absolutely incredible and reason enough to make the switch, let alone all the other benefits you get from shooting with a tool designed for the task.

He ask us, we answer him
Me too I had x-t4 to do photo, but when I was in troubles with my previous photo cam, I use pocket 4K to shoot photos in emergency and I discover that quality is better than I thought.
Today I had 6k and recently I used like photo cam (with speed shutter for photo) and that allow me to shoot long high burst shooting than my Fuji.
For waterfall shooting was a better solution to find right frame


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A little off topic but tangential. I've been playing with processing Nikon raw (nef) files in DR. DR recognizes the raw format and allows for raw adjustments. Getting some very nice images per DR's wonderful image manipulation. Can yield a 20mp tiff.

I’ve been tasked to “take pictures” at a wedding of a friend.
They have seen the stills that I post and love what I do.
But… it’s been all from BRAW footage!

So I have my 6k Pro which I plan on shooting with in HFR pretty much the entire time…

Given these are friends, you might ask them which approach they prefer assuming you are the only professional photographer shooting the wedding:

A) Are they only interested in having stills of their wedding?

B) Would they like to have a video of the wedding from which you can also print some stills?

If only stills, it’s much easier to use a stills camera even if it can also shoot video.

If they’d like video, shoot a wonderful video and extract some stills.

I did a wedding in which the couple had not considered video as part of the lead up to the wedding, I knew they had only slightly warmed to the idea. But once they saw the video, they loved it and replay it each anniversary; they were very grateful I suggested I’d shoot video. Wedding stills are fine and very traditional, but there’s more life in a moving picture that captures so many more nuances and memories (and audio which is very pleasing later).

But don’t try to do video with HFR if you want audio too.

TBH trying to do two jobs on a wedding gig is asking for trouble. You cannot video and do stills, even using the frames from the footage.

I would just say, if you want stills get someone to do the photography, I will just deliver a great wedding video. Asking me to do two jobs compromises my ability to deliver both.