XD Cam vs DSLR

During the wedding that I shot a couple of month back, I was shooting with both a Sony XD Cam and a Canon 7d. My plan was to be able to get as much footage as I could from 2 different angles as I was the only person shooting the wedding. It was the first time using the XD Cam so I was worrying about messing up some of the shots due to me not knowing the camera that well. I was quite familiar with the 7d as iv shot with it a few times and I also have a 550d myself. I had a 50mm 1.4 prime lens and a 17-40mm f4 lens on the 7d which was useful as I could get a variety of shots such as some nice closeups with the prime lens and some nice wide angle shots with the other. The only downside of the dslr on the day was having the two lenses which meant I had to change lenses often and at times their needed to be an instant change of focal length. That is where I thought the XD cam came in very handy. I would be shooting some footage of something close up such as the cake or flowers, but then straight after I would need more a wide angle shot so it was handy to be able to change focal lengths on the camera itself without having to change lenses.

The XD Cam was a lot easier to handle when shooting without a rig and gave me the more steadier shots. Having the 7d in the hand made my shots quite shaky especially when the 50mm prime lens was attached. Here is where some sort of steadicam or glidecam would have come in very handy.

Another great thing about the XD Cam was the sound input. I was wondering before the shoot whether to attach an external mic to get the best sound but I was told the sound that goes straight into the built in mic was very good. Looking back at the clips now, the sound was fantastic. At times maybe i should have raised the level of the sound input as at times its a bit quiet but again I could only do so much on my own with two cameras. Sound for the speeches were just what I wanted.