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Shooting a Music Video on a Sony DSR-570 WSP - Any Tips?


Andy_Alderslade

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Anyone who know this camera if you can give me any tips or a warnings about the camera's flaws, features, quirks, idiosyncrasies....

 

Anything is much appreciated.

 

Cheers,

Andy

 

I love it, but it is pretty heavy as Im sure you have noticed

 

. What lense are you using?

 

I find the detail level is best turned off or to a slightly negative value as images particularly with hard lights look a little too crispy. Same again with the skin detail value. I figure most people would advise against crushing the blacks until your in post but using the stretch feature at a slightly negative value never hurt me and helps squeeze an apparently greater tonal range out of the camera without affecting highlights.

 

The preset white balance at 3200 always looks a tad warm to me but its always better than a user defined white balance (unless your looking to create a creatively inspired look).

 

Always shoot DVcam, thats probably stupid advice but its more robust and I often found mini DVs to be picked apart by the 570, probably something to do with my tape heads but apparently other users have had the same problems. Also DVcam is better... period, it just is. Once when using a 570 during the summer the inside had gotten too humid and the tape got jammed so watch temperature and humidity. If its too cold I would use a porta-brace, its never happened to me but the manual warns of failures in the cold.

 

Batteries die fast on this camera, stock plenty so you can rotate and charge the ones your not using whilst shooting.

 

I think all 570s only have a black and white viewfinder, be sure to set her up properly and keep an eye on a properly calibrated video monitor for colour.

 

I'm probably writing this for my own benefit since Im shooting a short and a documentary on the same camera at the moment and Im relatively new at it so please dont feel patronised by any of the above.

 

Kind Regards

 

David Bradley

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Hi,

 

It has a particularly nice crispy falloff if you start winding the black level up. This can be useful if you're not anticipating a very controlled grade. I've shot music videos on 570s which came out pretty decently.

 

Phil

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I'm pretty sure you can. Been a little while now since I shot anything on one, but I seem to remember that I had two zebras set up, 70% and 95%. It should be quite obvious from the menu as well. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

I mostly had good experiences with it, except for the fact that the last one I used turned out to give our pictures a nasty shade of magenta. Was an error with the camera that gave us hell in post :P

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