Jon Allen

I did a little outdoor testing when I got my new 100a. I went out and tried out the ND filters on a sunny day just to "see" what the outcome would be. I found that the 1/8 (ND1) filter @ 1/2000 shutter and iris @ 4.0 was comparable (comperable?) to 1/64 (ND2) @ 1/500 shutter and iris @ 2.0. I then went and was curious how I could achieve this level without any filter on at all, so I set the ND to off, shutter to 1/2000 and iris to 16. All of these were mostly acceptable, however I will say that the ND off and 1/2000&16 setting produced slightly better color. I in no way will say I'm an expert at lighting, I was mostly trying to match gammas, not chroma and whatever else; nor was this done under a controlled or scientific environment. Hope this helped, even if it's not exactly what you were looking for. Needless to say, I'm not perfectly happy with the color coming from my camera. I usually pump up the saturation in post, but if I could avoid that I'd be a little happier with dv in general. Any sugguestions? Is my only other option to manually select the color saturation in-camera? And if so, does this seem like a bad idea to anyone else? There are some cheap ($25) lens filters that you can find on ebay, one is a polarized, one is ND and another is for flourescent lights. I'm curious if they're any good, anyone used these?

Homeland security or not, but does anyone notice a significant difference in quality of watching a broadcast of a game (with replays and such) and a halftime update of another game (highlights and whatnot)? I would guess most of this could be attributed to generation loss, but I can't believe that they're not running on at least beta tapes... why does the halftime highlight video seem to be about 15 years old? I might be imagining this, but it sure seemed apparent with all the football (de americano) I watched yesterday.

I always convert mp3s to wavs, this way I don't have to render the audio whenever a small change is made. mp3 is good enough for most commercial projects, but remember, fcp (unless you tell it to) won't work natively with mp3 format sound.

Don't forget you still need something to put in behind it. Otherwise it'll be black/transparent. If you plan on putting in the original bg, you have to match camera movement/placement. Of course, nothing beats having the invisible man on set.

Last week I watched North By Northwest and I noticed a (I thought) huge lighting error. It's the field scene in the middle of nowhere after the gas truck blows up. A bunch of people get out of their cars and walk (l to r) towards the wreck. The lighting is such that it casts a shadow on the far edge of the ditch. This indicates that the light is to the left of the actors as they walk down the road. The very next cut it shows those same people walking toward the wreck from the rear. The light has now somehow shifted from casting a shadow on their right to casting a shadow on their left. What all this means is that lighting continuity CAN be ignored, especially in a prison sequence where it's just a big maze of cells. UNLESS you're only using once cell where it would be painfully obvious which shots matched and which did not. Again, if your actors are good enough, the lighting shouldn't be noticed ;)

Is there no way to capture directly from the camera?

I have a few friends that have tried the pci tv tuner cards. There seem to be a lot of driver issues. If you can find a card that works with your existing card, that's fine, but be warned. We have a dazzle at work and going from analog into the computer (via fcpHD). Needless to say, I hate it. However, it got a job done for cheap. On the other hand I have had very good luck importing decent video using my ATI card. Granted, analog video from consumer cams is going to be lower quality than what you can import from ilink (firewire)- but that's the way the digital kingdom is. Remember that your home video tapes are only something like 300 lines interlaced. So you're not looking at a super-high quality recording anyway.

My boss was considering getting this one instead of the dvx100a- simply because of the fact of its 1/2" chip. He seems to be looking at only the size of the chip, not the overall features etc of a camera. I thought the $2000 difference could be spend more wisely on something else, but we'll see what happens.

Ok, according to this, The Gaffer is a man named Gary Manager who is sort of a really-poor-man's Dear Abby. http://www.communigate.co.uk/lancs/marketp...afc/page6.phtml

Has anyone used this/ heard any reviews yet? It doesnt SEEM quite as versatile as the dvx100/a but I'm thinking the immediate broadcast quality might be worth it. I'm not horribly interested in going to film, but maybe a short feature for DTV release would be fun to do... think this is a good camera?

-What exactly are the job responsibilities of a gaffer? http://www.exposure.co.uk/eejit/lingo/

Thanks for the proof-read;) Yeah, I'd consider the mono pod if there were a safe place to put it while I wired the talent. This, of course, wouldn't be a problem if my "help" actually knew anything about setting up and tearing down lights & sound.

Ive heard of DV pros ("pro" dv user, yeah right!) using anything from the top sony to the panasonic master tapes. There are lubricant issues and all that, but if you're just shooting for yourself and not selling, it's true, tape is tape. It's been sugguested to stick to one kind of tape with one type of camera. They don't have to match necessarily, but your shots will be more consistent and easier to predict if your tape stock doesnt vary in quality/manufacturer.

eeeeew! the dazzle sucks ass! if you just want to import uncompressed video to your pc you can get an ati all in wonder card (complete with breakout box and IEEE). I just stopped at walmart yesterday and saw the 9100 AIW for only $150US. I'm kicking myself for getting the 8500DV for $300 a few years back. Anyway, this card rocks, has both coax (cable), svid, and regular rca. Just make sure you have plenty of HD space to store these files.

Thanks guys. I think we might be shooting at a trade show soon so we'll have to come up with something VERY portable. I'm talking we'll be grabbing a guy (randomly?) and doing on-site interviews. I'll need something stable, but light- I'm half tempted to get one of those OTS carriers. I'm honestly not sure what my budget is (oh, the ognominy!) but we're just getting started in this video thing and we're small enough I'm afraid to ask for a pod the same price as the camera. :(

What's wrong with zebra??? ////////// ////////////// ////////////// ////////////

I was at a theater this past winter when the Last Samurai came out. I was there with an old friend of mine and we were waiting for the previews to get over. Then suddenly they started this "bod" commercial (you know, the one with the guys with no shirts on were "playing" guitars poorly synced to the techno music). I start chuckling, my friend starts laughing and the rest of the crowd caught on. The whole place was roaring by the end of the commercial. Maybe this is the beginning of a greater awakening...

<- big Jet Li fan (ordered the dvd from china as soon as it came out... summer 03 I think)

Um... ebay???

I'm not too sure of the stop-motion capabilities of the 100a. If you're seriously wanting that feature, I guess I would just see if it took digital stills and then I could edit/time everything outside of my claymation (?) in fcp or something. (Also makes producing effects more interesting)

This is EXACTLY what I'm bothered by. Anyway, We had a client for a video that didn't want to pay our fees for shooting new footage for a promo video he wanted. So we ended up using his lousy footage from Hi8, VHS, AND minidv (handicam) for the project. I'm glad I got paid by the hour to edit it instead of contracting that video myself. Whew!

I think it's a matter of not having any other viable alternatives. :unsure:

Whew! Looks like someone's taking the strobing thing kind of personally. I will agree, if you're shooting home movies, there's absolutely no reason to shoot 24p. Now the thing with feature films coming to homes, yes, we disregard the "jump" every second- and quite honestly, it seems you can't watch a majority of cable TV without the picture taking a complete change at least every couple seconds (MTV, VH1, etc). Sometimes I get sick when I try to watch it, it's horrifying. Anyway, I'm excited to see the next generation of video cameras. Film was (and is, I guess) pretty awesome. I'm just hesitant for companies to give too much power to home users. Granted, that's how I got my start. But for the majority of home users out there, they don't NEED a camera with film capabilities. Especially a hand-held 24p camera (pretty much useless- who wants to see a 3:2 pulldown interlaced converted image when you can watch it at the SAME rate & whatnot as your TV?) I'm not sure how much I would use/need a 24p unless I was shooting something that I KNEW would be going to film- but then, why wouldn't I use something with a higher resolution?

So the fs3 would be great if we had those specific cameras... I'm really impressed by the fact that it runs on "bus" power. Can you attach the Bauer mount to the xl-2? I havent researched the canon stuff much. Is this possible? I would really be tempted by this if the 5000u had progressive mode at all. Oh well, I guess there may not be a "perfect little mini dv camera" ...I'll get started on the ipod...

If you're serious about "filming" things that will end up on video I would seriously consider shooting on the medium that it will end up on. If it's going to be regular NTSC 29.97 fps, then shoot it at NTSC 29.97 fps! This way you don't have to play around with any silly 3:2 pulldown and it will be the smoothest motion possible (minus 60i). If your product will end up on tvs: shoot dv, it's good enough to be played on most; if your product will end up on the big screen, shoot 24p. Simple as that.