Stephen Press

Well I don't get to formulate workflow and this stupid roundabout process is just adding to the pressure in the filed.

From Panasonic. HI Stephen, I have received your enquiry about formatting the P2 cards. Yes, it is a bit of a process, but some steps can be eliminated from your process. First of all you do not need to use the Exit button to back your way out of the menus. Simply press the menu button to turn off all Menus. Secondly once format is complete and you press OK, you can immediately hit record and the camera will exit the Menus and the thumbnails and start recording. Having said this, there is a good reason they do not make formatting too easy, as it would be fatal to do it by mistake. Secondly most workflows involve formatting the cards once they have been ingested, rather than in the field under pressure.

Waiting to hear back

I don’t have a laptop in the kit provided. The cards are mini-P2. There are only 4 cards with each kit. Shooting news means I can constantly be rotating cards. I drop them into the control room to be ingested and pick up ingested ones. Control room opps don’t like formatting, accidents happen that way. Yesterday I had 11 card swaps. Thats not unusual. I feel like I spend more time in the camera menu than I do shooting. All I want is a fast way to format all the cards in the camera. It feels like that is not too much to ask of a “news” camera.

You would think. Believe it or not the steps above are the "quick" way we were shown, using a customized user menu to get to the clip menu. Its a shame because I have to say I'm liking the picture the camera puts out. It does have a tendency to go green when faced with a mixed light color balance, so I dial it in in those conditions. Also it goes yellow highlights in high contrast. But I can work around that. It's just little things like the bonkers menu system that make the camera a bit of a chore for daily turn around.

I'm freelancing in a newsroom so when they dry hire me I'm using their kit and the cards come how they were left. :blink: Just happy to occasionally get charged batteries, formatted cards would be far too much to ask. I plan ahead as much as I can and format all the cards when I take over, but news is a mad environment and having a full card handed to you in the middle of a shoot is not that uncommon. Having to stop everything to format cards is BS. These are the steps I go though now. Thumbnail Menu down to Clip across to Sub menu Down 3 times to Format Select across to sub menu Down to Slot# Select Up 1 to Yes select Select OK (FFS Panasonic ) Up 1 to Exit Menu to exit menus Thumbnail to exit thumbnails Realize I just missed the shot. Seriously if there is a better way out in the field I would love to know.

Using a Panasonic AJ-PX5000G and the process to format media is driving me nuts. 18 button presses. I mean for goodness sake its mental. Not at all acceptable for an ENG camera in the field to take that long. So what I want to know is there a ninja fast way to format the cards?

Ok. I'm assuming you mean a smaller camera with the auto focus option. There are a lot of different ways but one simple one is: First turn off steady shot function. Put on tripod get close to foreground object, frame it to one side and line up end shot of distant object. Turn off auto focus. Now pan camera so the near object is full frame. Hold down spot focus button and focus on near object. Re-frame on end shot. Roll rec. Push spot focus and let it focus on distant object.

...and just while I'm at it New Zealand is another country and not part of bumf*** USA which is why I originally said

From Wikipedia And the first thing under Videographer I google is: Think how much more work you may have had if you hadn't sold yourself short? ;)

...And yet you have Director of Photography on your profile here for this forum.

If you have the money then then your best idea is to hire someone with the skills and equipment, shoot a pilot with them and that way you can see what works without paying for a bunch of kit that might not do what you want.

Not sure what happened with the camera test link above. It's wrong so please ignore it.

Welcome... and I don't want to start on the wrong foot but... :rolleyes: So you want 6 cameras and a way to mount them all? I'm sorry but have you actually watched Top Gear? Do you see all the names under the Camera credit? They are not there to eat donuts. Yes they use fixed cameras but not for much and even then there is a specialist taking care of them because there is no one way to mount a camera. Even once its on there are also lighting and reflections off windows considerations just getting started. You can use Limpet mounts, a cini-saddle with straps and bungee cords or even just gaffer tape... all manner of stuff Here is a camera test I did with a EX1 on a shelf mounted to my car with angle brackets and sand bags to deaden the movement. Its speed up because that's how the final shot was supposed to look like and I used a shelf because I got 3 hours notice and the rental company had closed. I don't want to diss your dream and hey try fixing a camera for fun as long as you keep safety for you and the public in mind but if you are really serious about having a product worth selling you need more than a bunch of low quality fixed cameras and a lot of yak lecturing about driving/riding. Have fun be safe but don't kid yourself you will sell anything. :)

Interesting idea. I really don't know. Someone told me apple starch would do it but it was very poor and sticky compared to the potato. I guess its one of those things that when it works you don't mess with it.