Scott Brown

Been using the V1 now for about a year and I have to say despite its faults, I love the camera. We have been cutting V1 footage in with HDCAM material shot on a HDW750 and it cuts beautifully on close and medium close ups - wides look soft but thats to be expected. You have to work the camera quite hard to get footage to sing. It needs LOTS of light as has already been stated and the sweet spot is around F4. The camera is very poor in low light conditions and the standard lens is way too narrow...you'll need to factor in a W/A lens. Watch the sharpness setting on the camera or you'll get line twitter problems...Sony suggest you use a sharpness setting of 3, but I'm currently using 5 with no major problems. Another weak point - audio in HDV mode is not the best, it's perfectly useable but not great. For the price this is a great little camera and is way nicer to use than the Z1. Scott

100% go for HDV. Personally I think this looks better down-converted than shooting DV (don't use the camera's down-convert - digitise, cut your show in HDV and then software down convert within FCP or whatever app your cutting with) + you have the option to pan and scan your down-converted images which can be a life saver if you've screwed up your framing on some shots. I'd also opt to shoot progressive. Hope, this helps. Good luck with your shoot. Best wishes Scott

Hi Guys Many thanks for your posts and thoughts on the Rifa lights. I'm thinking of going for the Rifa 66 as a key light and sticking with the Dedo lights for fill etc. The Rifa 88 looks a bit on the large side? As for the egg crate, what would you recommend for a key light, 30, 40 or 50 degrees? I'm planning on a trip to NAB in April so will probably buy the Rifa in the US...with the current exchange rates, US prices are amazing for us here in the UK! The Rifas work out at nearly 50% of what we'd pay for them here.... Looks like I should be able to possibly cover the lamp holder with a fine wire mesh that will act as a safety net if the bulb was to ever explode! Best wishes Scott

Hi Chris If the bulbs do explode during use, do you think the softbox would contain the glass? My worst nightmare would be to have molten glass flying over an interviewee! I'm quite surprised that Lowell have not come up with some kind of protective mesh to cover the bulb area. In terms of durability, I'm always very careful with my own bought and paid for kit so I'm not too concerned about this area. Thanks for your feedback on this, it's appreciated. Scott

Hi there Anyone had any experience of using Lowell's Rifa lights? Saw a recent demo and they look very impressive - very quick to set up + a nice soft even light. All too often I have to do one man shoots and I need a lighting kit for interviews that is light weight and easy to use - I currently work with a set of 3 dedo lights but I'm finding that when shooting with smaller HDV cameras, the Dedo's are not giving me enough light output and I'm having to shoot wide open a lot of the time when shooting interior setups. My only concern is that I notice there appears to be NO protection of the bulb and I'd be terrified in case a bulb exploded and injured someone. Does anyone have any thoughts? Many thanks Scott Brown Midas Multimedia