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Shooting ex1 on board boat
Hi, I’ve been asked by a producer to research shooting in EX1 for a round the world boat race, this a pretty major project with 10 boats and 3/4 crews on board filming. The final shows (6 x 1 hours) don’t need to be delivered in HD and they were going to use sony Z5’s or 7’s and shoot in SD but are worried about shooting at sea and the inherent risks from saltwater to the camerasd. Obviously they will have as much protection as possible for the kit but have heard that a disk based camera may be a bit more resilient to extreme conditions. Any one have a view on this?? And how easy is it to down convert EX1 footage to SD? It will be edited on Avid media composer 3.5.
thanks,
Mark.
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6 Replies
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Mark,
I wouldn’t think XD Cam optical would be an issue and the XD Cam EX media cards are extremely durable, I doubt that the sea air will cause any issues. However there isn’t a camera made that won’t have issues getting extremely wet.EX cameras are so much smaller and easier for shooting in tight quarters, I believe the EX cameras are perfect for this project. The EX cameras are also better in low light than the HDV little brothers you have mentioned.
Hey let me know if you need some help shooting this project, I have a few of these cameras and I know them well.
Good Luck
Michael Palmer -
Thanks for the info michael, bearing in mind the camera ops will be on board for up to six weeks, what do you think the best workflow would be for storing the shot material?iwas thinking at least two hard drives one as a backup. And how easy is it to downconvert the material to sd?
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Hey Mark,
I just converted 3 hrs of XDcam 1080i at 60 fps. to Mpeg2 for SD DVD authoring. To convert 1.5hrs. it took my intel 3.2 mac pro 4.5-5hrs.Just running some data numbers… If you shoot one hour of usable footage a day your going to need 1TB drives to get through 6 weeks. These numbers are very close for both DV25 or HDV 1080i formats.
I agree with Michael… The EX1 or EX3 is an excellent choice.
It sounds like an awesome adventure. Best of Luck!
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Mark…
Out in the field I use 250-gig G-Drive Minis. They seem to be pretty tough and don’t require additional power. I copy my SxS cards to one drive and then dupe to the second G-Drive.
I produce a fishing show here in Hawaii and haven’t experienced any serious problems with the EX1. I have a Kata CRC-15 which works well. I’ve gotten dumped on by spray from a crashing wave and this cover kept the camera nicely protected.
As long as the camera doesn’t get soaked it should do well. At the end of each day wipe down the outside with a damp cloth to clear off any salt. And have microfiber lens wipes available, with lens cleaning fluid, to keep the lens clean.
Dean Sensui — Hawaii Goes Fishing
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You could consider the SDHC card solution. The Transcend 16gb class 6 cards cost under $50, closer to $40 and when you buy a big quantity, I’d think you can make a better deal. Less than some HD tape solutions altho more than HDV. Give each camera enough cards to shoot without transferring to a hard drive. Saves the process of doing that during difficult conditions and saves space. You would not need external hard drives or a laptop. Take 4 of the MxR adapter cards and a lot of SDHC cards.
There are counterfit SDHC cards out there. Make sure you buy from a mainstream seller like newegg or amazon (directly, not a 3rd party). -
Downconverting to SD in FCP is simple but requires some rendering time. Edit in HD first then create a new sequence in the timeline and set the sequence settings to the desired SD specs and render.
David Wheeler
EX1; EX3; FCP 6.05; 17″ MBP, MacPro Quad
dave@marcombiz.com
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