Changing from SD to DSLR HD video. The Consequences…?

[Lisa Hurley]

Also, another thing I’d like to know, is how much video will a DSLR hold? And how about the audio? How do you get the stereo audio when you are videoing with one of these? Is there a lot of additional equipment needed? Right now, I only need my two SD cameras. I just dont want to jump into this, get the cameras, and find out that I am going to have to buy alot of other things that I can’t afford. Then, I’ll be out of business! 🙁

[Pete Burger]

Assuming, that you are aware of the differences in shooting (focus, stabilizing, not very good audio with the built-in mic, etc…), I’ll just talk about editing:

Best solution might be, to change from Premiere CS4 to Premiere CS5, since with CS5 you can work with the native files from your DSLR.

I used to work with the exact same hardware setup as you (but with Premiere CS3) with VDSLR footage quite a time, so I think I can confirm that it will work as well, but you’ll have to change your workflow.

First thing is: You won’t be able to edit your DSLR footage natively in Premiere CS4.
So you have to transcode your footage to a more “editable” format like Cineform or the AVID DNxHD codec. You can do this with MPEG Streamclip.

Second thing is: Buy lots and lots of HDDs 😉 And very big ones. The transcoded files need a lot (and I mean A LOT) of space.

With a not so fast machine like yours, you might want to consider proxy-editing. Works pretty well in Premiere (convert your original files to SD, edit in a sd-project, open your sd-project in an hd-project, set the sd-files to offline and relink with the hd-files). It’s a bit time consuming, but works even on slower machines.

Hope this helps a bit

[Richard Harrington]

I’d recommend you pick up the book and From Still to Motion to learn the whole process. You don’t choose DSLR because it’s easy (or cheap). Camera body ends up being only 10-25% of cost for whole rig.

Richard M. Harrington, PMP

Author: From Still to Motion, Video Made on a Mac, Photoshop for Video, Understanding Adobe Photoshop, Final Cut Studio On the Spot and Motion Graphics with Adobe Creative Suite 5 Studio Techniques

[Pete Burger]

You’ll most definitly need a bunch of equipment.
There was an interesting discussion here recently:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/280/3233

The Canons can hold about 50min of video on a 16GB card.
Clips can be 12min (or 4GB) max. Then you have to start a new one.

Audio is a big problem. I use an external recorder and sync in post.

[Lisa Hurley]

Yes. That helps a LOT. Thank you!

[Lisa Hurley]

Thanks Richard. If the camera body is only a small percentage of the whole rig, I’m most defintely not financially ready for this move right now.. but I’m going to be looking into it for sure.

I love the look I’m seeing as compared with SD. The clarity is awesome. It makes me sick to look at the quality of mine, after viewing video in HD.

I am looking for the cheapest camera to do the best job. I can’t afford the 5D, so I was thinking the T2i would be good to learn with. Please let me know what you think. Would I be better off to wait until I could at least afford a 7D, or is the quality of the T2i comparable?

[Pete Burger]

There is no big difference betweet the 7D and the T2i, concerning the picture quality. In lowlight with ISO higher than 800, the T2i is a bit noisier.

[Lisa Hurley]

Thank you VERY much Peter. I am most definitely going to check out the link you gave.

And I have one last question for you….
(I AM an amateur… and still have a lot to learn)…

I’m wondering what kind of recorder you would use for audio for something like this? Because I’ve always just relied on the audio from my cameras, I have NO CLUE. The only extra recording device I’ve ever used is a pocket mp3 recorder.

If you have any suggestion to send me in the right direction, I’d be EVER thankful!

[Pete Burger]

I personally (for my private projects) use the Zoom-H1, which is very affordable. You can plug in external microphones or use the built-in ones, which are quite good, but very sensitive to wind.
For bigger/commercial projects we sometimes use the Zoom-H4 with appropriate microphones.

I have a T2i myself and wasn’t happy at all with the audio. Mostly because of the small built-in mic and the auto-gain-control. Same problem with the 7D, that my working-partner uses.

Of course you can plug in external mics and for T2i you can get the Magic-Lantern firmware, that’ll allow you manual gain control.
The 60D has manual gain control built-in.

There are two great sites with information for any kind of VDSLR-work:

https://dslrhd.com/
https://nofilmschool.com/dslr

Helped me a lot.

All the best!

Edit: Forgot to mention that you can plug in the Zoom-H1 into the camera and use it as microphone as well, if you want to avoid syncing in post

[Steve Crow]

It’s a lot of fun Lisa and don’t be scared off by the cost…renting until you can afford to buy all that extra gear can make a lot of sense. People have done remarkable things with a standard T2i and kit lens (although I’d say spring the extra $300 for the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens to get more of that beautiful shallow depth of field look)

You will want a tripod too. A lot of the beautiful footage you see on Vimeo doesn’t even have synced sound – just copyrighted music! 🙂 Still a mic would be a very solid recommendation since the built-in mic is useless except as a scratch track.

Have fun becoming a filmmaker!