-
Putting it all together
Hey Guys,
This might not be the right place but the HPX-170 is the camera I use so I suppose it’s better to ask it here than anywhere else.
I’m trying to build my videography kit and I have the following devices so far.
CAMERA
HPX-170COMPUTERS
An iMac (2006) 2GHz Intel Core Duo 2 GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
and a Macbook (2009) 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Both Running Leopard (although I might drop the iMac back to Tiger to better run
my Final Cut and Adobe software)SOFTWARE
Adobe CS3
Final Cut Studio, Academic (Final Cut Pro 5, DVD Studio Pro 4, Motion and Soundtrack Pro)AUDIO
?I’m trying to maximize what I have before I go out Mic shopping.
My questions are….
1) I’m looking for Mics, and think that I will be looking into a Boom Mic kit for short films/multiple people talking and two wired lavaliers for documentary interviews. Is this a good line of thinking? Also, I want to do it for about a $1000, what are some good mics? I’ll be going directly into the XLR inputs on the camera (I can’t afford a mixer right now). What are some quality mics?
2) What should I do about my set up? Should I bring the one mac back down to Tiger so that the Final Cut System can run with the operating system it was designed for? Will that affect the P2 technology of my HPX 170?
3) What should I be looking for as far as quality tripods?
4) Honestly, what should a light kit be costing me these days?
Sorry for being sporadic but I think of the HPX170 as the backbone of my whole set up and I’ve invested a good amount of money into this.
You should also note that I am a minimalist when it comes to film making, I want the least amount of equipment to achieve professional results. I’m trying to get the best I can to start creating professional work and I just want to know if I have all the pieces of the puzzle so far.
Thanks for reading and feel free to just answer one question instead of all of them. I’ll take any advice I can get.
-
4 Replies
-
Search the Audio Professionals forum and you’ll find many recommendations re your audio questions. My suggestion is to upgrade FCP as there’s a lot of P2 functionality you lose staying with FCP5.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
-
Thanks for the reply John. Let me ask you this. For a guy running a 2006 Intel Core Duo iMac and a 2008 or 2009 macbook both on leopard operating systems, would I be okay jumping to Final Cut Studio 3? Isn’t that more for a snow leopard operating system? Just curious
-
We’ve been running FCS3 on Leopard with no issues.
John
MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN
-
I agree, upgrade to FCS3. I’m running Final Cut 7 on a 2007 MBP with Leopard and haven’t had any problems.
Mic. Get the Sennheiser K66 shotgun mic kit. It’s about $650 I think. It’s really an awesome mic for the price. Not too sure about wired lavs. I haven’t used them.
Tripod: If you’re planning on doing lots of movement, then plan on spending about $1000 minimum on a good tripod. If you’re doing mostly interview with a locked off shot, then spend $300-400. I used a Libec 22 for 4 years and it was great. But they are limited for movement shots. IMHO audio is most important factor for professional video. 2nd most important factor is lighting. 3rd is Camera.
I bought a Lowell 250 light kit (one 250 softbox and one 250 fresnel type). It was MINIMUM. I really wished I had the money and foresight to buy either the Lowell 500 kit or even spent the money for a KinoFlo kit. I’d say you should budget minimum $750 for lights. But if you can double that, then you’d be set for just about anything, including lighting an interview outside or against a window.
-trevor ward
Red Eye Film Co.
http://www.redeyefilmco.com
orlando, fl
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up