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Shoot 12 hours straight on a GH2… and no AC
Upcoming shoot is required to capture an unbroken clip of 12 hours. The client wants 1080 at 24. Kit is a GH2, recent unit.
If I could break the capture session into segments and apply near-seamless edits in post, then it’s “easy,” I’d just change batteries and SD cards as needed.
But the whole point of the piece (an art project) is the endurance of the subject being captured in an actual 12-hour clip in real time. Oh, and it’s out in the field, no Edison.
So: generator for constant power supply, 128GB SD card, an umbrella, some Gatorade and a nearby tree. But seriously, is the GH2 capable of such an uninterrupted operation, even with power and a fat card? I would test now but the budget isn’t in yet for buying the card.
Any long-distance GH2 shooters out there?
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17 Replies
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Maybe this should be more of a timelapse video? Of course, no one is actually going to watch 12 hours of video in real time so I’m not 100 percent sure why it would be so important to have constantly running video of this marathon event. Working with so many huge video files is going to tax all but a super pro editing machine in any case. A timelapse still camera running continuously and then maybe another video camera to capture closeups, b-rolls and interviews during the art project would be closer to my approach. Also, if there are no lights how are you going to film at night, how is the person going to do his or her work?…sure HD DSLRs can film something in almost complete darkness but that doesn’t mean it will be great footage to work with. Sounds like an interesting problem
Might be helpful if you explained something about what the art project is…
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
The art project is an expression of an idea, manifested in a way that’s as singular as possible; like many conceptual art performance pieces it’s trying to make a physical point about something that’s otherwise purely mental, so it involves extremes of behavior that are out of the ordinary.
Some of its themes are endurance and patience, so the documentation of the thing is meant to parallel the performance itself– someone motionless outside from sunrise to sunset. On the day scheduled at the location in the southeast, daylight is a bit longer than 11 hours.
The video is not a documentary, it’s an eyewitness account that proves the performance was real. Only the camera will have seen the performance (a twist on “if a tree falls in the forest”).
The video will be shown from a computer, once a day, in a subsequent exhibit alongside other artifacts from the performance.
Since the video is supposed to be an unbroken stream, the editing process may be more of a conversion process; that will be the next issue to figure out!
Meanwhile, a 12-hour capture is the challenge at hand!
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So a practical question is, assuming power is uninterrupted, will a GH2 run that long if the card can take it?
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I did a test capture that was over 7 hours long, once. That’s what you need to do; test it before the actual shoot.
Jason Jenkins
Flowmotion Media
Video production… with style!Check out my Mormon.org profile.
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Excellent info, we have 7 hours so far. I get the feeling I need to buy a card even before budget comes in, to make the reality test of this.
Meanwhile, does anyone know if there is a technical limit to the capacity of card usable in a GH2?
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With something of this importance, you might consider a 2nd recording unit as a backup.
John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore
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I have 2 GH2 kits! Will use both.
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I might recommend an Atomos Ninja 2 HDMI recorder for 12 hours of constant recording, would require a 750GB drive using ProRes LT mode. Uses two Sony-style batteries that can be hot-swapped for uninterrupted power.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor -
Unfortunately, GH2 users, after many months of trying, have been unable to properly record to on-board units, such as the Atomos, Black Magic Shuttle Pro, and others without problems – extra frames, cadence issues, etc. It is something that Panasonic implemented that has not been defeated. I had (2)GH2’s and they were great cameras, but, alas, that fish didn’t swim! Here is a link to a site dedicated to the GH1 and GH2, their amazingly successful “hacks”, etc. The sad story is all there. It is certainly not from lack of trying.
John D. Frey
25 Year owner/operator of two California-based production studios.Digital West Video Productions of San Luis Obispo and Inland Images of Lake Elsinore
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I found a detailed guide online for using Ninja with GH2, but unfortunately the guide mentions that a memory card must be inserted in camera in order to get the clean HDMI feed out to Ninja, and therefore the same time limitation that applies to the card will apply to Ninja as well.
Jeff
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