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Shooting in Standard Def with the HPX 170
I am going to be shooting at a furniture store in the near future with the HPX 170 and am looking for some technical advice. The owner of the store is going to be on camera talent and he likes traditional straight forward shots without any crazy angles, just straight on. I am looking to get the best quality, brightest, crisp, clean, sharp, colorful image possible. I am going to be lighting him with soft boxes and in general the store is pretty bright towards the front. I will be using a home-made dolly built using skateboard wheels running on PVC for some of the shots. He is a busy man who doesn’t have the time to wait around for a lot of ‘set’ changes/set-up….
My other limitations besides the timing of set up and that fact that I am a 1 man crew with no external monitor are that I will be forced into shooting at in standard def DVCPRO at 480i/30P. I don’t have enough P2 card space to shoot HD or even DVCPRO50 for what we have to accomplish… So I am looking for suggestions on settings. (Scene file levels/setting) to get the best picture that I can as described above in the 480i record mode.
I will try to get close ups of the talent so that I can get him to be as clear as possible and then get more B-roll after of the furniture without people.
Thanks for any advice or suggestions. -
6 Replies
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I hope you are making money on this job. If so, rent some P2 cards, an external monitor and an experienced crew. This client WILL get what he pays for.
There are no magic scene files. A good external monitor will let you see exactly what the camera is shooting.
Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Vice President
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group -
Get the guy to rent you some more P2 cards. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot even on a ‘freebie gig’ No one’s time is truly free- especially yours.
Noah
Call Box Training.
Featuring the Panasonic GH2 and Panasonic AC160/130. -
For optimal storage performance of a P2 card in your camera, shoot at 720 24PN
Don’t shoot in SD, you will not be using the full CCD and the image quality will be way lower than if you shoot HD.
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Thanks guys, I am looking into borrowing some P2 cards to shoot in HD. I don’t have an option for a good monitor, but I do have an HD TV set that I can bring to at least help.
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This are my favorite adjustments, simple enough to share in a single post:
If you’re shooting outdoors with plenty of light, I’ll recommend any of the cinlelike gammas for a filmy look. For a clean image in lowlight situations, bpress is the one that gives less noise with deepest blacks. Choose one or another for each scene. Bpress is always my safer/default selection.
If you need extra color saturation, you can use the cine-like matrix. Otherwise, the normal matrix works OK in most situations.
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Thanks for the tips, I will try these out!
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