Al Bergstein
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Steven. I’ve shot a lot of live band footage with the HMC 150, and would say that if you have good stage lighting, it will help immensely, and will get high quality videos. I’ve shot some in 720 and some in 1080 and usually just shoot in 1080 now. Always shoot manual, as stage lighting will tend to burn out your whites while the camera tries to adjust. And never shoot autofocus for stage. Ever.
The biggest problem you are likely to encounter is sound. Most young bands are seeming to play at earsplitting volumes, so I usually try and go off the sound board for at least a Zoom if I can’t feed the 150 directly. Be SURE to get to the club early enough to test your sound volumes on ALL recording devices. Bring earphones to help during the actual shoot. Then turn your 150 sound down low so it doesn’t clip, and you can marry the stuff up again in the editing process.
I’ve had good luck plugging into boards when the volumes are high.
Also, shoot more than you see. I mean let the camera run on past the event and don’t move too soon. Pretend you are a tripod when shooting, not on wheels. Think about swiveling from the waist, not the shoulders.
Practice with the camera in advance to make sure you can effectively zoom in, pull focus and zoom out quickly and efficiently.
Too many times I’ve panned away too soon and regretted it in post. Zooms, when used at all, should be *slow* and steady, unless totally for effect.
Some samples to see what’s possible.
Here is a stationary 150, off the board in a club with a earsplitting volume. The board feed was fine. Needed to wear earphones the whole night, as it was painful. I won’t ever shoot in such an environment again without serious ear protection, if at all. You don’t have to watch the whole thing to get the drift here. It’s not an inspiring piece, but a document for the band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya8T6KEN7ZU
The next is shot hand held with a shoulder mount system, sound off the monitors and mic’ed with an audiotronics shotgun attached. It did a *decent* job. If you like the bands, it’s worth a watch. My goal was to create a sample of many bands, done without a tripod mount camera creating the anchor. Was thinking more about Pennebaker and Woodstock than just capturing the event.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXa7et-VoL0
Next was a live single camera shoot with sound off a professionally done board. I would have loved a second camera on this,but they wouldn’t let me for the sake of the audience. This is your typical thing done to just capture the event, no fancy crap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtI-uq8R1yo
That should give you a good feel for what the 150 can do in the hands of a relative serious amateur.
Alf
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Fredy, OWC does have a chart at https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/memory/. I like Other World Computing and upgraded my smaller version of yours to the max it could take (4GB and 500 GBs HD). They make it quite easy to do the upgrades. Great how to videos even for old Mac hands like myself. Unless you are doing it all the time in a service shop, it’s worth seeing how it’s done. There are some tricks to it.
I agree with Michael, you might be pushing the processors to their max, and might just need to making jello or take up marathon running while you wait… but people did use this computer as “state of the art” a few years ago. The difference is HD which you are finding out. I ended up using my MBP as a ProRes Proxy editor, and for field use. Had to get a Mac Pro to really do the job…not sure how many others are able to use MBP’s like yours. I’ll let the pros chime in. I ended up changing editing platforms to get faster video rendering…I was doing a similar thing to you…green screen with Boris in my case. Needed i5/i7 processors to really crank it up. Apple does offer them, but…as you say, it’s out of your options.
Alf
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I’ve not yet seen a crash with 10.c, but haven’t done a lot with it. And yes, I follow John’s idea for storing project files. After tearing my hair out with FCP ‘media mismanagement’ I’ve come to greatly appreciate the simplicity of Vegas’ ability to let you manage projects as John mentions. I dread having to do any projects on FCP anymore for this reason alone. I don’t want a database forcing me to keep my files in a specific way.
Alf
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I agree with John on this. I don’t ever send my HD footage to Youtube any higher than 720p. Not worth it. Hell it looks great in 360! Downgrading to 640×360 can work fine, and if you shoot with good lighting and sound you should see great stuff. Take a look at an HD video I shot last year, and put on YouTube at 720p. It looks great. All mistakes are my fault, not the fault of the resolution. I only use 1080 for BluRay disk showings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWEkZAlNlkw
Alf
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Just saw a wonderful looking Seinhauser MKE400 in Seattle today. But costs about $190. Bet it’s sweet. If I wasn’t awash in mics I’d have bought it.
Alf
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Charlie, for that kind of thing, there are some cheap lavs out there that work just fine, a little harsh. Cost less than $20 used for iPhones and the like. I have a “Griffen” lav for it. I found that the somewhat more expensive sony mics worked fine, as do anything with the right size plug..(G). Main thing is getting the distance from the camera. Might be best to use a mic on a small table stand. The little video I shot above was with the mic on the camera, which did a decent job.
Alf
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Thanks Ty, I got that from reading the manuals, and was more sort of looking for “local knowledge” from anyone that might be using this in a different way for podcasting or video production. I assume that if I were doing a live podcast capture, for later broadcast, that I might use this thing. My hunch is that I’ll sell it to the highest bidder. But wanted to get a lay of the landscape before parting with a product that I might find a use for.
Alf
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Thanks John. That’s my basic assumption, but wondered if it were worth buying a camera. It appears not, unless I was looking to shoot from it. I sent the customer back to their shooter to get it dumped to hard disk.
Alf
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Eric, the reason you got answers originally specing in at the 8k level, is that to assure “broadcast quality” they are right. Most ‘broadcast’ folks I’ve dealt with shoot with the 4:2:2 specs and throughput that mean that the “safest” thing to do is buy into the stuff that the broadcasters buy. That means Sony and Panasonic in the $7 and up level. Can you broadcast from lower end Panasonic or Sony HD gear, damn right, but if they ask “what did you shoot on” or “we only accept xxx format” then you are going to do more work, or get shut out.
So buy what you can afford. Given your ideas, if you really have the business to do this, go buy the $8k gear. It likely will be the cheapest of your costs… (G). And both are solid performers.
Alf
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That’s a really nice camera for the price, and I like SMPTE in though I don’t ever need it myself. I’m partial to Panasonic for the price/value. Do you know what formats and workflow you need to support in your locale? I can get away with HD from Panny without needing to step up to P2 for example. I transcode my footage on Windows using Neoscene to 4:2:2 and frankly, depending on the clip, I’d defy anyone using a higher quality camera to guess what I shot with.
But if you are a sony fan, go for it! It’s a camera with wonderful specs…I’ve not used one myself. A friend just had her Sony die from exposure to high humidity…never had that happen with my Panny. I like the EX3 line from Sony myself, but more expensive than either of us are budgeting for.
Alf