Bill Paris
Forum Replies Created
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Shane,
Thanks for the link……I’m going to order two of these systems for the job! I’ll post my experience once we get everything up and running.
Bill Paris
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Wooops! Sorry about that! Yes you are correct, I stated the capture rate at 1 frame per second, instead of 1 frame per minute. MY BAD!
I’ve been looking into using a Digital SLR and have found some interesting systems. I’ll post more on this when I get it sorted out. Thanks again for your posts and sorry about the wrong info.Bill paris
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Thanks for the input. I’ll look into using still cameras as an alternative. The reasoning in using HD was to make it a little easier in post, since the project will be cut in HD. Regarding the number of frames captured, the logic in capturing 1 frame per second is to give more frames to work with in the edit. The editor can compress the frames into whatever length they want after editiong out all the night captures. According to my math….and please correct me if I’m wrong: 1 frame per minute equals 60 frames per hour. Multiply by 24 to get 1440 frames per day. Multiply by 90 days to get 129,600 frames over the 3 month period. Divide by 30 (30 frames per second) to get 4320 seconds. Divide by 60 to get 72 minutes of video. Divide in half to account for the night shots and get 36 minutes of video. The editor can now take that 36 minutes and compress it in the timeline to get whatever duration he/she wants. The extra frames give the editor more to play with, but I’m also considering using 1 frame every 5 minutes instead. The math on this would be: 1 frame every 5 minutes equals 12 frames per hour. Multiply by 24 to get 288 frames per day. Multiply by 90 (3 months) to get 25,920 frames after 3 months. Divide by 30 (30 frames per second) to get 864 seconds. Divide by 60 to get 14 minutes of footage. Divide in half to account for the night shots and you get seven minutes of day time shots at 5 frames per minute. Once again the editor can compress this in the timeline to get a 10-15 second shot. Perhaps the 1 frame every 5 seconds will be enough?
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Jeremy,
Thanks for the information and the insights into the problem I’m encountering. I’ll purchase a Kona Card asap, in the meantime I went ahead and re-shot the images (Artists Paintings) using a faster frame rate (60p vs 24p) in the camera (HVX200). As a short term solution I’ll use Quicktime to get the project out on tape, but re-output when I get the card installed. Thanks again for your help!
Bill Paris
ps. Regarding 10 bit vs 8 bit I obviously agree with you.
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Tony,
The AJA IO has a US BETACAM NTSC 10bit Codec which is what I’m using on all my SD Projects.
Bill Paris
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I would add one more thing…… try not to light the cave backgrounds from the front, since it will flatten out your scene. I’ve shot inside many caves over the years and the best looking lighting always comes from placing lights around corners and behind rocks and lighting towards the camera to accentuate the contour of the cave. One way I’ve done this is with a couple of human light stands rigged with battery belts and sunguns. Light your backgrounds using this team and light your forground using many of the suggestions from the other posts. Good luck and happy spelunking! (sp)
Bill Paris
Director of Photography
Crew Hawaii Television -
I’ve been shooting with this camera for a few months and have found having white elements in your scene just touching 100% using zebras is a good exposure. For example if your shooting a landscape with white clouds, expose the scene having zebras coming on in the brightest parts of the clouds. Portions of a scene that pass 100% will be blown out with no detail. The same holds true for most video cameras, but especially HD. During a Sante Fe workshop at USC we shot an interview with the Sony Cine Alta bracketing the exposures a stop at a time (4 under and 4 over) We then took the footage to a color correction facility and ran it through a Davinci 2K to try and fix the scenes. Using the Davinci we were able to “fix” the scene at least 3 stops under exposed, but lost detail immediatly on the first stop over. The lesson? Don’t over expose HD unless you “intend to do it”. You will loose detail in the highlights even slightly over exposed. If I find myself in a situation where I’m not sure if the picture is a little hot, I may back off the expose a 1/4 stop or so until the zebras appear in the very brightest part of the scene. You can usually pull the detail out from the dark areas if needed later. If your concerned about “Crushing the Blacks” try bringing the setup/blacks up a bit to make sure your capturing the detail in the shadows. Hope this helps.
Bill Paris
Director of Photography
Crew Hawaii Television -
I’ve had my camera for 3 Months and have worked it fairly hard. My battery mounts are damaged as well, but still holding the batteries (large Capacity) held in place. Perhaps a strong adapter could be designed to replace the clips?
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Sorry if I wasn’t clear about the drive and what is on it. It’s my understanding that the original Firewire drive I accidentally formatted is in the same condition it was in after I formatted it with the camera, therefore the directory is gone buy hopefully the files are intact? The work the tech did he say’s did not effect the original drive in any way.
I did contact “Drive Savers” and they thought they could fix it for $2500!!! I also talked with a company in New York City called Tech Serve, they charge $1000 even if the process doesn’t work, which is why I gave my local guys a shot for a couple of hundred bucks.
I may just put the drive on the shelf until a solution is found. I know it was a stupid error, but I’m shure other’s will make the same mistake as the camera becomes more popular. Thanks for your suggestions and please send any information along that could lead to a fix.
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Thanks for your response…..I believe the original drive that was formatted by the camera is basically ok since the tech who did the work extracted the data, then transferred it to another drive where he rebuilt the directory. Is there a specifc program we should use to rebuild the video data? The directory rebuild seem to work with a little work around here and there, but the video was digital noise.