[Craig Alan]

Thanks Ty,

I can’t find a single review. Yet they are being sold at all the major audio suppliers.

I’m looking for things to use my NAB rebate on.

I do plan to order their PCM-D50 field recorder. It has gotten good reviews. Any thoughts?

Hopefully I can use it as audio for video and sync up the sound in post.

They also have their cordless system listed, but I never hear anyone recommending their lavs and wireless system over say Sennheiser G2 at around the same price point. Any feedback about UWPV1/4244 wireless kit?

Thanks

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

https://www.barefeats.com/note06.html

if you scroll down to “insights” you’ll get some solid understanding of the options/speed. Certainly more important with a raid but worth considering.

Two drive raids are becoming cheaper. Caldigit is great if you have the bucks. I just ordered a G-Technology 2TB G-Raid3 Quad Interface External Hard Drive Array for about $350. I’ve been using a OWC Mercury-AL FW800/400/U2/eS R0 2.0TB with a macbook pro and it works fine on either the 800 or with the esata card. But only the sonnet card will give you that extra speed boost. I have a firmtek card and it is somewhat faster on esata. Plus I don’t have to worry about how many things are sharing the firewire bus.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Correct. On both the pd150 and pd170: IRIS, GAIN, and SHUTTER speed work this way. As does white balance. The camera defaults to auto when you “turn off” these manual controls.

Pat,
If you have a black b.g. and moving, colorful, hard-lit subjects, the auto sensors will be taking an erratically changing average. The camera might capture the black curtain, for example, with as much detail as possible and the costumes and faces will be blown out, just the opposite of the desired result. The ND filter works pretty well under these circumstances. If you find that you now do not have enough light, you can add about as much as 6db of gain without noticeable noise.

AE shift, if employed, will also make two identical cams no longer match.

If you do not have experience in a particular light, and you have no way to properly monitor the image, you can use the cameras’ meters. Zoom in on the part of the image that you care most about. Faces, for example. Put the camera on auto then back to manual. Take note of the settings. Turn on 70 zebra. The faces should show the stripes. Go wide, turn on 100 zebra—how much of the image is blown out?

The talent, here, is moving into radically different amounts of light. The camera operator needs to ride the iris control to compensate.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hey Pat,

If the gain kept changing, how was it the fault of initial set up? 15db? THat much always produces noise.

Great idea to check the meta data. One possible explanation for the erratic settings is auto exposure. Certainly with that much light there is no reason to raise the gain. But on auto with a black b.g. and talent moving to different areas of stage lights, auto can get wildly confused. Just like auto focus will.

Really the best way to handle this is with a broadcast monitor on location. WYSIWYG. And you should be able to get the metadata on the screen as well. For SD cams you need not spend a lot for the monitor. JVC makes nice CRTs for well under $1000. You can borrow the one you use for editing and if you don’t have one they come in handy for both.

Curious: Was the more stable camera shown to be overexposed on the scopes as well?

One more thought: since you did not have trouble matching in this environment before and the cameras were on auto exposure, is it possible the shutter speed on cam 2 was accidentally set to manual at a different speed?

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hi Pat,

I’m not a lighting pro, but I have shot quite a few stage shows with pd170s (basically an updated 150). This line of cameras is very sensitive to light. When they light the stage for live affect, it often overexposes the Sony. These shots look overexposed to me.

When you start to close down the iris to the upper range (5.6), you loose a lot of detail. If at all possible, you should attend a dress rehearsal and experiment with your settings.
If not a dress rehearsal than at least meet with the crew running the lights and white balance without colored lights and experiment with your settings under the different lighting that will be used during the show.

If you can attach a broadcast monitor to your camera, you can show the director what he is doing to ‘his’ video. Not a bad idea for the camera operator either since there is nothing accurate about the LCD screen.

Did the lighting look good live? The faces look way blown out.

Did you try one of the built-in ND filters? This should allow you to have a more wide-open iris and thus more detail and a more shallow depth of field if you are zoomed in all the way. You could also try a matte box and filter in front of the lens. This will help with lens flare and you can cut through the glare a bit more.

I might also suggest using the second camera to shoot close ups on the contestants’ faces and set the camera for this purpose. Set the first camera to allow greater camera movement following the movement of the contestants. Since the images of the two cameras will be radically different, wide and close, the transitions will be much easier and capture more of the drama of the event.

Under a lot of circumstances the auto on the Sony works pretty good. But it is taking an average. Black curtain in b.g. will tell the auto exposure to open up the lens. Light to faces not b.g.

If you are in a hurry you can use the broadcast safe filter in FCP – should help a lot.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Interesting,

I overlooked the ‘online’ part of your original post.

If you don’t mind, I’d love to know some details of how your course works. I’d also be interested in the “basic” kit you end up choosing. Are you planning on the kit being daylight temp? What type of open face lamps?

What do you see as a budget for this kit per student? How much for the course? How will you evaluate student work? Will they direct/videotape what they light or be LD or DP on local productions? I’m thinking the camera being used will vary the lighting choices/results. Are they going to be one-person crews?

Here’s a couple of links

https://www.dvinfo.net/conf/photon-management/112185-alzo-daylight-flouries.html

https://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?s=1f00c7a34b4432d33e724feccf46ad42&t=52410&page=2

I too have used the Teleprompters from the teleprompter people and I think they make good stuff for the price point. They have very good customer support and have received good reviews for some of their light products. So they might be an option. Never used their lights though.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Hi Rick,

I’ve been teaching video production on a HS level for 4 years now. It is possible to get good results with cheaper gear in almost all categories. And kids are creative and come up with their own solutions. But the pro stuff survives and the cheaper stuff gets damaged. Plus making a cheaper unit mimic a professional result is a different skill set than learning the feel of pro gear.

I would consider the software approach a good addition to using the real world gear not a replacement. If you know lighting/directing you can use software for pre-visualization. But I’d start with the real world.

Have you asked around campus if the school already owns lighting kits you could use for your course?

Another possibility is to reach into the pro community and have guests come with their own kits.

Craig

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Glad you found a work around. Be sure to repair permissions after any update or when these issues pop up. Since you were/are the admin that should not have been an issue. But I have found that non-system drive permissions can be problematic with OS X, though each update has improved on this.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

Great idea for a doc!

You’ve ordered the G2 so try out the lav. You’ll either think, “Sounds fine,” or you’ll get out your credit card and order the countryman or ask Ty which lav to get. Either way, I’d have a wired back up. I believe you can order a countryman that will work either way with the right connections.

The group scene can either be done the way Ty suggests or you’ll need a sound person to ride the levels with a mixer that can handle 4-6 inputs. You can probably rent the Shure FP410 automixer as well. But I wouldn’t rent just for the day of the shoot. I’d practice with it first.

Again, it sounds like you plan to edit sound bites from the group scenes over stills of the real subject which is the art. If that is so, I’d consider getting a good hand-held ENG mike and a plug transmitter for your G2. The same mic can then be used wired if the G2 is having problems. Either way the group is sharing memories with each other and it becomes a fun thing to pass the mike around to whoever wants to talk. This is not at all the way a news interview would look.

A student of mine shot a reunion of grads, now mostly seniors, exactly this way and it came out fine. The angle: we are taking turns documenting our memories for posterity.

You can zoom in close enough so the mike is out of the shot if you don’t like the look.

You ever notice on talk shows with a full crew, in a studio setting, and lots of experience, the boom pole/operator (when audience members talk) will often drift into the shot? As an alternative, the host will hand the audience member the mike or point the mike at their mouth. There is no affordable way to mike all those people. Hewell Howser uses the mike-in-shot style and it clearly feels like a documentary rather than news show.

I’d run a second mike to an MC who can introduce the speakers and direct the event. You might never use their voice in the final mix but at least the event will run smoothly and you’ll capture their interaction and names.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.

[Craig Alan]

“But I think that handheld mics make documentaries look like journalism”

It all depends on how you plan to shoot your doc. And how you edit it. If the interviews are used mostly for audio tracks then what you care most about is the sound quality.

The vast majority of times you set up using the G2, it will be fine. But I would have a wired back up. There are locations where there is interference.

Good wireless cost way more than good wired. A good lav cost way more than a good hand held.

I also think the lav that comes with the G2 is not good enough to use as your main mic for a doc. It does not reject clothing noise well. Best to keep its wire looped and off the clothing. It has what I would call a hollow and dull audio quality. One kit alone is $700. And one mic does not make for an interview. So now you are talking about two kits. If using two, you need to set them to different frequencies. No big deal. Nor am I arguing against buying the g2. We have 4 kits. But it would not be my first choice on a $700 budget. I’d suggest these at $200 a piece: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=getItemDetail&Q=&sku=294555&is=REG&si=rev#anchorToReadReviews

The vast majority of times I run XLRs, I don’t bother with the gaffer tape. I threw that in only to give ideas if setting up an interview with a cooperative subject in a crowded environment. Nor does securing the wire with a piece of gaffers take a lot of time unless you are running gaffer over the full length of cable so people can step over it repeatedly.

Another thing to consider, and I’m not arguing for or against, is if you do go with the wireless kit and you are or are not mounting your camera on a tripod, figure out how you will mount your receiver to your camera. There are lots of accessories that can do this for you but give it some thought. Consider that you do want to be able to see the lcd screen in whatever position it ends up. So, for example, if you mount it horizontally on a hot shoe extender, you need to be tall enough to look down on it. Also the antennae should be aligned to each other: if your transmitter is vertical so should be your receiver.

Here’s a tutorial on how to set the basic controls for the G2 https://dvcreators.net/products/sennheiser_wireless_movieframe.htm.

Hint: pushing the on/off button quickly will take you out of the menu system.
Holding it for about 2 seconds will turn it on and off.

Tip: bring a large supply of batteries and have a way of storing them so the contacts don’t meet and they stay cool.

OSX 10.5.7; MAC Book PRO (EARLY 2008); Camcorders: Sony Z7U, Canon HV30, Sony vx2000/PD170, Canon xl2; Pana, Sony, and Canon consumer cams; FCP certified; write professionally for a variety of media; teach video production in L.A.