Francois Arsenault
Forum Replies Created
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Hi Ann,
Alright, I guess I’ll have to get used to Premiere Elements 7 after all. But I’ll have to convert the originals to a smaller screen size (with the same proportions) before I edit them in PE7. I’m worried my computer, while decent enough, might have trouble handling high-quality 1920×1080 videos.
On a somewhat different topic, I wonder how HD is handled when creating a DVD version. With SD DV-AVI, I encode the 720×480 AVI (3:2, which is a little stretched) to a 720×480 MPEG2 (also stretched), and the result when watched on computer or TV is a picture with normal 4:3 proportions (like 640×480). It’s probably not the same with HD. The authoring software I use doesn’t support HD, so I haven’t had a chance to experiment with this. I can only assume that software that does support HD produces a picture of appropriate proportions.
I must admit that I don’t quite understand the 720×480 format you get with DV-AVI. Why is it stretched? Why not capture 640×480 footage directly? I mean, why don’t the original footage and the picture on a TV have the same proportions? Is it the same with HD? From the videos I’ve shot so far, the picture appears normal to me, unlike the stretched 720×480. If it’s the case, do the proportions change when creating a DVD, or do they stay the same (resulting in a letterboxed picture, of course)?
Francois
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Hi Ann,
Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to convert to CS4. Besides, if I really wanted to use HD, there’s a copy of Premiere Elements 7 that I could potentially use. But I would much prefer to stick to Premiere 6.5 and smaller screen size, which is why I need to convert to SD DV-AVI (letterboxed), and not the other way around.
Francois
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Hi T2,
> I’d suggest you haunt the Cinematography or Lighting Design forums > for a while, see if you can’t learn some things that will improve > the lighting plot.
Alright, I’ll do that. Thank you for the advice.
> You say you are “diffusing” the instruments, but my guess is that > you are not diffusing them enough, or in the right way.
Yeah, that’s quite possible. What I use are homemade discs that I made with diffusion sheets that I bought in a photography store. I hang them in front of my lighting kits (cheap Opus ones with metal bowls). I also tend to bounce the lights off the walls and ceiling instead of pointing the light directly at the models. But again, I either don’t get enough light, or the light is too harsh despite the diffusers.
> Bouncing your light into or shooting them through white umbrellas > will probably be the easiest/fastest/cheapest way to get nice soft > diffuse light that shouldn’t be too harsh on your subjects.
I actually tried that last year. I bought two kits with umbrellas which used cold lightbulbs (I wanted the lights to be easier on the models than the 300W bulbs I use in my current kits). Unfortunately, I can’t say I saw any real improvement. Even worse, no matter how hard I tried to get the white balance right, I always got a picture that was ridiculously orangeish, a problem I never had with my Opus kits. I must admit that I was stunned to find that my cheap $100 kits actually got better results than the $200 kits with umbrellas. I was hoping the latter would solve some of my problems, but no such luck. I returned them, very disappointed.
Assuming the umbrella kits hadn’t caused a color problem, would they have been powerful enough for my needs? Soft light is important, but so is enough light, otherwise I might as well stick with my Opus kits and set them so that the models aren’t overexposed.
> but if you are on a budget
Heh, I most certainly am.
> Photoflex makes very good boxes that are much cheaper.
Noted.
> Or hit eBay and search “softbox” under Photographic Lighting and
> Equipment. I’ve seen boxes there for as little as $20.Wow, that’s impressive!
> The biggest pros in the business use “bounce cards,” which are
> simply 4×4 sheets of white foamcore. You can buy slightly smaller > versions at a hobby or office supply store for a couple of bucks.Would white plastic corrugated boards work too? How do you use bounce cards, exactly? They shouldn’t take up too much space, because I’m already very tight as it is. I can barely move around when I shoot as it is.
Thank you again for your help. You’ve given me a lot to think about. There is only so much I can do with my limited means, especially since I’m not a pro and can’t justify putting a lot of money into my project, but I’ll see what I can do.
Francois
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Hi T2!
So it seems I’ll have to get used to the limitations of my new acquisition. I wish my old camcorder was still usable. It had its quirks, but I got used to them, and it never had any trouble at all with focus, regardless of distance, zoom or lighting conditions.
I’ll try to improve the lighting, but frankly, I’ve been trying to do it for the last few years. My apartment is very poorly lit. I’ve tried many different setups, but none give truly satisfactory results. I do have two lighting kits, which help a lot, but they’re very basic, and if I try to increase the light too much, it results in harsh overexposure, especially on the subjects’ skin. So there’s a limit to how bright I can make things. I often use diffusers in front of my lamps, but even then, either the light is still too harsh or it’s not strong enough. I simply can’t get strong but soft/diffuse lighting.
There is a room in my apartment that I thought was significantly better lit than the others (my office). There’s a ceiling lamp with a diffusion bowl in there. With one lighting kit of two, things actually look pretty nice. Unfortunately, I also noticed that with the Vixia, colored flat surfaces like walls or sheets look pixelated or something. I find myself limited to rooms with very little color, which is boring. I don’t know if it’s once again due to poor lighting, but I really can’t make the lighting any better than it is in my office. I either have to accept a background that’s significantly more grainy/pixelated than the subjects, or film in more boring and potentially darker rooms.
About the picture shaking issue that I also mentioned, I think I’ll try to leave the camcorder attached to the tripod when I carry it in my hands. It’s awkward, but the extra weight does help stabilize it somewhat. I guess I could use the Image Stabilizer function, but I tried it, and to my eye it makes motion look a little odd in a way I can’t quite describe, especially when the camcorder is static on the tripod (in which case the function isn’t useful at all, of course). Then again, I don’t know if this odd effect (which is fairly subtle) is really due to the Image Stabilizer, or if it’s caused by something else. I haven’t had a chance to experiment enough to really tell.
As for the LCD, I guess you’re right, the picture looks good because the resolution is so small. It’s kinda like when I extracted stills from the footage I got with my Sony TRV900. It was quite good with video, but it wasn’t designed to be good with stills, so the pictures only looked decent if I resized them as small as 320×240, or even less. It’s a good thing the stills weren’t critical to my project. Anyway, I’ll do some research on location monitors.
It’s quite obvious that I have a lot to learn, not only about the Vixia HF20 and other HD camcorders, but filming in general. What’s a little sad about me knowing so little is that I’ve been producing videos for the last 8 years. You’d think I’d be more skilled by now, but the thing is that my project is only an amateur side thing that I do very irregularly, and I never had any formal training. The fact that my main “studio” is so poorly lit doesn’t help either.
In any case, I thank you for the information. It might not provide an easy solution, but I much prefer to know that what I’m experiencing is normal in my situation than to worry that the camcorder may be defective or that I’m overlooking a setting that I might never notice. Your help is much appreciated.
Francois