John Sharaf
Forum Replies Created
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actually not a bad idea, as you are able to clone, as opposed to dub, the copy via firewire from camera to deck. the single wire will carry video, audio and time code.
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Ernie,
I don’t think you read the memo. From what I understand, Panasonic will be manufacturing the tape cameras for the foreseeable future, not to worry. Formats have a way of lingering on and on, look at 3/4″ U-Matic, which only recently has finally disappeared.
JS
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Nick,
What you should be hoping is that your camera is not “greymarket”, which would mean that not only no book, but no warranty.
JS
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Suffice it to say that Sony knows very little about the real use of their products. In the early days of video the engineers would always say to use more light, even though to do so ruined the effect or was counter to the creative intent.
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Robin,
It’s quite simple, invoking the shutter makes each frame sharper, less blurry and for your slomo effect that is probably what you want to do. In addition it recreates what the effect would be if you shot it with a film camera which defaults to a 180 degree shutter.
If you search the archives you’ll find more discussion on this topic, but the best course is to shoot some tests and view the differences yourself!
JS
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Mike,
If you’d search the archive here and at the Varicam site you’ll find a lot of discussion about this topic, but the short answer is that yes, you should use shutter on at 180 degrees when shooting 24 or 30 fps; otherwise the shutter speed of 1/24th or 1/30th of a second creates more than the expected/usual motion blur.
In NTSC, even though you’re shooting 30 frames per second, the interlace nature of it is making 60 fields per second, resulting in a 1/60th of a second shutter speed. This is what has established a “normal” and expected motion effect. By invoking a half shutter at 30fps, you are merely recreating what you’d consider normal. Now of course there are occasions, especially in low light where turning the shutter off would be helpful, and at that time it is certainly acceptable to do so, but remember to restore the shutter as soon as the light level allows.
The same holds true with slo mo effects.
In addition, the shutter is useful as you pointed out for special motion effects (helicopter blades, golf swings), computer screens (variable speed mode) and for eliminating flicker in 50 hz countries when shooting US speeds.
Don’t take my word for it; shoot tests of motion at shutter on and shutter off and I’m sure you’ll see what I’m talking about.
JS
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Craig,
I understand that you want your new camera to do everything perfectly, but you’ve got to understand that it’s a $7K prosumer unit!
The Digital Microforce and Heden Motor that I use on my Canon Cine Zooms costs almost two thirds as much as your camera ($2600 + 2100). They do however allow very smooth and slow zoom moves, just like you see on the Hollywood feature films you watch in the theater forty feet tall, and that’s because they’re using the same thing, not a $7K video camera.
I might sound snobby, but when Sony builds these cameras, the main design criteria is the selling price. In the case of your complaint, the problem is with the quality of the zoom motor. They bought a unit at a price point that fit. I don’t think your problem could be called a bug. That’s not to say that your motor or the drive device it uses isn’t faulty, check other samples of the camera and see if they’re similar. If they are you’re SOOL. Sorry.
JS
JS
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Not being familiar with histograms, but rather scopes, I would suspect that it ends at 100. In digital, with balack being at zero instead of 7.5 ire, the range from 0-100 equals 100%. The white clip is always adjustable in professional cameras, I’m not sure of what your EX-1 does, but you might just set it at 100 instead of 108. See if you can tell the difference on overexposed areas on your shot.
JS
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You’ll find considerable discussion of zebras in the archives of this and/or the Varicam forums, but basically in HD the convention is to set faces at 50-60 IRE or percent as the case may be vs. the more common 70 ire setting in SD. This is to allow more room in the higher exposure to let the cine gamma’s do their work. The 108 ire setting is the common level for “clip” above which all picture is clipped to white, where no detail in the image remains. It’s a convention that prevents overexposure from interfering with the audio in broadcast.
Video is commonly criticized for making the faces too bright, thus the reduction of exposure to the 50 ire setting for Hd, thus a more filmic look. This is also enhanced by crushing (or lowering) the gamma, which represents the middle grey from it’s nominal setting of .45 to .50 or even .55. Again the adds to what you might call the filmic look. It would be a good idea to do your own tests of exposure and gamma, along the lines of what I’ve suggested, so that you make up your own mind about these things, rather than take what I say as gospel. It’s a good process to become familiar with and will result in discovering your own look and technique.
JS
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Bill,
Shoot at 1/50th or 1/100th of a second shutter speed.
JS