[Phil Balsdon]

The main reason producers go for this camera is the depth of field properties from the large chip size.
To gain the most advantage you should get the fastest lenses you can. The 24-70 2.8 and 70-200 2.8 are excellent choices. You might also consider the 50mm 1.4 which is not expensive. The 16-35 2.8 is also a good option for wide angle requirements.

The zooms that offer longer focal ranges are generally slower but the 24-105 f4 does have an image stabilizer. Phillip Bloom has an article about using this lens for shooting interviews using the mage stabilizer for additional steadiness.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

Never shot home movies, never shot the kids in the garden. Just 40 years of shooting feature films, documentaries, tv commercials, music clips, done tons of ENG too even back when it was 16mm film, etc etc.

Wonder why George Lucas(you might have heard of him he made “Star Wars”) has just used HD DSLRS for a feature film, wonder why the final episode of “House” was shot with Canon 5Ds, wonder why the Iaccoca Mustang commercial was shot with Canon 5D HD DSLRs.

Want to learn more try here https://philipbloom.net/
and then here https://www.zacuto.com/shootout

“Youth and enthusiasm, no match for old age and experience”

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

The difficulty is not in the lens, its the 1/3in CCDs. The only way to get a really shallow depth of field with small chip cameras is to use an adaptor such as Mini35 or Letus or a number of others.

This is also one of the reasons the new HD DSLR cameras have become so popular.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

HDV-SD50P is a standard definition image in PAL format (50 progressive frames per second).
DV-60i is a standard definition NTSC image.

Nor sure where you are geographically NTSC or PAL but you are probably okay image wise you just need to find a way to get the images playing out as PAL.

If you are in NTSC land you’ll then have to convert them to NTSC from PAL.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

I did very similar tests, with similar results.

I noticed the truncated clips problem occurred only if I loaded clips into log and transfer and then kept working whilst clips where still transferring.

With Grinder I also found it created upper field dominant clips, something you don’t want in progressive, I could find no way to prevent this. This could also have contributed too, when compared to other transfer methods, problems with more pixelated edges on fine diagonal detail when magnified in the viewer / browser. (This also meant clips had to rendered in the timeline if used in conjunction with other progressive scan clips).

I liked the way the Canon Plugin used time of day info to create timecode.

I use the Canon method with care and check the duration of each transfered clip against the original.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

Another way to check exposure is to take a quick still frame and then review it using the Histogram function.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

Of course you can use the old fashioned clapper, it’s probably the most reliable method. We have one.
Even a hand clap and audio ID will work. I also have a slate app on my iPhone.

At the moment though I’m working on a mini dance doco shooting rehearsals. Sometimes I’m on steadicam, sometimes sticks and sometimes handheld. Most of the time the sound recordist and I are on opposite sides of the room. The audio from the radio mike on the instructor is important. Setting up a clap of any kind is impractical, in this instance we find PluralEyes to be faultless. In post I can set up PluralEyes to batch sync everything and save a heap of time.

I also shoot a regular interview with a CEO using two cameras. This session often stops and starts, bringing in a clapper etc would be disruptive to the talent and flow of the interview and getting both cameras to see a clap at the same time difficult. PluralEyes works for this too, syncing both cameras (timecode out of these particular cameras is not available).

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

I’ve found PluralEyes to be very good, but I use Final Cut Pro.

For those that don’t use Final Cut you can now get DualEyes which works with most other NLE’s.

I use a Zoom H4 to record master audio.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

JVC HD201E / 251E both shoot HDV 720 50p.

I would assume it’s from one of these as the BR-HD50 is a JVC deck.

If you still have access to the camera you might try importing from that. If it works you know the problem is with your deck, if not it’s on the tape. The deck you can probably get repaired, if it’s tape you’ll need to find a work around.

Wondering why the project was off-lined in SD PAL though when HDV files are around the same file size as SD.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/

[Phil Balsdon]

You need to convert the RAW to jpeg. Photoshop should do this, if you have the necessary version / plugins etc.

The camera normally records a RAW and a jpeg version.

Cinematographer, Steadicam Operator, Final Cut Pro Post Production.
https://www.steadi-onfilms.com.au/