Steve Crow
Forum Replies Created
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Will do Rob, thanks for the quick reply!
Steve
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Bill,
If you think back to the Panavision style Hollywood film cameras – they could only shoot for what…15 or 20 minutes per film load? (I’m hazy on the details but I remember it wasn’t long)
So I don’t think the 12 minute recording time by itself relegates a camera to a video “clip” device. In my experience 12 minutes is plenty of time for narrative, documentary, news and straight up interview work. Honestly, it takes me less than 3 seconds to hit the stop record and record button to start a new clip and give myself another 12 minutes recording time – if I overrun that 12 minute window yes I’m screwed but it’s only happened to me maybe once.
Someone else mentiond using external recorders like the Atmos to get “unlimited” recording time but for that you have to make sure your camera gives a “clean” HDMI out signal meaning without overlays.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Jim,
Unless you are willing to spend many tens of thousands of dollars, a traditional videocamera is going to have a very hard time giving you the filmic look that $3000 or so gives you in a full frame DSLR which is the very reason they are so popular. I remember having a OLD Canon HV20 or something like that I tried to use with a RedRock Micro cinema lens adapter but it was such a pain in the ass to set up properly that I returned the RedRock in favor of, eventually, my Canon DSLR.
I am not sure why you would even consider going back to the traditional videocamera world unless its for convenience and maybe price.
Even the Canon 6D, their entry level full frame camera which sells for under $2,000 (body only), is going to give a much more pleasing image than any pro or prosumer traditional videocamera that is in any kind of reasonable price range for the normal human being.
So, going back to a Sony traditional videocamera is going back to the video look which is fine if you are happy with that look. Even my lowly Canon T2i, which you can now get for probably under $400 used, has a superior image to those vastly more expensive traditional videocameras I was mentioning earlier. I used to shoot everything with the Panasonic AG-HVX200 myself but sold it go the DSLR route fulltime.
I have nothing against the Panasonic G3 cameras in terms of the body itself even though I opt to shoot with Canons myself. I’d only make sure of the lens selection meets your needs first but there’s usually options to work around any lens issues with adapters and so on.
Then there’s the whole new and often pricey world of “hybrid” DSLR/videocam cameras like Red, BlackMagic, the Canon C100-300-500 Cinema line and so on that try to merge the best qualities of the two, representing a whole new class of camera in my estimation. I’m not sure if anyone has come up with a clever category name for them yet. Just looking at price, the Black Cinema Pocket Cinema Cam is hard to beat at under $1,000 but I believe the sensor size is no larger than a APS-C sensor.
I couldn’t tell exactly from the phrasing of your latest comment regarding DSLR audio quality but I hope you realize that no one really uses the Zoom or Tascam for its microphone. It’s just the recording device into which we plug very high quality microphone systems. So this gives a DSLR a very high quality audio recording solution. Granted, it IS a pain to have deal with dual audio but I believe in your original post you said you were used to handling that.
JIm – Best of luck in finding the solution that is right for you be it a DSLR, a hybrid or something else! 🙂
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
A few things that will work with any camera. First, start a new clip while the interview subject is listening to you ask the next question, it only takes a couple of seconds to start a new clip.
Avoid letting the camera run to its max clip length and stopping itself – I try never go beyond 10 minutes for instance. There are lots of reports online of various camera models failing to close the file properly when this happens and reporting the file as corrupt meaning that clip is lost unless you go to special efforts to try and recover it. Same with the battery, never let the battery completely run out of power while you are recording – that will corrupt the file too.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Hi,
Well, the frames per second is a totally different discussion that has nothing to do with what compression is being used. What we are talking about is really how much raw data is being captured by the camera’s sensor (bit rate) and how that data is being compressed (made smaller) by the AVCHD compression algorithm. So at both frame rates the compression is the same since it is still AVCHD compression.
Different codecs have different levels of compression – you don’t have much choice in this since the camera manufacturer chooses what codec to use. Now there’s the whole issue of transcoding the footage the camera gives you into a different compression format for editing (say into ProRes for example) but discussion of compression formats and what is really happening inside the video file becomes very technical after that point and I don’t know really anything really that.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
I meant of course ARE two separate things
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
The reason that the file size at the higher bit rate isn’t much higher is because of the magic or efficiency of the compression code : better quality at just slightly higher file sizes
That’s what compression does – makes file sizes smaller while preserving apparent quality so you don’t see much loss from the missing data
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
My understanding is frames per second and bitrate are not two separate things that are not linked to each other in the way that you think…each is totally independent. For a more filmic look I would go with the 25fps.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Why don’t you start with a link to the poor video and let us know what exactly you think is poor about it
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
I don’t really have any personal hands on real world basis for comparison since this is the only one I have ever owned but I did find a video customer review on Amazon.com which compared the two:
Since both you and I are using entry level DSLRs for Video (I STILL am using a Canon T2i!) I honestly believe you would be better off switching over to Canon if your ongoing interest is video. Even the entry entry Rebel line like mine is quite something in what it can do, then there’s the 60D which is interesting. If I had the bucks I would probably go for the Canon entry level full frame, I believe it’s the 6D but it’s out of reach pricewise for me now.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com