Steve Crow
Forum Replies Created
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I use the Canon T2i so that was built before Canon started offering the more flexible in-camera audio recording options. I can however control the audio recording levels on devices plugged into the Zoom but that’s a bit different than what you asked about.
Yeah your plan sounds pretty smart to me, I’m just not overly thrilled with the audio from mics mounted directly on cameras since they are typically so far from the audio source….still it’s soooo much more convenient than dealing with the lavs and the the whole dual sound recording workflow….oh speaking of bug-a-boos – make sure you never let the Zoom H4N reach zero battery juice while recording….the audio that was recorded up to the point will technically still be on the SDHC card inside the Zoom but you won’t be able to get at it, at least not easily. It will report a 0mb file size – I had this happen to me on like a 10 minute clip! 🙁
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
OK, I have the older Video Mic Pro which is closer to the shotgun style you mentioned. I would say that it does an “allright” job of capturing audio but 90% of the time I am only using it plugged directly in to the DSLR so that I can improve on the camera’s built-in mic…and even then the camera audio is only being used to sync with the audio coming in wirelessly from the lavalier into the H4N….so I’m not really depending on it all that much. What I have works for me but your situation sounds more challenging.
In your situation, I think you may want to actually use some of that camera audio at least for environmental sound, B-roll stuff so I think my best advice is to rent either one and see how you like it before you purchase. Put it this way, if it were me I’d be looking at all the audio reviews to make sure there wasn’t something better out there, for instance Senheisser just announced a new small shotgun specifically for DSLRs. Now if you are filming within 5 feet of your subject either of the two mics you mentioned would probably be fine but in a wedding situation I don’t think you can count on being so close to your subject all the time.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Will these be the ONLY mics you are using? No lavaliers for instance?
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
I don’t think so, the video is still being compressed into the AVCHD format in either case. You could try raising the bit rate (if possible) that should do more to improve the overall quality of the clips you are capturing. I think of it this way: The AVCHD is a compression algorithm that the raw video signal is being processed by – the frame size doesn’t change how the algorithm works. Maybe there will be a slight perceived difference but nothing I would bank on….why don’t you just test this to find out and let us know?
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Try using the motion blur filter and seeing if that can fix this issue for you. Let us know if it works for you or not. By the way, what did you learn to prevent this issue from happening in the future?
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Sorry I have no experience with the Sony
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
In terms of your camera setup and the issue of changing lighting conditions/clouds – the only thing I could think of was using the auto iso feature available in cameras like the Canon T2i. I have never tried this before so I don’t have any direct experience to offer you but I would certainly set up a test if I were you to see if the ramping up of ISO done by the camera is smooth or, as I suspect, rather jumpy. The shutter speed and aperture are going to be basically fixed if you want that filmic look with a shallow depth of field (of course the amount that is out of focus depends upon which particular aperture you decide to use)
The sun gun idea doesn’t sound ideal to me at all – I would imagine that it would produce a rather intense, harsh light on your subject. I bet you can get away with setting up just one softbox light in the room as your key light and using things like windows or maybe a reflector as fill light. I think the 60D is more than fine for your needs, get the Canon 50mm 1.4 lens for around $300 or if you can afford it a 24-70mm zoom with a low FIXED aperture
You can give the lightpanel a shot, I assume you mean the small kind that mounts on the hotshoe – they come with a a plastic diffusion sheet to soften the light up a bit – again, this would be a great thing to test unless you can find a test done by someone else perhaps on Vimeo – that’s where I would start looking.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
The first thing I would check is to see if Premiere is transcoding the video into a different format upon import
Also are you playing the videos from your desktop folder in their native format? That could be the cause of the differences you are seeing
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
Hey Curtis, that’s caused by a couple of hard limits built into the camera and there are no effective workarounds – what I do is quickly stop recording and then a second later start another clip but yes I do lose that time inbetween – with the HD DSLRs almost all have some kind of time or file size limit that you will run into – I believe the Panasonic G2 has a hack that you can do it to record 20 minutes
This is all very well documented online – check it out
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com -
My understanding is that the limit is BOTH a file size limit AND a time limit but it would be worth the research to get a definitive answer to that. If the time is not hardwired in then you could try switching to filming in 720p mode but I have a sneaking suspicion that won’t work either which gets us back to the starting point, doesn’t it? Sorry I’m not being any help on this one.
Steve Crow
Crow Digital Media
http://www.CrowDigitalMedia.com