[Todd Terry]

Yes, as Gary said you’ll need an HDV deck, not just an SD deck.

But to take that a bit further, you might need to do a little research, especially if you shoot your HDV footage at 24fps. That particular camera’s flavor of 24p (which Canon called 24F back in the day) was a little peculiar, and weirdly/sadly enough that footage could not be played in all HDV decks. I used to have a list of which ones were compatible, but that was years ago. The very first HDV decks could not read the Canon 24fps footage, whereas some of the later ones could.

It would be nice to have a deck… if it worked. Though it might prove to be more foolproof just to get the firewire port fixed.

And no, you’re not going to find a better low-light camera for under $1000.

Assuming you have the stock Canon lens that originally shipped with that camera, there is a neutral density ring on the lens barrel (you press an unlock button to turn it). It’s the ring marked 1/32 1/6 and OFF. You’d want it completely off when shooting in darker environments. The gain is the pop-out knob on the left side of the body, ranging from -3 to +18. You’ll want that turned down as close to zero as possible and still get good exposure. Make sure your iris is wide open in darker situations, and that will be as much as you can do to avoid grainy or noisy images.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

That’s a good suggestion.

I’d definitely recommend either finding a deck or just getting the firewire port fixed. Neither of those options is going to cost you anywhere near $1000, and you’re not going to find any new camera under a grand that is (in my opinion) anywhere near the camera that the H1 is… in fact, not even in the ballpark. Even though it is old, and even in spite of the small chip the H1 is just an awesome camera… and the stock zoom lens is excellent.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Mark Suszko] “Todd must be doin’ *something* right all these years”

As Mark should know, it’s purely my clean, clean living.

I should have responded to the group earlier, but I’ve been directing on location like a madman for about a week+ and really haven’t had the chance… but many many sincere thanks for the nice words to Mark, Tim, Andrew, Greg, Bill, Ned, and Nick…

…and to Rich who I’m glad enjoys our tree, and doesn’t see it in its very sad in-storage state….

And again sincere thanks to my bovine brethren in here.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

Well, it’s hard to suggest a camera based on just a “movie in the mountains”… not sure what level you are looking to work at, your budget, what any of your shooting requirements are, or anything like that…

As a very general and broad recommendation, though, I’m a huge fan of everything in the EOS “C” line… everything from the C100 up to the C300 Mark II… they are all fantastic cameras (I’ve shot with the C300PL since they first came out). There’s a wide variety of costs there, too, but all are great cameras.

I, too, shot with the XLH1 from when they first came out up until the C300 was released… I guess that was about five years or so (I also loved it, my favorite camera ever up until that point). I know you said you were going to sell it, and you can likely find a buyer… but unfortunately (like all video cameras) don’t expect to get a great deal for it, especially since it needs a repair. When we went to the C300 I was going to sell our XLH1 and P+S Technik lens converter (a combo we’d paid about $23,000 for new). At that time on the used market the H1 was getting about $1000 (down from $10,000) and the lens converter getting about $650 ($13,000 new), so I decided to keep them rather than practically giving them away. I’m actually glad I’ve kept them, we’ve ended up using them a few times.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Adam Belle] ” Is it also worth renting a 7D for the crop sensor and that little bit extra zoom?”

No, it’s not, because it doesn’t really get you anything. For example, a 200mm lens is a 200mm lens no matter what camera and sensor you are comparing it to. You might think you are getting a tighter zoom with the smaller sensor camera, but that’s only because the sensor is just using a smaller portion of the image projected by the lens. The end result is the same as if you shot everything with the larger-sensor camera and just enlarged the image enough to match the field of view of the smaller one. It’s definitely no reason to wag an extra camera body along.

[Adam Belle] “Will the f4.5 be low enough to shoot hand held at 400mm in less than perfect light with the 7d?”

Probably not. To shoot 400mm handheld you will need a pretty darn high shutter speed or your images will be blurry. So if you force a high shutter speed with a lens that slow in poor lighting, that’s going to require a very high ISO for good exposures, and you are much more likely to get unacceptably grainy/noisy images. I think you’ll at least need a tripod, monopod, sandbag, or other support.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Gary Huff] “Unfortunately, that defies the laws of physics.”

Obviously… hence my leprechaun analogy. Or Unicorn.

The Canon f/4 is probably a decent trade-off… but a lot slower than I’d like.

The Canon 14-60mm is reasonably fast at f/2.6… but that’s not great range on the long end, and it’s $43,000.

For something in the f/4 range I’ll stick with my Russian Foton.

It’s definitely a challenging world sometimes, optically. And otherwise.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Gary Huff] “if I could afford it, and use that 90% of the time.”

Yup… and thus the problem with cine zooms.

Even though I rarely if ever change a focal length during a shot, sometimes it does get tiresome changing primes and I wouldn’t mind having a zoom mounted instead. The only zoom I ever use is my vintage Russian Foton 37-140mm, which is beautiful glass and gives pretty much exactly that vintage Cooke Speed Panchro look that most DPs still go crazy for… but it is slooow as molasses.

In a perfect world there’d be a very wide range cine zoom that is also very fast and lightweight… and affordable. Say, something in the old Angénieux range of 12-120, that was f/2.0 or faster, wasn’t a foot long and six pounds, didn’t flare, and didn’t cost as much as my first house. Unfortunately you are more likely to find a leprechaun.

Canon does make two great (and fast) cine zooms that I’d love to have… but for range I’d need both of them and last time I looked they were pushing 50 grand each (and are still quite large and heavy). I haven’t even come close to being able to justify that as a purchase, and no rental houses in our area stock them.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I mean a “proper” cine lens… lenses that were designed for motion picture work… as opposed to SLR still zooms that have been repurposed for motion work. Of course this wasn’t a consideration before the DSLR explosion.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

I’m going to butt in here and ask a stupid question, just because I want to educate myself…

But… I thought virtually all real cine lenses (and I’m assuming video zooms) were parfocal.

Are they not?

I know some SLR zoom lenses are not (and are only varifocal), but I thought that all legit lenses for motion work are.

I’ll freely admit I shoot very few zooms (I’m a primes guy), but I have been shooting for 3+ decades now and don’t recall ever having to use a zoom that wasn’t parfocal.

Or have I just been totally missing something for a quarter century???

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Todd Terry]

[Mike Tyler] “it’s probably not optimal to shoot at above 25 fps when I don’t intend to slow down the footage.”

Correct, you should really not overcrank unless you intend (or think that it is fairly likely that you will) end up slo-mo’ing the footage. A lot of people say “Why?… I can just play it all at ‘normal’ speed in post, and then if I need slow motion, then I’ve got it.” It is because when you use your overcranked footage at “normal” speed, then you are effectively shooting at too-high a shutter speed. If you are in the 24fps world and you shoot 24fps footage, your optimal shutter speed will be 1/48th of a second. The easy formula is “One over twice the frame rate.” This emulates a 180° shutter in a film camera, and gives you the amount of motion blur that you need for your brain to interpret the footage as smooth. But… lets say you overcranked by 2x, and shot at 48fps. Then you likely would have had a shutter speed of 1/96th of a second. For easy math, let’s say 1/100th. Well, when you use that footage as slow-mo, everything looks great. But if you speed up the footage 2x so that you have normal non-slow mo speed, the speed looks right but it is as if you shot 24fps footage but with a 1/100th shutter speed… which is much higher than normal. You’ll have half as much motion blur compared to normal footage, and your motion might appear jittery and choppy with sort of a staccato look. Now, you MIGHT not see it that much (except with very fast motion) if you are only overcranking 2x, but higher than that and you’ll definitely see it.

[Mike Tyler] ” if I am shooting only with natural light, would 25 fps PAL or 24 fps NTSC be ‘better’ ?”

You’ll typically want to do a project in whatever the native framerate is in the part of the world that you are… or will be distributing. In the US films are invariably shot at 24fps, and converted to 60i for our NTSC television systems (3:2 pulldown). In the UK and parts of Europe the PAL format of 25fps is the norm, so you’d likely want to shoot 25fps there.

[Mike Tyler] “I’ve read about issues with flickering when using NTSC in Europe / PAL in USA with artificial lighting..”

That can be true, with non-continuous sources like fluorescents, HMIs, etc. But flickering is just as much (if not moreso) a function of shutter speed as it is frame rate. Usually cameras in clearscan mode can dial in a flicker-free exact shutter speed (which isn’t measured in fractions of a second, but rather in hertz) that eliminates that. If not, then it is acceptable to shoot in the frame rate that is normal for whatever country you are in. Then, you can conform to your “usual” frame rate in post. If you go from 24fps to 25fps (or vice versa), it’s only a 4% difference so visually that is usually not noticeable (you might have to make a slight pitch correction for sound, though).

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com