I have a few video camera questions

I’m going to be doing some filming next year. It’s going to be extensive and something I can hopefully show at film festivals. I’m wondering what my options are for a camera.

A lot of it will be in the rain. It will be documentary style and almost all outdoors.

Cost will be a restriction, though not a large and unyielding one. I would prefer to buy used if possible.

Another restriction is that I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to find an experienced cameraman to do the filming. It might come down to whoever will take the time and work for free (one of my buddies, likely.) This means it needs to be at least marginally simple to use.

Do any cameras fit these restrictions, or am I merely daydreaming?

Start with a dollar limit. You can buy vidio cameras from under 500 dollars to a couple hundred thousand easy.

Also, do you have any other production gear – lights or microphones?

I have a Panasonic AG-DVX100A that I like. We were shooting a feature with it. The raw footage, when shot in the 24p mode, looks to me like 16mm film. Low-light capabilities are pretty good. It can use a longer lens, but you can get accessory lenses that fit on the front of the zoom. Really, the zoom range was enough for the film; we could move the camera. We also used it to shoot weddings where we were not as mobile.

The camera has features that professionals will like, but its automatic features make it easy to use for the amateur. I bought mine new, and it came with a rain cover – which we used a few times in the PNW. We originally shot in 16:9, but we found it was easier to use fullscreen so that we could manipulate the framing in post.

Now the bad news: Used ones are going in the mid-$2K range on eBay. The camera is a year or so old, which is a long time in prosumer cameras. Most of the people I knew who were shooting video professionally (weddings and commercials mostly, in Bellingham) were switching to HiDef last year. But the Panasonic makes good images, and I didn’t want to fork over $5,500 on a HiDef camera.

In addition to a rain cover (either OEM, or a nice aftermarket one like a Porta-Brace), you’ll want some other things. The first thing would be a tripod. I’ve found that Manfrotto/Bogen tripods are good values for the money. Get extra batteries. I have a 5400mAh one that I’ve never fully discharged on a shoot. Get a couple of those in addition to the smaller ones that come with the camera if you’re going to be ‘on location’ without power. A reflector is a good thing on location. One that twists up into a 9" disc is easy to carry and can be very useful for shooting with the sun at the subject’s back or for filling in shadows. A wireless lavalier mic would be a nice addition.

Anyway, cameras… I’ve seen some good images from consumer-grade cameras. I’ve seen footage matched up with the Panasonic (in 30p mode) and a JVC GY-500U in Final Cut Pro. You can do a lot in post. Your images won’t be as good with a consumer camera as it would be with a pro or prosumer three-chip camera, but the cameras are quite a lot cheaper. One thing about consumer cameras is that they’re small and light. Good, if you have to carry it; but you need to watch your stability. They’re easy to shake and to move too quickly.

And don’t move the camera too quickly. Smoothness has a more ‘professional’ look to it, IMO. Don’t (over)use the zoom. Zooming within the shot can impart a ‘documentary feel’, but I personally don’t like zooming because it gives the impression that the shot isn’t planned. On the other hand, I like Survivorman.

If possible, try out some cameras. You can rent them from camera houses, or you can probably bring your own tape and shoot some stuff in the store. You can also try out consumer cameras at some stores. I was able to take a camera outside once (under supervision) at… Where was it? It wasn’t Best Buy. Someplace. In any case, bring a tape with you and see if you can give one of the demos a test drive. Watch the tape at home (of course you’ll need a camera or player) to decide what the best compromise is between cost and image.

Actually, I was mistaken about my camera coming with a rain cover. It’s a Porta-Brace I got at the same time.

Wow, great response. Thank you.

For a dollar limit - I really don’t know yet. If I had to guess I’d say I’ll spend what I have to and no more, or about $1,000. I don’t have any other equipment, though. How necessary are add-on mics and lights?

Are battery packs expensive, and how long do they typically last?

Does anyone know what Timothy Treadwell used, or (less morbidly) what the Jackass or CKY guys use - or Morgan Spurlock? I don’t need it to be technically any better than that.

Should I shoot digital? It seems like the post-production would be a lot easier, and the media would seem smaller and more durable than video or film (is it just flash cards, or mini-discs?)

Lighting is very important. Look at the difference between ‘home movies’ and a scene that was deliberately lit. But you need to use what you have. We shot some footage for FOX News (Shasta Groening recovery). Unfortunately we forgot our lights. We had to improvise using shop lights and blue gels. We pulled it off, and we went out live. (I’ve since resolved never to go on a shoot without one of my light kits, and I’ve bought dichroic filters for daylight balance.)

If you’re shooting outdoors, and if you’re doing a documentary, then you can use a reflector. A reflector will soften the shadows. One of the ones with the wire frame that can be twisted is nicely portable. You can also use a silver photo umbrella, which may or may not be easier to carry. (Depends on how you’re carrying stuff.) A really cheap way to go would be to get a sheet of foamcore or styrofoam. Of course you’ll need someone to hold it. (Unless there’s a fence post or something you can prop it against.) Reflectors work best in sunlight. If you’ll be in rain, then the shadows will already be soft and you probably won’t need that much fill.

Batteries can be expensive. I got my big one as a bonus when I got the camera (along with 10 tapes and a little tabletop tripod). A very quick check on google turns up $239.99 for the 5400 mAh lithium ion battery. How long do they last? It depends. If you’re taping they won’t last as long as if you have the camera on but are not taping. (Incidentally, the Panasonic does have one annoying ‘feature’: it turns itself off after a while. We’ll be setting up a shot, and just when we’re ready to shoot it will power down. But we were setting up shots, lights, etc. Takes a while.) If you turn your camera on and off it takes more power.

I’ve shot film, Beta, VHS, Hi-8, and digital. Digital is great because you can plug it right into your computer from the camera. It does make it easy. As far as being durable, you don’t want to play your tapes over and over if you can help it. We’d watch them once after the day’s shoot, then put them onto the computer. The more you play them, the more dropouts you’ll have.

Well, $240 for a battery is about the most shocking thing I’ve heard all day. I was thinking they’d be $25-$30 each and we’d just carry 10 of them at a time.

Egads, I’m becoming dyslexic. They’re really only $223.99.

B&H has them for $164.95. They have a 1200mAh lithium ion battery for $30.

Of course, these are for the Panasonic. Different cameras use different batteries. But I’d think they’d all be in similar price ranges.

Why on Earth didn’t you say so? Perhaps I’ll buy a few boxes and hand them out to my co-workers during the holidays. They can use them as coasters, or let their children decorate them with finger paints and hang them in the tree.

$239.99, hah! I thought something was suspect about that number!

I’m of the mind that if you really want to make a film, use whatever camera you can lay your hands on. Thomas Vinterberg used a single-chip Sony PC7 on The Celebration. You can get a similar camera at Best Buy or Circuit City for under a kilobuck.

I’m not a surfer, but I really like The Endless Summer. It was shot on a wind-up Bolex H16 16mm film camera. Having a spring motor, synch was impossible and takes were limited to about 25 seconds. But add music and narration, and it’s a great little travelogue. The great thing about an H16 is that they’re light and you don’t need batteries. On the downside, you’re limited in that you can’t shoot for sound and film and processing are expensive.

You’ll get much better quality from a prosumer camera ($2,500 - $8,000), but even a single-chip consumer digital camera will deliver the goods when you’re on a budget. It’s all about the story-telling. If you’re able to light a scene, or plan your shots to the best lighting advantage, then so much the better.

I’m finding prices for Johnny’s “A” model;, which I’m not sure is still available new, and a later “B” model, in the $2K neighborhood.

If you don’t have them, you will need some additional gear:
-camera tripod
-ar least 2 battery packs.
-3 lights and stands
-batteries for them too
-LOTS of extension cords (so you can go without batteries as often as possible)
-microphones. If you epect to have your characters moving around a lot, you’ll need --wireless lapel mikes. A sotgun mike and a boom.
possibly a small portable audio mixing board depending on how many mikes you would use at any one time. Alot of cameras have a built in capacity to mix 2 mikess.

So, besides the camera, another $2K. Oh yeah, and post-production studio time…

I strongly suggest checking out your local cable TV provider. Many of the older franchises have production facilities and gear for public access. Not so many as there used to be before cable franchise laws changed, though. But even if the cable outlet clised its studio, there’s a fair chance that one or more community groups formed that raised money and bought their own gear for their members. Thes groups are also good sources for your crew – just realize on occasion that you will need to be in their crews.

All of my lights run off the mains. I’m a big fan of Lowel lights (I have a DP Remote Kit and a small ViP 98 kit). The Pros are available in 12v. Do you have any experience with them? How long will they be useful with a 5aH battery (which is what I have for running the 16mm cameras)?

Speaking of Survivorman, do you know what he uses? I seem to recall he got rained on a lot in Costa Rica, and I know he’s been snowed on an awful lot.

From Les Stroud’s website:

JohnnyLA, you rock.

Might I inquire as to whether or not this mostly-in-the-rain footage will be shot during day and nighttime, or just daytime? Will you be shooting a travelogue or action footage? How important is sound ?

And finally, what is your threshold budget? You need to assume that (especially) since you are not an experienced videographer, that the odds are pretty good that you are going to get this camera wet. Very wet. More than once. There is the chance that moisture will get onto the heads to the point where it will not record when you want it to.

So. If you are shooting a documentary that is mostly outside on a rainy or not rainy day, I would recommend buying two identical camera bodies. You can get a pretty good image for a documentary off of a single-chip Mini-DV camera. There are tons to chose from. Find one that has a separate kit available for wide and tele-extender lenses. Using a mini-dv camera that has a combination of optical and digital zoom is a waste- you can only safely rely upon the optical portion of the zoom, since you want to have something at the end that can be projected. Digitally zooming guarantees a softening and digitizing / " pixllating " of the digitally zoomed into shots. Unacceptable for projection.

If you are going to use a relatively small consumer camera body, then a rain cover is not a difficult proposition.

Also, get the camera well in advance of the time you are going to shoot this project. Use both bodies if you can get two and familiarize yourself with them. ( I suggest using both to insure that both operate identically, and properly. )

Lithium Ion batteries do not suffer as badly in the cold as either NiCad or NiMH packs. Having said that, they do still suffer and so if this is a rain/snow gig , get a pile of batteries and have access to a charger. If you DO have to shoot in the extreme cold, buy a very small Playmate plastic cooler. Get those chemilcal-free hand warmers and use them every morning, to keep the fresh battery packs warm.

Good luck, and let us know what you go with !

Cartooniverse, professional camera operator and proud owner of a DVX-100A

Thanks, Cartooniverse. :slight_smile:

In re-reading the thread, I found this:

The JVC is not a comsumer-grade camera. It’s a full-size miniDV camera that was popular for ENG. My point was that the Panasonic is a prosumer camera – smaller chips and fewer ‘professional’ features than a pro camera. But we were able to match footage. So it shouldn’t be a problem matching consumer and prosumer images in post.

Thank you, great advice all.

This will be more of a travelogue type thing. I expect three season weather, and I’ll be away from a power source for up to 10 days at a time, so small media and lots of portable power is a must.

I’d like the media to be easily transferable to a computer for editing, as I assume this is the easiest way to edit film now (or no?)

Ten days without power could be a problem. Won’t there be anyplace to recharge? I tend to get a little obsessive about power. No power, no shoot. On the film the camera was on a lot of the time, but we weren’t recording. I just don’t remember how long they lasted. The manual says that the battery will continuously operate the camera for approximately 90 minutes (approximately 80 minutes when the LCD monitor is used). I’m assuming they’re talking about the 1600mAh battery that came with the camera. The way we were using the camera I have no way of knowing how accurate the book figure is. Anyway, we had the 1200mAh Everready and the 5400mAh Panasonic batteries. We also used the mains when we could.

As I said starting and stopping recording, powering on and off, etc. will reduce the running time. Personally I wouldn’t want to plan to shoot more than an hour on a charge. Better to plan for the worst. So if you can limit your shooting to an hour a day, and you need to be out ten days, then that’s ten batteries. B&H has the 1600mAh ones for $60. $600 total.

Remember that different cameras have different power requirements. YMWV depending on the one you choose.

Perhaps Cartooniverse can offer his professional opinion? He certainly uses his camera much more than I use mine.

[quote=Cisco]
I’d like the media to be easily transferable to a computer for editing, as I assume this is the easiest way to edit film now (or no?)
Well, there’s editing film and there’s editing video. :wink: But I think most people transfer their film to DV nowadays and edit on a computer. It sure beats splicing.

There are soloar-powered battery chargers. When NBC News sent crews to the Middle East back in '91 for Desert Storm, they built these brilliant solar panel sandwichboards that charged large 14.4 volt 5 aH Anton Bauer bricks for the cameras.

It should be a straightforward thing to find someone making solar power converters. I know that Campmor in New Jersey sells some solar power units for low-draw items. The need to charge a fistful of small 7.2 volt batteries is not nearly the same power draw as the chargers I mentioned above.

I suspect that you can get these solar units ( which are thin, and easy to transport ) and get someone in the know to wire up charger connectors. That way, while you have 3 or 4 batteries with you, the other 3 or 4 spares are laying under the charger panels, happily using the energy of the sun to recharge.

There is no other way. If you are away from real clean power for 10 days, you won’t be able to shoot all of that time.

Do keep in mind that if you learn to frame and operate the camera- WHATEVER camera you get- with the flip-out door close all the time, you will save an enormous power drain on the batteries. So, you’d pull out the camera, open the flip-out door, check exposure on the nice little color monitor, and flip it closed and shoot off of the eyepiece. If you are determined that you must frame using the flip-out monitor 100% of the time, you will drain down each pack much, much faster.

Lemme poke around… These guys have some VERY nice units. If you put 12 volts d.c. into a 7.2 volt battery, bad things will happen. However, you can easily take one of the bigger units ( I mean, 12 volts but more Watts ) and wire a voltage regulator in, so that it feeds just exactly the voltage that the normal charger feeds into the battery. Then, wire in a mount and voila- good to go.

You need to consider this expense when doing the budget on this job. It is the only way to make 10 days out away from stable A.C. power.

As for the media- you will be shooting Mini DV tapes. They are digital media recorded on regular ferrous oxide videotape. The same camera you use to shoot the footage is the record deck you slave to the computer when using the edit software. That camera is used to feed in the footage ( the Import and Log feature ). Once the footage is in the hard drive and can be edited, you do not need the camera/deck again until you are ready to render the project out ( Print To Tape feature, in Final Cut Pro ).

Various softwares will allow you to render within the software, then burn to a DVD inside the computer, if your machine has a SuperDrive, or DVD burner.

I got a flashlight for xmas that has this little crank on the back. You crank it for 15 seconds and it’s supposed to be usable for 30 minutes. Is there anything like that for camera batteries?