September 10th, 2009 Rich
I was so pleased with the performance of my HF S200 that I purchased it’s big brother, the HF S100.
I wanted to be able to shoot a three-camera setup. The third camera allows me to shoot an interview, for example. I have a camera on a two-shot of the interviewer and interviewee. Another camera is close on the interviewee. The third camera is close up on the interviewer. I have all three cameras running, introduce a sound sync mark, and then I can easily edit in a multi-camera mode. It’s a piece of cake. And if someone flubs, I have coverage to edit past that.
A couple of key camera features include zebra bars and exposure adjustment so it is much easier to get the exposures you desire. On occasion, I want a scene dark, for example. Instead of having the camera turn up the gain automatically and create noise in the dark areas, you set a lower exposure value and it doesn’t auto adjust. It you are getting zebra bars, it is also helpful to lower exposure so you don’t blow out your whites.
I also enjoy the 8 megapixel still pictures. This allows me to shoot clean plates for use in green screen and compositing. The 16:9 format may not be so great as a still format but turning the camera sideways can give some big verticals.
– Rich Pulham
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September 8th, 2009 Rich
I was shooting a client’s musical DVD where performers lip-synced to pre-recorded music. Having a second camera made a lot of sense for reducing the amount of time shooting. I could get two different angles of a performance at the same time.
I found a refurbished Canon HV20 for under $500 and purchased it. My first camera had done a great job and this fit my price range. However, part way into the shoot, the camera failed. B&H Photo was very helpful in getting an RMA. I got a credit because I planned on buying a third camera.
So I would have a second camera on the shoot, I purchased a Canon HF200. At first, I was leary of going to an AVCHD camera but decided to give it a try when I learned it did 24 mb/sec., the same as the HDV format on my HV20. It turned out to be a good move.
There were several features lacking on the HF 200 that I decided I could live without since I was using my HV20 as well. The main one was zebra bars. That feature really helps with getting good exposures. It also didn’t have an eye-level viewer. But the pluses far outweighed the negatives.
The first thing I found was that there was less blurring on fast action. This has always been an issue with HDV. It shot full 1920×1080p instead of 1440×1080p I got with tape. That gave better images with fewer artifacts.
Shooting on a 16 gig class 6 SDHC card gives about 90 minutes worth of recording. Once a shot is taken, it can be watched on the camera’s display to make sure you got what you wanted. And of course, it doesn’t take an hour to dump a tape. It’s a drag and drop operation.
The camera feels tiny in your hand. I have heard that small cameras are hard to hold steady. But this one is easily cupped in two hands for rock steady operation. I can also use the loosened strap to hold it in one hand for a fairly steady picture.
– Rich Pulham
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September 7th, 2009 Rich
I made a trip to New York for the B&H Photo classes on AfterEffects. I didn’t have the money to fly there but fortunately my wife works for JetBlue and I get to travel free. So I flew on the red eye from Salt Lake and arrived at about 6:30 local time. After eating and hanging around the JFK for a few hours, I took the subway into downtown New York. After the classes, I went back to the airport, had dinner, and flew home. It was exhausting but I brought my own food so all I had to pay for was the subway.
The classes changed my world. CS4 links all the parts together making it much easier to work. For example, I can work in Premiere, link the clip to a composition in After Effects, make my changes, and go back to the Premiere window and see my changes updated. Any change I make in After Effects will automatically update when I look at Premiere.
Photoshop can be brought into After Effects and the layers used there. This is very helpful in doing motion graphics for titles, etc. I can also link a sequence in Premiere to an Encore project and burn a DVD, with or without menus.
Perhaps the biggest realization was that this suite is fully capable of editing a full-lenth feature. Rather than using Vegas and exporting clips to After Effects, then rendering the clip and importing it back into Vegas, I could skip all those steps.
Price was an obstacle. CS4 Production Premium goes for about $1600. But I found an upgrade at Newegg.com $760 and a copy of CS3 Web Premium for about $300. That gave my wife Photoshop and her other favorite tools for her computer and the Production Suite for mine.
– Rich Pulham
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September 7th, 2009 Rich
I became very frustrated with using Sony Vegas Pro 8. My feelings, of course, may be because of my inexperience. But I had a lot of trouble with rendering more complex projects. If often crashed before it completed. And my green screen efforts didn’t do well when I added more layers.
My long-term goal is to make movies and I just didn’t feel like it was up to the job. I learned a lot. It was inexpensive and gave me a lot of basic tools. It has an easy-to-learn interface. Then I went to a seminar on CS4 at B&H Photo in New York City. That was an eye opener.
At NAB, Sony announced Vegas Pro 9. They touted the features in the new version. It sounded exciting. But when I went home, I found most of those features were already in Pro 8. There was no compelling reason to upgrade. Maybe they fixed the rendering problem, maybe they didn’t. I didn’t care.
– Rich Pulham
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September 7th, 2009 Rich
Wow, it has been a long time since I have posted.
I started my first film back at the end of May. It has been an all-comsuming project that left me with very little time. I’m now nearing the end of the project and for the first time feel like I have time to breathe. I’ll update you on my adventures and the things I’ve learned shortly.
– Rich Pulham
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