What camcorder for airshow filming and also killing wind noise ?

[DBenz]

Hi,

From experience with wind noise and current camcorders, what can you recommend ?


Can I do away with the directional mic and furry cover with the latest camcorders if I go for one under £1000 ideally £700 max. I need to be able to film aircraft with props and so need slow shutter speed, fully auto no good as it chooses fast shutter speed. Exposure needs to be centre weighted or a reliable alternative to admit more light as bright skies cause underexposure. Centre weighted metering may be no good on formations and duo displays though !


I need what anyone filming aircraft and other subjects ideally needs, :-

Wind noise killed totally, (see note below)
Shutter priority (set it to 1/50 and get blurred props)
Centre weighted metering or an ability to expose for the aircraft not the sky.
Stills capability as good or as near good as my digital SLR (Canon 20D) 8.2 megapixel
Good quality optics with lens filter thread.
Large eyepiece viewer with quality display and eye diopter adjustment
swing out and swing down side screen capable of being viewed in sunlight (I film with sun behind me as is correct)
Date Time display can be turned off.
Smooth Zoom control variable sped dependent on pressure on switch
Better than current 10X optical zoom
Hotshoe and mic socket if wind noise reduction no use.
Image Stabilising
Lens Hood
Maybe macro capability (not crucial)
20 mins or so continual filming
manual focus option.
Good battery longevity.

Has wind noise been resolved in camcorders now and how ? ...or is it that we are expected to believe that a wind cut option kills the noise but doesnt duff down the clarity of the sounds we do want ? How does it tell the difference between the explosions of battle at a re-enactment which I film and the same sound from the wind ? I have wind cut on the Panny MX8 but it kills the overall sound clarity so the filming is ruined anyway. The onboard mic picks up kids noises besides me ruining the footage. I use a directional rode mic with dead cat and wind is killed, though if I plug it into the wrong orifice the wind noise on the inbuilt mic ruins the recording. I hate the thing sitting on top being buffeted by the wind and causing my camcorder to be rocked. Is there a better way now ?

DBenz

[aedipuss]

maybe time to move up to a t4i or 60d that does video? you can use your rode with them and it turns off the awful built in one. the 4ti would get you about 30 minutes continuous video whereas the older 60d only about 12.

[DBenz]

Hi, thanks for the reply, I have also discovered after posting that CMOS rolling shutter has replaced CCD sensors and global shutters and is a big problem for propellers and for vibration, giving the bent blades and other crazy effects and vibration giving the effect of the camcorder being mounted on jelly. The message out there is get CCD whilst they remain. Videos on youtube showing the issues. Hells bells ...so much for progress. The two cameras mentioned are CMOS.

Is there a way to lose the jelly mode and also get smooth blurred blades as my Panny MX8 gives ?

I often film whilst walking and through car windscreens so props and vibration will be big issues.

Manufacturers have gone CMOS for price and power consumtion, not for quality, it is said.

This explains all the horrible effects I am seeing on props nowadays.

It basically means there is no current camcorder for prop aircraft.

Or is there, does anyone know of one ?

What a gut wrenching discovery its been.

DBenz

[TreeTops]

I shot this with a Sony and I could not see any bent blades on propeller. BUT, the wind noise is there.

https://vimeo.com/27381078

[Cornucopia]

Is there WIND? Yes.
Thus, there will be wind noise. No getting around that fact.

Don't look to "modern camcorder" choices for any improvements regarding wind noise. That is such a niche market (noisy environment recordings), it won't get any attention.

Look a what audio pros do:
1. Buy an external mike (higher quality = lower self-noise, wider/flatter freq. response = better)
2. Buy wind-dampening or muffling materials (foam = good, fur = better) - look to nature for best examples
3. Get closer to your sound source (sound power = inverse square of distance, closest = loudest, snr is greatest right at point of sound origin)
4. Use directional mike and point in correct direction
5. Use surround, ambisonic or binaural techniques to allow the listener to "tune out" the noise better
(edit: #6. Place your mike in the lee of the wind)

or do the fallback that many pros rely on: Sound replacement (ADR, Stock sound effect clips, etc) of production sound with studio sound.

If you are already doing ALL these things, there is no more you can do and you should CONTINUE doing them (do not do less).

THIS WILL NEVER CHANGE. Only what will change will be microphone size (and thus, placement) and power, and self-noise/materials. You could get a headgear-mounted uni-directional mike and make it transmit wireless to the camera. That's about as close as you can get without going MILITARY (which uses vocal-chord resonating mike straps).

Scott

[DBenz]

Treetops, What camcorder was that ? The prop blades are what I wish to avoid, if a CCD I would say too fast a shutter speed, probably someone using auto mode. I choose 1/75 or usually 1/50.
if bet and mishapen its CMOS, if a straight blade but getting on for frozen in motion its too fast a shutter speed on CCD.

Does 1/50 or 1/75 on CMOS fix the issue of blades and give a lovely blur on CMOS ?

The wind noise is going to have to be the extra clobber sat on top I guess with dead cat. Looking at current camcorders under £1000 they lack hotshoes now so recording are going to be ruined. What are the manufacturers up to, forcing us into ruined recordings from wind ?

DBenz

[TreeTops]

Denz...the camera I used for that prop shot was a point and shoot Sony Cybershot DSC-HX7V. I know the experts here probably don't approve of videos from 'Point and Shoots" but I take this thing everywhere as it is handy and does good vids in 1080i that I can edit with Vegas.

This camera will not be good for you if you are concerned with wind as there is no external mike port.

[aedipuss]

that canon 20d of yours is a cmos camera. got bet(sp) and mishapen(sp) prop blades in your pics?

with an external mic you can put it on a separate tripod if you must use a lot of wind screens and it causes shaking from the breeze.

[DBenz]

I am not videoing with the Canon 20D, its my stills camera, I referred to it for the shutter speeds increments. Not sure it does video anyway. Not seen a mic socket at all on it or a mic. 1/250 on the 20D blurs props in stills.

Please note folks I am after proper looking prop blur. Trying to establish if a CMOS camcorder now set to 1/50 for example will solve the silly prop shape and multiple blade crazies, or frozen bent blades etc etc. It will require a camcorder with control over shutter speeds of course, usually starting at £1000 unfortunatley just for that one simple control.

Trying to find a camcorder with manual shutter speed option, and either an effective onboard mic that kills wind noise or that has a normal accessory shoe for external mics. They seem now to be without, or with them in daft locations or with smaller ones. How does one fit a rode video mic which has a standard hotshoe foot to the Canon HFG10 for example ?

DBenz

[aedipuss]

post a picture from your canon 20d of a proper looking prop blur.

the rode doesn't have a hotshoe, it has a cable you plug in. you just slide it on and plug it in. the "shoe" size is the same.

[pepegot1]

Use an external mike with a Dead Cat to reduce wind noise-not eliminate it.

[DBenz]

rode video mic which has a standard hotshoe foot

I did not say it had a hotshoe, I said it has a hotshoe foot, its a black square plastic thing of thickness 1mm or so that slides into a hotshoe ! It has a deadcat furry thing on it. I plug it into the mic socket.

I am not needing to know this, I wish to know what camcorders have a normal hotshoe, as it would appear that manufacturers havent bothered to sort out wind noise, according to posters....and have control over shutter speed and would such control give a disc of blurred blade, imagine a see through disc of light grey ! in which are three darker blurred triangles wide at the outer edge and tapering as they get to the spinner. almost non existent, but there. http://charfield.org/charfield-spitfire for example, taken from the www. Loads of examples on the net. My 20D stills do this sort of thing.

DBenz

[2Bdecided]

some amazing examples of how badly it can go wrong here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=4lHlzRw_Oek&NR=1

...about 1/50th is enough to completely blur a fast propeller (i.e. one full revolution nearly matches or exceeds one video field), whatever the shutter technology. 1/25th (typically giving a film effect, rather than video) is more than enough.

That nice 1/10th blurred effect on the spitfire on your link looks like about 1/250th shutter speed. I think that would look visibly bent on my HV20 (CMOS).

So, with slow enough shutter speeds, either can work because the propeller is totally blurred - but for the small blur of fast shutter speeds, if the CMOS sensor is still scanned top-to-bottom in about 1/50th or 1/100th of a second even with a 1/250th shutter (which it typically is - that's the problem!) then you'll see bending.

For most people CMOS is an improvement because it brings affordable HD video. But in this case, it could be useless.

Cheers,
David.

[Cornucopia]

Probably be easier if you just go double system (aka separate audio recording device/chain) and sync it up in post...
(Remember: to do it right you should use a sharp cueing device, such as a clapper @ head/tail of each "clip")

I'm getting good stuff even with prosumer devices like the Zoom H4n (which DOES take good external mikes)!

Scott

[aedipuss]

that's the reason i asked him for a picture from his canon 20d - it has a cmos sensor and they ALL are read left to right then top to bottom. if it's not producing bent props neither should a newer canon dslr shooting video.

[2Bdecided]

that's the reason i asked him for a picture from his canon 20d - it has a cmos sensor and they ALL are read left to right then top to bottom. if it's not producing bent props neither should a newer canon dslr shooting video.

I know nothing about this, but doesn't the 20D have a mechanical shutter at the speeds DBenz is likely to be using?

That's why CMOS sensors are fine for photography - because the comparatively slow progressive read out all occurs after the mechanical shutter has opened and shut. So there's no way for the rolling nature of the read out to compromise or add that temporal "roll" to the actual light captured on the sensor. The light is captured at exactly the same time at all points on the sensor.

Whereas CMOS video cameras use electronic shutters, timed relative to the "rolling" sensor readout, with (for a given camera) a fixed top-to-bottom read out (roll) time that's independent of the open-close shutter speed. The light is captured much later at some points on the sensor than others - even though each point may only be exposed for a very short time (very fast shutter speed). A 1/1000th shutter speed (each point is only exposed for 1/1000th of a second) with a 1/100th roll from top to bottom (top of video picture is captured 1/100th of a second before bottom) is quite common.

I could be wrong about the mechanical shutter.

Cheers,
David.

[aedipuss]

i would think even a mechanical shutter has directionality. in the canon's case it could make rolling shutter effects worse. the shutter rotates down when closing exposing the last read cmos line last. unless they put the chip in upside down in which case it might change the problem somewhat, but the shutter sure doesn't close at the speed of light that would be needed to eliminate cmos rolling shutter.