please help : videography technique

[oduodui]

hi guys

is there specifically a part of this forum that deals with videography technique and the practical side of videography:

things like:

setting up the camera : angles power supplies the prevention of vibration during recording moving the camera around during recording without shakes zooming and panning with sudden shakes and movements not occuring having the sound syncronized battery life equipment having to be constantly charged with on power outlets that has frequent and severe power spikes not knowing when events are about to occur

these are the practical sides of re cording with a video.

I have about 3 months of experience on a HDR-PJ540E. it is very difficult to pan and zoom because the zoom button is very small and i have big fingers. the tripod i used isnt very stable and it is difficult to get camera from a fixed position to panning as you have to unscrew the clamp especially during recording.

thank you

[DB83]

Look at the description of the 'Camcorders' section - call up the 'Index' from the top of the screen. I think that might fit your bill.

[smrpix]

I have about 3 months of experience on a HDR-PJ540E. it is very difficult to pan and zoom because the zoom button is very small and i have big fingers. the tripod i used isnt very stable and it is difficult to get camera from a fixed position to panning as you have to unscrew the clamp especially during recording.

OK lesson 1: use equipment suitable to the task.

It's not just your fingers, while the zoom controls on those cameras is fine for home movies, there's not a lot of finesse available. Practice will help. For the price, you're getting a lot of camera. Spend more time figuring out what you CAN do with it. It's got a great wide angle lens (relatively speaking,) step closer to your subject rather than zooming if possible. That camera also allows for very smooth handheld work. (Do you actually use the projector? That never made sense to me.)

Second. You need a better tripod, preferably one with a fluid head.

[Brainiac]

I ALWAYS buy extra long-life batteries (at least 2) and ALWAYS charge all batteries the night before an event on external chargers.

Brainiac

[oduodui]

thanks to all . its very difficult thing to do - videography especially for a long periods of time. you have take all of this into consideration while concentrating on what to record especially at live events. as there no chance for a retake and it is work that is done to build the reputation of someone else's business. not that i am unwilling to do so but it is very unforgiving and sets very huge demands on your eyes and imparts extreme amounts of pressure.

i just trying to figure out if maybe i am being unreasonable in assuming that this isn't something you give to someone who has no experience on the subject. recently i was involved in recording a Guinness world record attempt and was an event that happened once a week for 26 week and for 5 And half hours a week. it basically amounts to recording the entire 5.5 hours. this amounts to 22 gigs of data that has to be sifted through. if i stop the camera to move it to a different location you lose continuity. the camera is also too far away to record happeningS (in this case knitting) SO THAT there is enough close up footage that shows a logical progression of the work over . so recording the happenings without removing the camera from the tripod is really difficult. this measn moving the tripod from one location to another keeping ot on 2 to three knitters for at least 20 minutes while then switching off the camera and moving it to another location. you also need shots of the monitors - the people who watch and act as witnesses to the integrity of the event that has to be include in that one shot as proove that they were there the entire event duration of that day.

how do you all of this without creating shakes and vibrations .

then you have to join and compress these videos too a size that will fit one dvd for that day. how will the judges at Guinness react to video material having the shite edited cut out of it to shorten it and then you have people say that there is too much material that has no meaning and creates unnecessary work.

i am not lazy or unreasonable. these vidoes needs large powerful desltops to be edited and joined. the owner bought pinnacle software to edit the videos and a desktop to do so which reasonably powerful.

the problem now is that the video material has to be rendered twice by pinnacle once to an intermediate format and then to the final one. what remains of the video quality after that ??

so i would like to know what other videographers would have done in such a situation.

i am being unreasonable??

thanjs fora ll the replies.

[smrpix]

It sounds like you need at least two cameras. One to cover the overall scene, one to go in for the details. You get rid of the inevitable shakes, re-frames and re-focusing by cutting them out. I assume you are not delivering a 143 hour final show. If you need the raw footage for evidential purposes, don't turn off the camera. I doubt anyone will begrudge you your resets. Presumably Guinness has a very specific set of guidelines, what do they say about it?

22GB sounds awfully small for 5.5 hours. Almost certainly you will need to transcode to an intermediate for editing. You maintain quality by using a suitable codec like ProRes or DNxHD or Cineform or Grass Valley HQX. It will be substantially larger than your original. You can also edit at proxy resolutions and relink your edit to the original when your cutting is done.

[Brainiac]

Smrpix was reading my mind.
You might consider using a monopod for the "travelling" camera. Easier to relocate.
And if you know of anyone who has done work specific to Guinness, talk to them about their workflow.

Brainiac

[budwzr]

I have an HDR-pj710, and it is a great camcorder. There's a handgrip for that camera that has a much smoother zoom lever, costs about $70 if you can still find it.

[oduodui]

guys thanks a lot

http://www.guinnesscontradance.com/guinness-requirements/

from thus site it says regarding video evidence:

3. VIDEO EVIDENCE

We require video footage to be sufficiently high-quality and it must clearly depict the action of the record attempt so our Adjudicators can assess whether the record has been successful.
3.1 Length
Video evidence must cover the entire record attempt. Even for record attempts lasting longer than 24 hours (such as marathon records) we must receive footage of the entire attempt.
Where a record attempt lasts for at more than 24 hours the following points must be listed in a supporting letter:
• The start of the attempt
• Any significant incidents that occur during the attempt
• The point at which the record is broken
• The end of the attempt
3.2 Format
All video footage must be submitted on DVD/CD-ROM, in Windows Media, QuickTime or VHS format.

the following statement seesm very vague

"Where a record attempt lasts for at more than 24 hours"

dont understand what they mean.

i assume they want every minute recorded.

dunno

one again thanks for the replies

[oduodui]

It sounds like you need at least two cameras. One to cover the overall scene, one to go in for the details. You get rid of the inevitable shakes, re-frames and re-focusing by cutting them out. I assume you are not delivering a 143 hour final show. If you need the raw footage for evidential purposes, don't turn off the camera. I doubt anyone will begrudge you your resets. Presumably Guinness has a very specific set of guidelines, what do they say about it?

22GB sounds awfully small for 5.5 hours. Almost certainly you will need to transcode to an intermediate for editing. You maintain quality by using a suitable codec like ProRes or DNxHD or Cineform or Grass Valley HQX. It will be substantially larger than your original. You can also edit at proxy resolutions and relink your edit to the original when your cutting is done.

22 gigs from 50 fps interlaced standard quality wow at its highest quality it will be at around 12 gig per hour amounting to 66gigs of videio the 540 can only record 32 gigs internally though it has a 16 gig sd memeroy card. at that rate the battery life is about 2 hours 50 minutes.

are any of those formats like prores freely donloadable or can you use ffmpeg to do that ?

[oduodui]

I have about 3 months of experience on a HDR-PJ540E. it is very difficult to pan and zoom because the zoom button is very small and i have big fingers. the tripod i used isnt very stable and it is difficult to get camera from a fixed position to panning as you have to unscrew the clamp especially during recording.

OK lesson 1: use equipment suitable to the task.

It's not just your fingers, while the zoom controls on those cameras is fine for home movies, there's not a lot of finesse available. Practice will help. For the price, you're getting a lot of camera. Spend more time figuring out what you CAN do with it. It's got a great wide angle lens (relatively speaking,) step closer to your subject rather than zooming if possible. That camera also allows for very smooth hand held work. (Do you actually use the projector? That never made sense to me.)

Second. You need a better tripod, preferably one with a fluid head.

have worked with the projector and it works but it isn't something that will often be used. still it isn't bad and you can actually see what is happening but you must be indoors or a place where there isn't too much ambient light. but not too bad.

[oduodui]

just found this

https://transcoding.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/prores-ffmpeg/

[smrpix]

All the codecs I've listed can be had for free. ProRes is more mac-friendly (almost mac-necessary if Apple has their way) and still somewhat PC-unfriendly.

Sounds like you should piggyback cameras to get continuous runtime. (i.e. CAM A 1:00:00:00 - >2:01:00:00 CAM B 2:00:00:00 ->3:01:00:00, CAM A 3:00:00:00... etc.) Details are less important than capturing the whole event. Since they'll accept a DVD you don't need to shoot HD. You can use DV as your intermediate. (Are those specs up to date?)

[oduodui]

All the codecs I've listed can be had for free. ProRes is more mac-friendly (almost mac-necessary if Apple has their way) and still somewhat PC-unfriendly.

Sounds like you should piggyback cameras to get continuous runtime. (i.e. CAM A 1:00:00:00 - >2:01:00:00 CAM B 2:00:00:00 ->3:01:00:00, CAM A 3:00:00:00... etc.) Details are less important than capturing the whole event. Since they'll accept a DVD you don't need to shoot HD. You can use DV as your intermediate. (Are those specs up to date?)

well it seems to be the latest info from their website.

thanks