suggest a fully auto lightweight companion camera for my dslrs

[Ger Griffin]

Hi all.
Im shooting with 2 600ds and a 5dmk2
I have a merlin that id like to get my wife to be able to use on a shoot.
Im looking to purchase a light automatic camera for use on the merlin.
Footage would ideally cut well with the dslr footage without too much work.
I suppose one that natively shoots h264 would help my NLE (cs6)

The lighter the better.
Was thinking about a gopro hero2 but not mad about the wideness of the view.
Can the FOV be changed on that?
Whats it like in lowlight?


open to suggestions.
thanks

[Chris Barcellos]

Consider the Sony Nex 5n. Auto focus is decent, and has facial recognition. Very light weight. Still has depth of field similar to the other cameras in your arsenal. Some have reported overheating issues. I have no doubt it can be fit set up to cut well with the Canons. RIght now they are giving $ 200 incentive on the camera. That brings it down close to Hero2 when you consider the add ons like display you will need to add. There is so much more adjustability to the Sony, too.

[Stelios Christofides]

how about the new canon G15?

stelios

[Ger Griffin]

both quite tasty looking, thanks lads.
Thinking also now about the 650d with the pancake lens

why is it that as soon as we start looking we start to push the budget out further and further :)

[Chris Barcellos]

Can I interest you in some rust protection, Sir.?

[Ger Griffin]

no thank you but whats that there camera that says c100 on it?

[Ger Griffin]

that g15 looks very useful indeed.
Im going to US for the next three weeks, might pick one up while im there.

[Stelios Christofides]

You won't go wring with the G15. I have he G11 and it is an amazing little camera.

stelios

[Trevor Dennis]

I have been using a G1X for video. I bought it for travelling after getting fed up carying one of my 1D bodies while on holiday, and it worked out really well. Mt last compact was a G10 which only shoots 720, but the G1X shoots 1080p at 24fps, and with its very usable image stablisation, and excellent lens, it is a winner.

I would have liked more options with frame rate, as I have been using it on a slider in a project mostly shot with an XF300 and 1DMK4, but using Premeire Pro's 'Interpret footage' tool allows me to put G1X footage on the same timeline.

I don't have any video online, but have stills in my flickr stream
Isle of Man - a set on Flickr
England Trip 2012 - a set on Flickr
Around Fleurance - a set on Flickr

Use Actions > View all sizes to see how sharp the lens is. This was shot with the camera rested on a wall, and is as good as my 1D bodies and L lenses are capable of.

All sizes | Castletown Isle of Man | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[Ger Griffin]

Thanks for your post Trevor.

Well i picked up a G15 on holidays in the US and have been shooting with it while im in 'holiday mode'.
Its got a lovely solid feel for a compact.
The video footage looks surprisingly good on my little netbook here.
Will need to get it home to properly asses but so far its looking like i can integrate it into my DSLR workflow.
Cant wait to get it onto and balanced on the merlin when i get back.
Hope its not too light but ill work around it.

It has face reckognition autofocus during video.
You can register a new face by taking a couple of pics of that face from a few different angles. I hope to do this of a bride on the morning of the wedding for example.
No manual control of video but in this instance that suits me fine. There is an exp adjust of ev+3 to ev-3 in 1/3 increments so thats perfect for herself to use without things getting too complicated. Anyway the plan is to have this on the merlin fulltime so auto is whats needed.
You can specify the nature of the auto exposure eg.centre weighted , full screen or matrix (ish) so doesn''t jump too instantly as the scene changes.

If anybody has any questions in relation to the camera Id be happy to answer them as there is not a lot of info on the net in relation to shooting video with this cam.
Ill upload some video footage as I gradually integrate it into my workflow.

Edit: For the benefit of the forum. Im going to post this post on a fresh topic so anything specific to this G15 can be posted on this new thread.
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/photo-hd...rshot-g15.html

[Jason Garrett]

Originally Posted by Trevor Dennis

I have been using a G1X for video. I bought it for travelling after getting fed up carying one of my 1D bodies while on holiday, and it worked out really well. Mt last compact was a G10 which only shoots 720, but the G1X shoots 1080p at 24fps, and with its very usable image stablisation, and excellent lens, it is a winner.

I would have liked more options with frame rate, as I have been using it on a slider in a project mostly shot with an XF300 and 1DMK4, but using Premeire Pro's 'Interpret footage' tool allows me to put G1X footage on the same timeline.

I don't have any video online, but have stills in my flickr stream
Isle of Man - a set on Flickr
England Trip 2012 - a set on Flickr
Around Fleurance - a set on Flickr

Use Actions > View all sizes to see how sharp the lens is. This was shot with the camera rested on a wall, and is as good as my 1D bodies and L lenses are capable of.

All sizes | Castletown Isle of Man | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I haven’t taken a ton of video with my G1X yet, but after seeing that Blackmagic vs. 5D comparison I have been itching to do a side by side of my G1X to my dedicated Canon HF S20 camcorder. There was a pretty spectacular sunset last night and I setup both of them on the skyline of Oklahoma City to see if there was anything profoundly noticeable between them.

I’m going to make another run at it tonight; the full moon came up in my shot unexpectedly and I want to catch that again if it happens and this time more carefully examine all settings; turn off image stabilization on the G1X , leave auto gain control on the HF S20, etc.

I have no clue what I’m doing trying to get a ‘side by side’ comparison, but I did figure out in Premiere how to apply a crop and slide it. I got both videos lined up and synced fairly well if not perfectly. I might make another run with the split right on Devon Tower which has a ton of detail in the windows with the reflections.

Youtube doesn’t really reflect the actual source nearly as well obviously – the G1X has 35mbs vs. 24mbs AVCHD on the HF S20 for starters. So, I suppose it would be a pretty significant advantage to the G1X for that reason alone in details captured. They look pretty tight to me quite honestly. The G1X seems to pulsate occasionally trying to keep focus possibly, but otherwise looks pretty remarkably good for a still camera on this static shot anyway that retails for a couple hundred less than what my HF S20 retailed for. I suppose I might expect the much larger sensor to do something spectacular in comparison, but the HF S20 being dedicated to video seems to make it a pretty tight run for quality for this and obviously has many advantages and features otherwise dedicated for video.

I had to zoom all the way in with the G1X to get a comparable shot – so, I suppose it is at its most disadvantaged aperture if I assume correctly? The HF S20 video looks a lot darker generally with different color saturation and maybe the white balance/exposure is a bit different? I’m not really convinced that the lighter video is ‘better’ solely based on it being brighter, but I concede that I don’t know what I’m talking about really – that might be the larger sensor gathering more light? The level of detail seems to be at least slightly better, but it doesn’t blow me away.

IDK. It was a fun experiment though. I might like to give it another try without the G1X in full zoom and try to think of a suitable test subject that might better reflect any variances.

Both were in 24p 1080p and I left the HF S20 generally on full auto settings, white balance, gain, exposure, etc.

Split Screen Sunset 2 - YouTube