Help out with a little confusion?
 

Hi, I am a newbie. I am shooting an HDV rockumentary with a Canon XHA1. It's me and a sound guy in a very third world country, meaning that I use a lot of ambient light. I am wondering if it's better to shoot observational footage at 24fps and then live footage (with adequate lighting) at 60i, capturing at 29.97fps. When I out put to DVD for film festivals and the like, will these two formats be compatible? (shooting for NTSC)

Thanks!

The best solution would be an onboard light, if it will work in this situation. It sounds like it would save you a lot of grief. Another option would be to rent/buy a camera with better low light capabilities. Mainly to avoid mixing 60i & 24p - it's doable, but that combo can also create extra problems on the timeline. Personally, for low light / live events I find 60i 1/30 much more usable than 24p. You can also experiment with gain, my threshold on the XH A1 is 6db, but 12db can usable, if you don't mind spending extra time cleaning up the image afterwards.

Either way it doesn't really matter that much if you're going to DVD. It might matter more if you're going to end up on film, but there are reasonably good conversions from 60i to 24p.

Thanks! When shooting 60i, should I also be capturing at 60i and then compress later when burning to DVD?
Thanks!

I'm not clear on why you would mix the two at all - why not just shoot all one format? If you need 24p for the low light then just shoot everything with that.

Logic dictates that 24p, shooting at 1/48 will let more light in per frame than 60i shooting at 1/60 so I would lean that direction. However, nothing happens in a vacuum and other factors are in play so Michael's observations may be more appropriate.

Perhaps Michael can provide more information on the differences he observes using the two different settings. That might point you more appropriately in the right direction for your situation.

As Michael said, you can use 60I 1/30 this will let more light in than 60I 1/60. However, I would suggest that you not use this setting when outdoors during the day as the images will not be as sharp. Even when shooting inside at 60I 1/30, the image is not as sharp, but its certainly usable. This has been by experience when shooting in HD, I have not used this setting for standard definition as I dont typically shoot in SD.