helicopter shoot
 

I have an assignment in several days to shoot several hours of video. Equipment: HVX200P, P2 cards, FS-100, G4 powerbook. Helicopter has a set gyro system installed.
The most important question is shutter speed. Should I go fast, 1/120 - 1/250, or should I base it on frame rate. The second question is about the fs-100. It was just purchased for this flight and question downloading to the powerbook?

Thanks for your help!

I don't know if this will help, but I tried shooting with an FS100 in a helicopter and it failed. Had to switch over to P2 cards or I'd have gotten nothing.

The unit kept giving me error messages. And when I got back, the video files were scrambled (in and out points all messed up) and almost all of it was unplayable.

If you do use the FS100 make absolutely certain it's well isolated from any of the helicopter's vibrations. The hard drive in it doesn't like getting jostled at all.

On the other hand, on a recent flight I used a P2 Store to download the cards and it worked just fine. The hard drive in there is very tolerant of physical shock. It's well isolated and stops writing if g-loads exceed a certain point.

Jack,

Keep in mind the Firestore is a spinning hard-disk and is subject to typical spinning HDD issues; bumps, sudden g-force changes etc are going to cause the Firestore' heads to bounce and become unusable.

I've shot many a heli-shoot and unless you have the Firestore built-into the gyro-stabilized rig for the camera you can't count on it being reliable.

I shot some footage out of a heli some while ago (DV TAPE, shoulder cam) and was impressed how sensible a heli can be flown (they took out one door for the shot).

I assume that a gyro also makes the harddrive work better - but I wouldnt rely on that. I also own a Edirol audio harddrive recorder and tried to run it placed on a subwoofer at a wedding - know what? After some minutes the unit showed repeatingly "harddrive errors" - due to the vibrations.

I´d go for some P2 cards and run the firestore as backup - its worth a try...

(or, if you want to avoid any damage : Leave the FS100 on the ground)

ULI

Guys,

Contact: http://www.blueskyaerials.com/

They are one of the best sources for anything heli-rig related and work directly with Ken-Labs on creating new gyro-rigs. They also rent and sell their rigs.