Assorted posts from 2002Q4
 

Ok all you masters of the trade... Explain something to this rookie.

I went to a conference/concert this weekend, with an attendance of about 10,000. They had a multi-camera setup with the giant projection monitors so we could see. The most interesting of which was a 25' boom camera which I paid more attention to than most of the speakers and artists.

My question arises from the fact that the lens that they used seemed to put distance between the camera and the subject that didn't exist. The camera would be 5 feet from the subject and seemed to be 20 feet away. The other thing was an incredibly deep depth of field. He would swing in from max extension to close up and never went out of focus.

What kind of lens would this be? Would the depth of field really be that much or was the operator likely just focusing on the fly.

I don't think there is any magic going on...it sounds like they were merely using a wide angle lens...which would cause both the perception of increased camera to subject distance, as well as almost unlimited depth of field.

Barry

Low Light Shooting
 

In less than a week and a half, my crew and I will be shooting a CD release party. The club is very small and dark. My biggest concern is working with the available lighting and still producing a quality image.

Are there any tips, tricks, ideas that I should be thinking about with this up coming gig?

The only real tip or trick is get the club to pump as much light in there as possible. This will still only give you a general fill of light to work with for wide shots, and in the background of other shots. Otherwise all these shots will be too dark or your gain will create a hell of a lot of picture noise. You will also need some kind of camera light or portable light for your foreground images, interview subjects etc.

Anyone have focus pulling issues with their DV cams?
 

I was reading something recently that sparked me to ask this question. With most of the lenses on DV cameras, the focus mechanism is a servo one and usually not as responsive as a real manual lense. I was wondering if anyone with a cam like Gl2, Xl1, VX2000 etc that's made dramatic films ever had an issue with pulling focus during a shot? Does it really affect what you are going to shoot or do you not bother. I know that with DV cams the depth of field is greater to focus issues aren't like they are with film but I'm just interested to know, not having a cam yet myself.

Cheers
Aaron

A mystery within a post
 

I got this reply to my post...I'm not sure what he means when he says "I try to shoot so i do not clip much..."

I prefere to do it in post, which requires me to shoot with this in mind. This means that the exposed image shown on the monitor when shooting doesn't look as "spiffy" as the end result. I try to shoot so i do not clip too much. Since i can "scale" the remaining information in any range i want (black-mid-white levels) but if its clipped, then it's lost forever and anything above the clip will be a unison grey when lowered/heightened.

What he means is that he doesn't want to have any information
that would go over 100% (in theory). So not any whites that are
too hot (whiter than white) or too much black. Information is lost.
Changing shutter speed, lens openings, adding/removing lights,
ND filters you can control the amount of difference, also known
as contrast. When you have blown out whites in the sky for
example you only see one color and no variations.

Hope this explains it a bit. Otherwise I'll try to be a bit clearer,
but I'm in a bit of a hurry now. Sorry bout that.

Behold...JVC Prosumer HD cam....
 

Don't know if this has been mentioned on this forum yet, but...oh, just click the link!

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/hd_recording_camcorder_jvc_ceatec_japan_10_02_02.htm

There is already a thread running on this concept camera at:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=4009

How much did you get your camera(s) for?
 

and accessories? I would like to see the price range! (it seems alot of people here have XL1s and what not)

Sorry David, but it's important to note that our community members are from all corners of the globe, and price tends to vary dramitically depending on where you are and when the purchase was made, and doesn't neccessarily reflect what *you* can expect to pay.

You might find someone here who got what you think is a superb deal, and when you go hunting for a similar deal and can't find one, it'll lead only to frustration. What matters is not how much you paid for it, but what you're doing with it -- that's what really counts.

As this invariably leads to the question of "where to buy," I'm going to close this thread with the strong suggestion that you check pricing through our authorized DV Info Net sponsors (see www.dvinfo.net/sponsors) for a realistic expectation of what to pay. You'll find their prices are often well below suggested retail (MSRP).

In short, any price below MSRP is a good price. Hope this helps,

any jvc gy-dv500 users here?
 

general impressions of the camera?

quality nice?

how does it compare to the xl1/s?

does it have a frame mode type function as well?

thanks for your help,

kermie

A search turns up some previous discussions. See these threads:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1335&highlight=DV500

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2071&highlight=DV500

Please post any replies directly to those threads, so we can keep the discussions together. Thanks,

XL1s or GL2 Posters?
 

I was wondering if anyone knew where I might be able to buy or get a poster of either the Canon XL1s or GL2. Thanks for your help!

If you can find a local walk-in authorized dealer, they should be able to obtain one for you. They're fairly slick, good marketing material, but they're designed for camera stores... in other words, chock full of text, blurbs, hyperbole, etc. The biggest one I'm aware of is half-sheet size or roughly 18" tall by about 30" wide or so.

Sorry, I don't have any.