So I thought I would share a quick experience I had a few months ago for those who are using or are thinking of using the Canon HV series in conjunction with the T2i or any other HDSLR.
I was asked to shoot a Christmas play for a local church. I agreed to do it for a low price because I'm friends with some of the members and I wanted to build a working relationship with them for possible future jobs. And because I had never shot a full length live event. I won't say what I charged exactly, but I made about $6.00 an hour after it was all done. Which is even lower pay then my normal job as a cashier at a department store pays, but like I said I had never done anything like this before and really had no idea what I was doing.
My friend/2nd Camerman and I went to the dress rehearsal the week before the show and I can't say how much this helped us. We would have done a absolutely terrible job if we hadn't done this. Since I had never shot a live event I had no idea how crappy the stage lighting would be. Especially with the consumer level HV cameras I was using as my two main cameras. I wasn't even thinking about using my T2i at the time due to its limitations (12 min. recording, overheating, sound, etc.)
The night of the production we set up and I threw my T2i on my junky ball head to get a steady wide shot for kicks just to see how it would hold up. And boy do I thank God I did. The HV camera's did an "okay" job, without the access to the manual iris and the ever changing lighting it was hard, but we held out. Until we ran out of tape, which happened due to a performance issue and the fact that I was stupid enough to only bring one tape per camera. So my trusty T2i finished off the last 30 min. of the performance basically by itself. I saved my last few min. on my HV20 so I could have something to record with when my time was up on my T2i and I had to hit record again.
Fast forward to two days later when I was in my editing suite and importing the footage. I can't tell you how much I was amazed at how much better the T2i looked. I know its inherently a much better camera, but I figured in that situation it wouldn't workout. I was dead wrong. It looked so much better I was almost afraid to put the HV footage in the same sequence as it.
But I ended up matching the footage as best as I could, which is almost impossible in the case of a terrible lighting job with a HV20 and a T2i. The client was thrilled and I got paid. Needless to say I sold my HV20 the next month.
So all of that to say, its going to be basically impossible to match up the T2i or any HDSLR with a consumer camera in that situation. I did recently purchase a Canon HF11 to replace my need for a camera that can record longer time periods, but I will not be doing any more events and trying to match the footage. I'm lucky enough to know a person with two Canon 7d's that I can borrow instead.
I was asked to shoot a Christmas play for a local church. I agreed to do it for a low price because I'm friends with some of the members and I wanted to build a working relationship with them for possible future jobs. And because I had never shot a full length live event. I won't say what I charged exactly, but I made about $6.00 an hour after it was all done. Which is even lower pay then my normal job as a cashier at a department store pays, but like I said I had never done anything like this before and really had no idea what I was doing.
My friend/2nd Camerman and I went to the dress rehearsal the week before the show and I can't say how much this helped us. We would have done a absolutely terrible job if we hadn't done this. Since I had never shot a live event I had no idea how crappy the stage lighting would be. Especially with the consumer level HV cameras I was using as my two main cameras. I wasn't even thinking about using my T2i at the time due to its limitations (12 min. recording, overheating, sound, etc.)
The night of the production we set up and I threw my T2i on my junky ball head to get a steady wide shot for kicks just to see how it would hold up. And boy do I thank God I did. The HV camera's did an "okay" job, without the access to the manual iris and the ever changing lighting it was hard, but we held out. Until we ran out of tape, which happened due to a performance issue and the fact that I was stupid enough to only bring one tape per camera. So my trusty T2i finished off the last 30 min. of the performance basically by itself. I saved my last few min. on my HV20 so I could have something to record with when my time was up on my T2i and I had to hit record again.
Fast forward to two days later when I was in my editing suite and importing the footage. I can't tell you how much I was amazed at how much better the T2i looked. I know its inherently a much better camera, but I figured in that situation it wouldn't workout. I was dead wrong. It looked so much better I was almost afraid to put the HV footage in the same sequence as it.
But I ended up matching the footage as best as I could, which is almost impossible in the case of a terrible lighting job with a HV20 and a T2i. The client was thrilled and I got paid. Needless to say I sold my HV20 the next month.
So all of that to say, its going to be basically impossible to match up the T2i or any HDSLR with a consumer camera in that situation. I did recently purchase a Canon HF11 to replace my need for a camera that can record longer time periods, but I will not be doing any more events and trying to match the footage. I'm lucky enough to know a person with two Canon 7d's that I can borrow instead.
