Advice for GH2: Video shoot of local business

B

boo

Veteran
I will be shooting a :60 promo for a friend's local restaurant with the GH2 and will be posted on Youtube. I currently have the 14-140mm lens I will probably be using for exteriors and zooms of some of the dishes and possibly interview. I would think the 20mm 1.7 and 7-14mm Lumix lens would be ideal for interiors(interview as well) but can probably only afford the 20mm for now if I can find one. Is this a good combo(kit lens plus 20mm 1.7)? Also, if I can't get the 20mm 1.7, how well will the 14-140mm work for the interior? I have a set of two 6 bank flos and a couple of 300w flos. Restaurant has about a 60 person seating capacity.

For interview, I'm looking to go with a Video Mic Pro attached to a boom or GH2 sitting on a tripod.

Also, since this will be exclusively for Youtube, would it be best to shoot in 720/60p? 60p would be smoother than 24p. I'm thinking shooting in Smooth or Standard setting.

Your advice and further suggestions are greatly appreciated!
 
I think with your lighting set up you should be fine if you can't find the 20mm. I shot some stuff with the GH1 and 14-140 in a living room with moderate natural lighting and it came out just fine. It's only when you try to shoot real low light where the 14-140 falls down. I'll defer to others for the You Tube settings and Video Mic Pro (although I've heard great things about them)
 
thanks pulp. I will be going to the location to test out the kit lens and lights to see how well that works.
 
I have just the 14-140 and 20mm and they make a great pair. 14-140 for outdoors/indoor with lights and 20mm indoors in natural light. The 20 mm @1.7 is hot for interview work as it gives a nice shallow DOF.

Here is a video I made with these 2 lens which might be of interest:


I used the VMP on the hot shot right into the camera and the 20mm with a Fader ND on sticks for the interview shots and the 14-140 on a manfrotto monopod (561BHDV-1) for the rest.
 
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Might wanna check lensrentals.com or a similar site, get yourself the lenses you need just in case. Better to have em and not need them, than not having them and needing them.
 
If you can afford a zoom h4n I'd rather shoot with a lav mic and do dual sound. Unless you've got a boom op then you'll be fine I guess, but recording onto the slr's doesn't yield the greatest of results sometimes.
 
JMartin said:
Very nice work Grisnjam. Looks great and deftly edited too.
Click to expand...

Thanks!

And here is a little 'sound tests' video I made from that same day as we tried to find a good place for the interview in high winds ...


I did not have a H4n yet and did not want to rent lavs/boom as this was free work for a good cause.
 
I am almost sure you'll be fine with what you've got, assuming you also have the 20mm f1.7.

The nice thing I like about the 20mm lens is that its a slightly wide - the angle of view allows me to sneak the mic a few inches closer to the subject (as opposed to the flatter angle of view of a telephoto lens). In many interviews i've shot in noisy locations, this has made all the difference between useful and useable sound.

rgds/ RandyQ
 
Grisnjam said:
I have just the 14-140 and 20mm and they make a great pair. 14-140 for outdoors/indoor with lights and 20mm indoors in natural light. The 20 mm @1.7 is hot for interview work as it gives a nice shallow DOF.

Here is a video I made with these 2 lens which might be of interest:


I used the VMP on the hot shot right into the camera and the 20mm with a Fader ND on sticks for the interview shots and the 14-140 on a manfrotto monopod (561BHDV-1) for the rest.
Click to expand...


well i have to say that looks a great picture and edit,i have 20mm f 1.7 on order whats the best iso for indoor and outdoor with the lens.
 
flinty said:
well i have to say that looks a great picture and edit,i have 20mm f 1.7 on order whats the best iso for indoor and outdoor with the lens.
Click to expand...


Thanks,

Since I was chasing a guy on a horse I used Auto ISO with an ISO limit of 800 and shutter priority mode @ 1/60 (24p). But in general the lower the better :) If you plan on using the 20mm outdoors I recommend a ND filter other wise you will have to stop it way down and lose that nice shallow DOF.
 
Thanks everyone. Looks like I will def be going with the kit lens plus 20mm 1.7. Thank you John for your video! I will be getting a VMP. What cable or adaptor did you use to connect it into the GH2? How did you monitor the audio or did you guestimate based on the audio meters? thanks.
 
boo said:
Thanks everyone. Looks like I will def be going with the kit lens plus 20mm 1.7. Thank you John for your video! I will be getting a VMP. What cable or adaptor did you use to connect it into the GH2? How did you monitor the audio or did you guestimate based on the audio meters? thanks.
Click to expand...

For the VMP -> GH2 I use a straight 3.5 to 2.5mm adapter (stereo to stereo since the VMP is mono but outputs stereo).

At the time I did not have my H4n so I did not monitor audio but since we had only 10 minutes for the interview I did a series of tests (see the second video I linked) just before hand to establish the best settings where I recorded with the various VMP settings (GH2 on level 1) and review on my laptop. After that I just used the meters to ensure I was getting audio.
 
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