Anyone Using The HMC40 For Professional Purposes

Robert M Wright

Robert M Wright

Well-known member
I'm curious to know how many people are actually using the HMC40 for professional purposes, and among those who are, how they are using them.
 
Yes. I use it for it's size on jobs where I have to travel on an airplane, with the HMC40, mics and a couple lights in a backpack as carryon. I've shot interviews and 'day-in-the-life' documentaries with it.
 
Although I bought the camera for straight filmmaking purposes, I recorded my 2 Saturday shows last week at the Improv and was honestly BLOWN AWAY with how good it looked on my hd tv. I may start making demo tapes for other comics for an decent fee.
 
I only use mine for paying jobs.

So far: footage for a documentary, a commercial, 2 concerts, a bunch of speeches (a memorial service,) and a 5 and a half hour Hasidic wedding. I've had the camera about 3 weeks.
 
Joe, haven't made back my money yet, the pay scale here in Israel is almost 1/2 what I'd be charging in the States. I also spent almost $3k on the camera including the XLR adapter, mic, battery, case, etc.

Mac, so far I've only done post on the commercial. The doc footage, one of the concerts, and the speeches I just handed off the footage to someone else. The other concert was this past Saturday night, and the wedding was Monday night. Starting post on those next week after I finish editing 2 other projects, one using web-sourced video clips, and the other, an indie film I worked on in 2004 that never got finished. Ug, editing and doing AE effects on 60i SD from 6 years ago is lame!! Just finished editing a friends wedding video that I did for free for them as a favor, (shot on my SD5 and Sony TRV10 last year.)

Post is helped by having 2 networked computers, one being a current model macbook pro that can crunch through the AVCHD pretty rapidly.

This is all in addition to being a contractor for a local video house that uses HV20s for their shoots. Just did sound for a 6 hour commercial shoot last Thursday and ran 1 of 2 cameras at a shoot of a stage play Sunday night (using their cameras.) I'll probably end up doing the edit of the play as well.

Thank g-d, lots of work. I've only been in this country for almost 2 years.

Here's a pic someone just sent of me working at the wedding. (this at about 1am, I'd been there since 6, but it started and hour and a half late)::
 

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I know the HMC40 i own was used to shoot footage of the South Africa Soccer World Cup (Which we won... sorry. I JUST has to say that) and was broadcasted all over the country on the main spanish TV network (TV1)


Is that pro enough for you? ; )
 
dang!
i use mine to cover import car shows in south florida..
no wedding ever done
or any party related stuff..strictly car shows
 
I've used mine for three weddings, a few indie projects, and as a vacation camera.

For the weddings, I used it as my primary camera on a Steadicam Merlin during the dance portions of the reception.

For the indie projects, I use my HMC40 with a Letus35 Mini attached, and a lot of lights. Typically the lights will include a pair of 650w Arri Fresnels + Softboxes, 1-3 300w Arri Fresnels as kickers and peppers for the background scenery, and a 150w Arri fresnel as a hair light (or more if I'm rim-lighting the subject). It takes a frustrating amount of light to use the Letus35 adapter on this camera in anything but daylight (sunset light is the bare minimum available light at f/2.8 or below on the prime lenses and +6db gain on the camera)... but it's worth it!
 
I use mine as a B-cam when needed for mostly corporate work. And of course anywhere I need a light guerilla cam. Crane use since it is so light.

Grant
 
Currently use mine for short format corporate/non-profit webisodes, its going to Kenya soon to shoot 3 webisodes for a non-profit. Its already paid for itself and more.

This was shot by a colleague with my old XH-A1 (which I sold to finance the purchase of a used HMC40 package) but I certainly would have used the HMC40 for the Sonos job if I had it at the time. In other words I own it for the sole purpose of pursuing my trade.
 
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I've made a commercial. Shot a couple football games and a basketball games. All Paid. Since I'm usually using a HPX500 or a HVX200 at my work. The side jobs with my HMC40 have been a bonus.
 
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