Best camera for teaching

I totally agree about students going footage crazy with video as opposed to film. On the last course I taught we got around this by making them hand in their rushes tape and limiting the amount they were allowed to shoot. It worked quite well .. not that we looked at the rushes tapes very often to check! The fear was enough to make them think.

Do you know of any issues with using separate sound recorders (Zooms or something similar) with the DVX? I'd be interested in teaching that too.
 
Nothing except the usual issues of syncing sound....it's always an odd arena. You can basically count on the DVX being accurate when it comes to syncing...it's better then working with a crystal sync film camera...but still a headache, lol.

I would stay away from the lower end recorders like the zoom for high-end work, but for teaching purposes? It's a fine tool....something like the zoom, which lacks time code, can help to instill proper audio slating habits in a person.

It's odd, but in a lot of ways I believe that high end tools are the worst for students, cause to be quite honest, technology makes things so easy, that without a little bit of adversity, someone will never develop habits that make for good film.
 
Nick Walters said:
Many othr cameras do NOT do this, and because of this the results in post can be degraded quickly....24fps is what we pros often do.
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I wouldn't say 24p degrades less quickly in post. Properly manipulated 60i footage is equally durable because you're shooting on the same codec.

The main thing about 24p is that it's a good segue into learning about concepts like framerates, pulldown removal and so forth. As an aside I think it's a shame that most film school just tell students that "24p is good, 60i is evil" and leave it at that. Students really needs to appreciate the visual differences between framerates and the historical context of how they came to be used, instead of coming away with the simplistic idea that everything should be shot in 24p.
 
Thanks Nick. Yes, I was intending to work with slates ... proper old style. Has anyone worked with the combination of a DVX100 and a non timecode separate audio source in FCP?


Huy Vu - That's interesting. I agree that there is nothing wrong with interlaced formats, especially for teaching, but isn't the world moving to progressive generally, what with everyone watching things on their flat screens and computers these days? I have to say that I really like 60fps progressive HD ... but I can't see this project being able to afford any camera that has the necessary manual controls.
 
Spinkhill said:
I'm currently involved in helping a college start up a media course and I thought it might be interesting to gauge opinion on what everyone thinks the best video camera to teach with might be. The college already has a Mac Lab for it's photography course, so I think they will be getting Final Cut Studio for teaching post production. Ideally the camera would need to be quite reasonably priced but still be easily manually controllable and have useable audio inputs. I'm guessing that most of the DSLRs with video would be too difficult to use with students? Any thoughts?
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I"m going to ask a question as one teacher to another:

What are your course objectives? You mention "media course" but having more information about exactly what it is you hope to accomplish may help us understand your specific needs. If video will be only one component of a larger curriculum, then maybe a consumer level camera makes more sense. If the entire curriculum is on video production, I'd say skip the lower priced cams and go for a pro-level device.

I have to advocate for tapeless workflow. I've found it to be an unnecessary PITA to have to deal with tape while teaching. Many still do but going tapeless allows you to skip a bunch of problems like students taping over their work, and running the tape forever. I'm much more conservative with my takes shooting on SxS cards then I was on tape, primarily because I can quickly review, delete and re-shoot.

Make a list of all the things you want them to learn and see what that translates to in terms of gear.
 
Bobonli said:
I have to advocate for tapeless workflow. I've found it to be an unnecessary PITA to have to deal with tape while teaching. Many still do but going tapeless allows you to skip a bunch of problems like students taping over their work, and running the tape forever. I'm much more conservative with my takes shooting on SxS cards then I was on tape, primarily because I can quickly review, delete and re-shoot.
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And I am going to advocate against it. Tape is a direct, physical correlation to film. You have to deal with getting into the computer much like a Telecine. You can screw up and record over it. It needs to be labeled, handled correctly, and is a limited resource like film. However, unlike film, it can be reused if necessary (once or twice... hey it's education), and it's inexpensive.

I am all about the tapeless workflow AFTER the basics are in place, but I think you give a student 1 tape for a project, and you're done. That's the shoot limit. Really hard to do those kinds of limits with tapeless.
 
Bobonli said:
What are your course objectives? You mention "media course" but having more information about exactly what it is you hope to accomplish may help us understand your specific needs. If video will be only one component of a larger curriculum, then maybe a consumer level camera makes more sense. If the entire curriculum is on video production, I'd say skip the lower priced cams and go for a pro-level device.

I have to advocate for tapeless workflow. I've found it to be an unnecessary PITA to have to deal with tape while teaching. Many still do but going tapeless allows you to skip a bunch of problems like students taping over their work, and running the tape forever. I'm much more conservative with my takes shooting on SxS cards then I was on tape, primarily because I can quickly review, delete and re-shoot.
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Thanks Bobonli. The course is an expansion of a current undergraduate media communications degree. At the moment the students do practice in photography, print journalism and audio production (traditional studio). The idea is to add video and audio post production capabilities to the existing digital photography lab (the iMacs I mentioned earlier) and to start teaching both drama and documentary production in both audio and video. I agree that tapeless would be great because everything is going that way, and I've had my own fair share of tape based hassles in the past. Is there a tapeless version of the DVX100?

I think the objectives of the course would be to teach the basics of production as I've outlined above. I think that having professional camera connections and a straightforward workflow would be more important than having the latest and best HD formats. Perhaps we could start with a cheap tapeless consumer camera that works well with FCP? Does such a thing exist?
 
PerroneFord said:
And I am going to advocate against it. Tape is a direct, physical correlation to film. You have to deal with getting into the computer much like a Telecine. You can screw up and record over it. It needs to be labeled, handled correctly, and is a limited resource like film. However, unlike film, it can be reused if necessary (once or twice... hey it's education), and it's inexpensive.

I am all about the tapeless workflow AFTER the basics are in place, but I think you give a student 1 tape for a project, and you're done. That's the shoot limit. Really hard to do those kinds of limits with tapeless.
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Yes. I'm all for limiting the amount that students are allowed to shoot. I've done this before by limiting the space that they can upload their rushes into. They very quickly learnt to think about how much they were recording. The physical advantages of tapeless are just so tempting! Cameras lasting a lot longer, no moving parts to get clogged up etc. ...
 
Spinkhill said:
The physical advantages of tapeless are just so tempting! Cameras lasting a lot longer, no moving parts to get clogged up etc. ...
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Yea I know. That's why I bought a tapeless camera this time! :) There are certainly arguments each way. You can create a solid workflow for the class either using tape or not. Limiting upload is an excellent idea.

Best of luck with however you decide to tackle your problem.
 
PerroneFord said:
And I am going to advocate against it. Tape is a direct, physical correlation to film. You have to deal with getting into the computer much like a Telecine. You can screw up and record over it. It needs to be labeled, handled correctly, and is a limited resource like film. However, unlike film, it can be reused if necessary (once or twice... hey it's education), and it's inexpensive.

I am all about the tapeless workflow AFTER the basics are in place, but I think you give a student 1 tape for a project, and you're done. That's the shoot limit. Really hard to do those kinds of limits with tapeless.
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Yes, of course this is an important aspect but it may not be mission-critical for the OPs course objectives. If tape handling and film workflow are important to the curriculu
then it should be included. But if the objective is simply to deliver an overview, as part of a larger curriculum, the time spent ingesting tape can be devoted to other techniques.
 
My 2c FWIW.
Fist of all remember, no matter how much we try, a school environment and students iare not like the REAL world. Once you admit and accept this your life will be better. Plan your equipment and such with this in mind each step of the way.

Students do not work like professionals, because they are STUDENTS.

That being said here is what i recommend.

Any manual camera will suffice. Right now I've been recommending the HMC-150. it has enough quality to let students push to their limits. It is a good price point and uses inexpensive SD cards that any student can obtain. Go tape-less if at all possible. My school and the schools i consult for have eliminated all of the down time associated with the tape based system. I had one semester where on student brought in an old tape and contaminated ever deck in the building before i could stop him. long story but it also ruined several other students final projects. I had policies in place but students don't listen or understand sometimes.

Buy several cameras if at all possible. Students work at a much slower pace than you and I do... and I mean Much Much Much slower. With only one camera there will be bottlenecks in scheduling. More time with the cameras the more students learn. Only getting to touch the camera 4 times for an hour at a time in your college career is useless. I have seen schools where the camera was "too expensive" for the students to carry out into the field so all of their work was done in class in the studio ... no much actually learned there. Multiple cameras also reduces the amount of "group" projects. If a student doesn't HAVE to do projects where they run the camera alone, they will rely one the best students in a group to do their camera work. I have transfer students that have passed production classes at other campuses and colleges and they fail my class because they don't actually know how to run the camera, they relied on other students to do it in group projects and never learned on their own.

Don't hang up on fad of the day/buzz features like 24p or DOF. The students are still learning how to frame, expose direct, light ,mic and tell stories. Their projects will not make or break on 24fps.

Think about two levels of cameras. Have super simple cameras for entry level students to learn soft skills like production planning, composition, blocking, directing and editing. I have seen student work grind to a halt because they have trouble with manual audio on story telling exercises. Have one or two better cameras for mastering camera technical skills of exposure, white balance. etc. Don't worry about if an advanced student has to use a simple one every now and then, if they truly know how to run a camera they can make footage from a simple camera look good

Do not forget to budget all of the peripheral items needed for a production. Lights, Mics, sand bags, stands etc. You can buy the best camera but if you don't have ALL of the things to help make a good production their work may suffer.
 
txsbluesguy - That sounds like very wise advice. Where I worked previously in London we operated a very similar system with Sony PD150 cameras for 1st yr undergraduates and RedRock kits for the later years ... not that I ever want to touch a RedRock kit ever again! I'm seriously hoping that a DSLR that can do the same job (on a rig) will come along soon!

As you say, any manual camera will do, so perhaps I could ask what the cheapest manual camera out there is? I'd put the HMC150 at the top end of the budget that I'd imagine we are going to have.
 
I teach at a largish high school and these are some issues we run into. It may be different for your situtation.

High end for us is GL2's etc. We have 3 GL2 they only go out to students working on special projects and we use them for the desk when shooting our sports new show. This is a shame as we really should have more higher end cameras but we share the cameras on a sign out basis with the entire school. So what we end up with for most students are a bunch of consumer level cameras that they use and a few "higher end" cameras that they may be lucky to look at let alone use.

Now we really like tapes because we don't have to worry about leaving footage on the camera. The students can shoot then just take their tapes and give us back the cameras and capture at a later date. Cameras are used in a 1 1/2hr class so we don't have time to shoot and capture most days. The cameras also go out to other students coaches whatever. It also gives us backup.

So trying to find a cheap decent manual tape camera that is going to be used by not trained highschool kids, teachers and coaches etc is a problem. The AV people think it is insane to give out a GL2 to anyone. Becasue they cost "so much" and we can't really recoup $2k from their parents if they break it.

We had great sucess with some old consumer HC85 sonys and beechteks if using off camera audio (for real basic student work) but they are run into the ground now and the AV dept are buying some HD consumer level sonys. The old HC85 were great they had large lcd's a focus ring and had headphone out and mic ins. Obviously not exactly a separate audio and video work flow but it would allow them to at least think about mointoring the audio while they shoot. It is hard to find anything anymore that is cheap and has mic ins headphones out and runs tape. The hc85's I think were $600 new and were a great setup for teaching high schoolers.

We shoot the new hd cams in SD and sometimes the settings don't stick in SD on the camera. So we have kids accidentally recording in HD mixing hd/sd on tapes etc. All sorts of issues that we didn't have before when we had the simple just SD sonys.

If I had all the money in the world it would be 3 chip dv cams for student use. They are much easier to use manualy than any consumer level camera that you can find and you can teach the basics. With the consumer cams that we have now I can't set the aperture. crazy. But in my school it only comes down to $ and not ease of student use. We need at least 12 cameras for the useage that we see so buy 12 dvx's is out of the question.

For audio

We have 3 H4s and I am not a huge fan. The H4n looks ok but the H4 is just dumb with its interface. I am so sick of telling kids how to attach them to the computer. Explaining the jog wheel. Shutting it off first just plain dumb. It is fine if it is just one student using it for a longer period of time and you can teach them the intricacies of the unit. The h4n may have a better workflow/interface. We have used the H4's successfully off camera with boom pole for productions but I wouldn't buy another and would love to be rid of ours.

I imagine though I have never used one that fostex fr-2le would be a better choice for audio. It is setup as a much more pro level design and it is simple in its interface.

So I match most of the recs here. Get as many cameras as you can that are as manual as possible and I think preferably SD so you don't tax those imacs and storage. HD is great but it is only a small piece of the film making puzzle.
 
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go with the panasonic tm-300 its a great consumer sized camera but it has almost all of the features that you can control on it as a dvx. it shoots on sdhc cards and they are cheap and give you alot of time to shoot with
 
We just started using the Canon S10 in our video production clases and for a consumer camera it looks beatiful and has a surprising number of manual controls(focus, Exposure, Audio, etc). Also you should look at the Hv 30 or 40 if you are looking for a tape based camera.
 
tommyp - thanks for the advice. Much apprieciated.

At the moment I've put in a budget of around $8000 for each camera kit (camera, tripod, bag, radio mic, boom mic, spare batt) so hopefully we'll be able to get something decent if it comes off. It looks like we aren't going to need to buy until the summer ... does anyone know of any upcoming models (or whispers of upcoming models) that might be worth adding to my comparison list?

Cheers, Tim
 
Hello All,

I thought I'd wake up this thread again as it looks like I now have a budget for the camera kits that I'm hoping to buy for the university's media department. It looks like I should have around 7000 USD per camera kit to spend. That would include the camera, tripod, spare battery and perhaps a basic boom mic and radio mic if there was any money left. Does this seem realistic, and if so what would you all suggest going for?

Thanks,

Tim
 
Spinkhill said:
I thought I'd wake up this thread again as it looks like I now have a budget for the camera kits that I'm hoping to buy for the university's media department. It looks like I should have around 7000 USD per camera kit to spend. That would include the camera, tripod, spare battery and perhaps a basic boom mic and radio mic if there was any money left. Does this seem realistic, and if so what would you all suggest going for?
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Though lots of advancements have taken place in HD and tapeless, even since this thread started back in November, I'd still say that the DVX is your best bet. There is still so much to be said for learning to maintain proper reels via labeling and time code management (and to budget footage) before they are set free into the tapeless world.

And at $7k per camera, you have plenty of space to get:

- A new DVX100B - $2500
- An extra battery - $60 (DVXUser battery)
- A good tripod with fluid head - $330
- A Rode NTG-2 kit with pole, shockmount, cables, and windscreen - $500
- A pair of Sony MDR-7506 headphones (an absolute must) - $90
- A Sound Devices MixPre - $665
- ENG breakaway snake (MixPre > Camera, 2 XLR sends and headphone return) - $230
- PortaBrace case for MixPre (same as Shure FP24) - $140
- Sennheiser G3 wireless mic system*

*I would forgo the radio mic at this point. Look at getting an Oktava MK012 hypercardioid, plus windscreen and shockmount (about $275 total). It'll cost less than the G3 system, and it will give each kit two mics: shotgun for exteriors and hyper for interiors. Plus, you'll still likely have enough left at that to get a cheapie camcorder or two to use as ingest decks.

That leaves you +/- $2000 for lighting... and a camera bag.
 
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Thanks C2V .. that's exactly the kind of advice I was hoping for. My only worry is that the University might want to go tapeless just for appearance (I'm sure you know how these things work sometimes) as I've already had a sniff that this might be the case ... how would any of you configure a tapeless solution?
 
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