HV20 Noob Questions

Chance White

Chance White

Well-known member
I will be shooting my next feature, THE NUMINOUS, on the HV20. I had some quick questions. Thank you in advance for all responses.

1. Is it possible to achieve nice shallow DOF shots WITHOUT a 35mm attachment and without having to jump through too many hoops? What about achieving rack focus, etc? These kinds of shots are key to my visual style and I am quite adept at them with a DVX or HVX, naturally I suppose...

2. What is the most affordable solution in the 35mm lens attachment arena?

3. I have a Nikon D70 with a very nice lens. I've read you can mod the HV20 to attach Nikon D70 lenses... what is the process for this and could this be an acceptable alternative to acquiring a 35mm attachment?

4. I already have a nice shotgun boom mic which I plan to use for sound recording... what attachment do I need for XLR? Is there a simple adapter or what?

I've read Barry's excellent cell phone trick guide and many other threads here and I haven't really found the answers to the above questions.

Also, for shooting a feature on the HV20, what kind of external hard drive would you recommend and how large? I was thinking 2TB.

All help is greatly appreciated!
 
Chance White said:
I will be shooting my next feature, THE NUMINOUS, on the HV20.
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You do understand that the HV20 is a consumer grade camera, correct? I would use it as a B-camera in some situations but not as my primary camera for a feature.

Chance White said:
1. Is it possible to achieve nice shallow DOF shots WITHOUT a 35mm attachment and without having to jump through too many hoops? What about achieving rack focus, etc? These kinds of shots are key to my visual style and I am quite adept at them with a DVX or HVX, naturally I suppose...
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Look through the footage posted. If you want a shallow DOF you will need to shoot on the long end of the zoom. Rack focus can be done but you will not have a focus ring so it is not like what you would do with the DVX or HVX

Chance White said:
2. What is the most affordable solution in the 35mm lens attachment arena?
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building your own is the least expensive solution...

. Purchase wise, that comes down to light loss... There is the M2, Brevis, and Letus (among others). Each of these is in the $1000 ballpark and will cost you light for a system that already requires more light than a DVX.


Chance White said:
3. I have a Nikon D70 with a very nice lens. I've read you can mod the HV20 to attach Nikon D70 lenses... what is the process for this and could this be an acceptable alternative to acquiring a 35mm attachment?
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Well the D70 takes SLR lenses, which is the purpose of a 35mm adapter, to allow you to attach 35mm lenses. So the solution is to get a 35mm adapter. And it isn't just D70 lenses, it is any 35mm lens. You just need to worry about the lens mount and having that be the same as your adapter.... hence the name: 35mm Adapter. It depends what type of lens you have on your D70 though, if you have a DX lens without an aperture ring then you're SOL.


Chance White said:
4. I already have a nice shotgun boom mic which I plan to use for sound recording... what attachment do I need for XLR? Is there a simple adapter or what?
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What do you consider to be a nice shotgun boom mic? Doesn't matter.
You will need some sort of adapter like a Beachtek... $250


Chance White said:
Also, for shooting a feature on the HV20, what kind of external hard drive would you recommend and how large? I was thinking 2TB.
Click to expand...

I prefer smaller multiple drives in case something crashes. That being said, you need to ball park what your shooting ratio is before you can ballpark how much footage you will shoot and then you can come up with an idea on storage.
 
After witnessing the quality of the HV20 image I feel confident in saying it could shoot a feature film. But the lack of manual controls definitely makes it more difficult.

IMO The lack of a focus ring is its biggest weakness. It just has a spinning wheel that makes any kind of rack focus VERY difficult. Some people have created a Follow Focus system for the HV20 and they seem to work ok. If you have a 35mm adapter then a rack focus will be easier but adding a follow focus would be a nice upgrade.

Jeremy answered the 35mm questions better than I could ever do
so I'll jump to the shotgun and harddisk questions. 1) There's an XLR to mini adapter that will run you about $5. The Beachtek (as Jeremy mentioned) will provide you with much more control and also an extra XLR input. You can find them on ebay for $165. 2) HD is captured at about 3+mb/sec. So that's about 200mb/min. So a one hour tape will use about 12gb and 1tb would handle almost 84 hours/tapes of footage. Not sure how much space you'll need so maybe just start with 1tb and, if you need more, add another tb later.

Good luck with your feature.
 
Thank you for the thoughtful and insightful responses.

I'm seriously considering just going ahead and using an HVX...
 
Edit: To clarify, I of course am going to use an HVX if possible, it wasn't a matter of choosing HV20 or HVX, just wondering how viable it is. Looks like it will be best used a B camera.
 
Most 1TB external hard drives are RAID 0. Which is very unreliable. RAID 1 is a lot better. And most SATA drives are even better.

Considering an HVX200? 12.5MBs a second with DVCPRO HD. Meaning eight seconds is going to use 100MBs and 750MBs a minute and 43.9GBs for an hour. 23 hours per terabyte.
 
Chance White said:
4. I already have a nice shotgun boom mic which I plan to use for sound recording... what attachment do I need for XLR? Is there a simple adapter or what?
Click to expand...

I made my own 3.5 mm mic plug to female XLR and it works very well and cost next to nothing. Just make sure you find a proper wiring guide on the internet for it if you want to make your own. One thing you'll have to take into consideration is that most shotgun mics need power. Your HV20 won't provide the 48v phantom power that other, larger cameras would so you'll need to use batteries in the mic or somehow patch the power into the adaptor.

-Andrew
 
Shallow DOF isn't easy but you can sometimes get some if you are standing way back and are zoomed in with wide open aperture. (although being zoomed of course closes it a bit).

I completely think you could do a feature with a HV20. Would and HVX be easier? hell yeah.

In lieu of the Beachtek, you could run a boom to a digital audio recorder. There are of course very nice ones out there, but some seemingly decent ones are pretty cheap right now such as the Zoom H4. If it is crap, someone let me know because I'm about to pull the trigger on it.

When considering external drives, figure out what codec you are using to edit. I take all of my captured unedited HV20 footage and immediately use compressor to reverse telecine, make true 24fps, and bump to Prores. This bumps up file sizes, although very reasonably for the quality. The process takes a bit, but the time you save in headaches, render time, and quality is WORTH IT. I am still experimenting, but so far, Prores is like a magic drug compared to working in hdv.
 
Mr B said:
In lieu of the Beachtek, you could run a boom to a digital audio recorder. There are of course very nice ones out there, but some seemingly decent ones are pretty cheap right now such as the Zoom H4. If it is crap, someone let me know because I'm about to pull the trigger on it.
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I picked up a Zoom H4 about 8 months ago. I've only used it a handful of times and it's been fine, no problems. I am going to record a live band next week and plan to plug it into the soundboard.....so I guess that'll be a real test.

I made a short film right around the time I got the H4 and needed it for voice-overs. All the VO stuff was right from mic (AT 4073a) to H4 (no problems....aside from a little tinny from recording in my kitchen...I would've done it elsewhere if it hadn't been for a 48-hour film challenge), and little to no manipulation in post. Check it out...
(shot on DVX-100b....voice-overs w/ Zoom H4).....i don't really want to derail the original thread...sorry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU7IuOymwlc

I just wandered into the HV 20 forum because I'm thinking of purchasing one. Does it shoot in the HDV tape/codec?
 
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Yes, the HV20 is an HDV camera.

I have an H4 as well and it's great. I've used it on zeppelin shotgun mics before and it provides its own phantom power which my MiniDisc recorder didn't used to do.
I picked up a tip back in high school for recording voiceovers without a studio. Apparently you can get good results from recording inside a car since there's a lot of soft, sound-absorbing upholstery and since cars are made with sound deadening in mind.
 
AndrewGentle said:
I picked up a tip back in high school for recording voiceovers without a studio. Apparently you can get good results from recording inside a car since there's a lot of soft, sound-absorbing upholstery and since cars are made with sound deadening in mind.
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Also.....VO recording in a closet full of clothes...
 
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