HVX200 on MOUNT EVEREST

JimSlaton

JimSlaton

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PROJECT EVEREST: I am producing a documentary of my team which will climb Mt Everest next year and then ground launch a small special made parachute and fly back down to the base camp.

ISSUES: We have HVX200 for most of the footage but need a smaller, lighter camera to make the accent and flight back down. Our climber/parachute pilot will have a special helmet that the camera is mounted on with a ring site. Where ever he looks he is filming and can be even more accurate by pointing in the cross hairs of the ring sight that is in front of his eyes like a pair of goggles.

CAMERAS: With the recent announcement of Red Digital Cinema's "Scarlet" I thought I would modify this post. Unfortunately, I don't think the Scarlet will be out in time for our accent next year. So I am looking to hear peoples feedback on which camera do they think would be best and I also would like to hear what people think about the Scarlet and if putting the project off for another year would be worth using this camera?

RECOMMENDATIONS: So far we have only had recommendations to use HDC-SD9. So what do you guys think about waiting for the Scarlet and what do you think about the Sanyo HD1000 High-Definition Camcorder
 
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I'm looking for an all in one camera with no cables or parts other than the battery and lenses. I heard the RED team may be coming out with a smaller camera that will be announced at NABB. So does anyone else know of a good camera for Everest?
 
Do be advised, no LCD screen will work well in low temperatures. They get all streaky or unusable. Battery life is about 50% at around freezing temperatures and drops off quickly after that, at least with lithium ion batteries. You could do some research and maybe get better performace from NiCd or NiMh batteries... or a beltpack putting the cells close to the heat of the human operator.
I don't think low atmospheric pressure is a concern but I'm not sure. I've only shot in cold. Hopefully Barry will weigh in on this one, since he was involved in the legendary Iditarod shoot with HVXs.
 
I'd second the idea of shooting on an SD9 or something like that; if you don't need 24P you could use the HSC1U. Those cameras are *tiny*.

The only cold issues we had on the Iditarod Trail were with the LCD panels; we didn't even use snow jackets on the cameras. The LCD will get cold and get streaky and slow-responding; we rubber-banded heat-pack hand warmers to them to keep 'em going and that worked fine (but the colder it gets, the less effective that technique will be; I don't know how cold it'll get up at the top of Everest, the worst our Iditarod team faced was about -57). Solid state is the way to go, and take lots of batteries and keep 'em warm.
 
After a 14 day shoot in search of polar bears on the arctic ocean the one thing I learned was sleep with your batteries and bring a solar power charger. Your batteries will last longer and you can always charge them in remote locals thanks to the sun... when it shines.. Barry -57 below! Ouch... I saw it close to that but the wind chill was -70.

Jim Kinsey
 
I have the Solaris 25 by Brunton. It's a tri fold and comes with a 12v female adapter. The case folds together and works really well. To tell you the truth I filmed that shoot with an XL2 but would love to use with the HVX200 if I could find a 12v plug in/ charger. Any takers on that piece of gear?

I think brunton makes a newer version of the Solaris 25. I have the one that folds vrs the one that rolls up. Anyway i was able to charge my ipod and a battery over the coarse of a day with this set up.

JK
 
I believe that it will. I have the 25 watt version. This thing would rock. Hook it to your backpack to charge while you hike around. I may have to get one to.

JK
 
Barry_Green said:
we rubber-banded heat-pack hand warmers to them to keep 'em going and that worked fine
Click to expand...

I've also used hand warmers to keep my screen/batteries going while filming snowboarding and had pretty good luck with that. The battery especially.. It will die faster than you know it without something keeping it warm, so stock up lol. I'd love to see some of the footage you get when you're done though, good luck.
 
How many batteries do you think we would need for this with the HDC-SD9? How will the footage from the SD9 compare with the HVX200?

 
The footage should be comparable, since it's a 3CCD cam from Panasonic. I haven't seen the footage, but based on the specs, the biggest things I would expect to notice:

1) increased depth of field, due to the 1/6th sensor. Cutting between two long-lensed shots from different cameras in the same scene will not look good.
2) reduced low-light sensitivity, also due to the smaller sensor. This will not be significant during daylight hours.
3) possibly more grain, because of the reduced sensitivity and cheaper sensor.
4) shots with significant motion (pans, zooms, large subject moving quickly) may lack the level of detail in the HVX footage, because of the AVCHD codec.
5) color resolution will be lower, 4:2:0 compared to 4:2:2 on the HVX.

For batteries, I would give Anton Bauer a call. They will be able to find something that meets your needs and help you determine how many you will want. I'd consider a belt- or vest-mounted battery with a long enough cable to run down the operator's sleeve and into the jacket.
 
what do you use for storage when you're away from civilization for weeks at a time? i need something more than a 16gb p2 card...

btw i just got an hvx200:love4:
 
I filmed a Brown bear show on the Alaskan Peninsula last fall for 10 days with (1) 4gig card and (2) 8 gig cards. I offloaded on a powerbook G4 1.67 Ghz and (2) firewire 800 GRaid mini buss powered 7200 RPM drives (100) gigs each. I shot the entire show in 720 24PN. I have found this to be a great " offload workflow" when far from civilization.

Jim Kinsey
 
With the announcement of the Scarlet I have updated my original post here about out "Project Everest". Take the time to read about the project specifics above and tell us what camera you think would work best with our HVX200? What do you think about the Scarlet? What about the Sanyo HD1000 High-Definition Camcorder
 
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