I Love This Camera!

prodigywookie

Active member
I went shooting for the first time last night. I was filming my buddies who were getting used to jibbing (snowboarding) handrails at a nearby church. I did not come prepared with construction lights so there was barely any light, but I have to say that the quality/lighting was shocking even as i was recording at 1/250 shutterspeed (it was somewhere in the two hundreds).

My question may be an easy question to answer, but iono :D
It was around 27 degrees Ferenheit outside when I was filming, and may get down near 10 degrees. Is that too cold for the camera? and is that dangerous to be filming in that kind of enviroment? if so, is there any camera enclosures that will keep the camera warm and free from water as I film? Thanks in advance for any input :)

P.S: If you guys want, I can post some clips. Just let me know/

EDIT: Aww.. im pissed. I cant find the well lit clips, and I have to go film some more right now before it gets dark, so I dont have enough time to go capture them. Ill post some better clips when I get back.. Till then, heres an "okay" clip I have from last night. I wish I had clips of him doing the whole rail. HOPEFULLY I'LL BE ABLE TO POST THEM TONIGHT!

http://prodigywookie.com/files/adamFAILURE!.m2t

http://prodigywookie.com/files/ddd.m2t

EDIT: Go ahead and download these. I fell asleep last night before I could change the name of the file :/

-prodigywookie
 
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Right when I get home im uploading. I hope .m2t files are alright :D
By the way, Im gonna leave out CCing them so you can see the raw footage.
 
long story short on what happened today: unfortunately there was a huge car wreck today and was blocking the way to the handrail we were gonna hit. We (in 3 cars, 2 in each car) tried to get around it by getting on the highway and got seperated :(

Good news is that We will be filming all day tomorrow and I will be posting a bunch of raw .m2t files of what we did! sorry about that guys. You'll have to wait a day :(

-prodigywookie
 
Sounds great--can't wait. I ordered my A1 yesterday and it shipped today.

It's a funny thing--I live and work in Hollywood now and ironically I haven't felt so far away from making a feature movie since finishing film school years ago.

I'm hoping the A1 will change all of that...
 
it'll change everything fosho :D
Im just about to go get some footy! We have construction lights, so I better not screw up this time. Ill be posting some clips late tonight !
Chow

-prodigywookie
 
As for your temperature question..it is listed in the manual as between 32-104 degrees according to the manual specs on page 158. I suppose if you use a camera wrap or rain cover you can keep your camera warmer or cooler. But some people have used blankets to help the temp fluctuations.
 
They had construction lights there, but they didnt have a generator to power them *ughh*, so here ya go. Hopefully I'll be able to post some better stuff Later. The link is up on the first post also. The quality is bad but try to enjoy.. i guess.. :D

Link is going to be up at about 11:30pst

http://prodigywookie.com/files/ddd.m2t
 
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Now that's a lowlight situation! Do you remember your settings on those shots? To me the noise is acceptable for that kind of footage where you're basically asking the camera to practically see in the dark.

I look forward to seeing some day footage from the sunny, powdery slopes of Utah!
 
manual mode.
iris all the way open (of course)
shutterspeed of 1/90 and 6db gain on 3 of the 4 shots. 1/120 and 3db gain on the more lit shot (the one with headlights on the rail)
NR1 & 2 OFF
No CC in-camera (and none after export)

I have been capturing from Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 with Cineform HDLink codec, and i get an interlaced avi file. Then I just exported at full to .m2t
Im not sure if there could have been any down-grading in quality, but it looks mighty fine to me for how little of light there was. Im looking forward to using my dad's generator to supply good lighting. (construction lights, etc.)
 
Wow, I'm surprised it held up as well as it did using faster shutter speeds.

Try 24F HDV at 1/48 shutter at various gains and see how it looks next time. You should get a much brighter, less noisy image.
 
Any particular reason for having the NR off and such high shutter speed in lightning conditions that would certainly benefit from different settings?
 
prodigywookie said:
I have been capturing from Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 with Cineform HDLink codec, and i get an interlaced avi file. Then I just exported at full to .m2t
Im not sure if there could have been any down-grading in quality, but it looks mighty fine to me for how little of light there was. Im looking forward to using my dad's generator to supply good lighting. (construction lights, etc.)

That sounds like it was encoded as a CineForm AVI, and then re-encoded to m2t for export.

Two extra passes of compression--try downloading CapDVHS for Windows and simply capture raw m2t's from the tape without any intermediate codecs if you want to show original acquisition quality, and maybe even cut down on file size too. (your clip was 40 mbs instead of original 25mbs m2t)

Thanks for sharing p-wookie. :)
 
3rd Clip

3rd Clip

thanks for the input guys.

rawfa said:
Any particular reason for having the NR off and such high shutter speed in lightning conditions that would certainly benefit from different settings?

I turned NR off due to the small ghosting it creates on the snowboarder.
I like having a fast shudder speed, although it lowers the lighting.
Here's a clip of my buddy Taylor who did the whole rest of the rail. We shined the car lights on it so it should have pretty good lighting. Here are the adjustments I used:

Mode: Manual
Shutterspeed: 1/150
Gain: 6dB
NR: Off
CC: Off
AWB: On

http://prodigywookie.com/files/Teet.m2t

PS: I made a stupid mistake by wiping the lens with my coat arm. Now the lens has smudges. Im gonna go pick up a cleaning kit ASAP :/

Oh.. I think I did it right. Are you just supposed to change the .mpg to .m2t after you capture? or is there a setting to make it give me a .m2t right when capturing?
 
I haven't used it, but I though the CineForm utility allowed you to simply capture raw m2t's (MPEG Transport Streams) without encoding to CineForm intermediate.
 
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