Neither is right...but which would be better?

[That Todd Guy]

Hey,

I need an opinion about about a project I am shooting tonight,
and I thought I would put it out to you experts:

I have to record a dance show
(ughh..yeah, I know but it helps to pay some of my bills)

The problem is that I only have my DVX 100b,
so I am planning on using two other 3 chip consumer (unmanned) cameras
to get some angles that I can cut to, along with my DVX.
I know that I shouldn't be mixing cameras but for this project I
have to go with what I have available.

Here's my question:
Do I set my unmanned cameras to the auto mode?
I know that auto mode is a major no-no,
but I recorded this show last year,
(using this same set-up)
and on some of the dance numbers I got some blown out footage and out of focus shots
using the manual mode.

I hate to let the cameras make the decisions about focus, iris & white balance,
but the lighting changes so much between dance numbers
that just setting the camera to a happy mid point can be a problem too.

I'd love to hear what you have to say about this,
Thank you,

Todd

 

[Alex H.]

I'd love to hear what you have to say about this,

I'd say "never attempt a three-camera shoot with only one camera operator." Hire a couple of folks to help.

Autofocus won't help at all. It's one thing to have a single lock-down for wides, in which case you would go for maximum depth of field (infinite focus). But even then, you'd need some one there to watch the exposure. Auto exposure is going to shift every time the lighting changes, which means that your shots won't match and you'll have to cut around a lot of those shifts.

 

[Knoxworth]

How did this go?

 

[That Todd Guy]

I survived..barely!

I survived..barely!

I would never recommend anyone doing a video shoot like I described above,
but if you are in a bind, it is possible and can be done.
(although at times, you may feel like the circus performer that attempts to spin 20 plates simultaneously on sticks)

As Knoxworth suggested:

Hummmmm. If you are the primary camera you should really only need the other angles to cover your transitions and mistakes, right?

Yes, ideally you'd have 3 perfectly aligned angles but this is obviously not the case.
If I were you I would go wide with one camera and adjust the focus on a friend or a curtain before the show starts. Zoom in and get a good focus, because you'll be keeping that setting all throughout. You'll end up with some soft focus but you'll only be using this angle when your primary footage is unusable.

The 2nd & 3rd cameras were basically my back up camera, so locking them down
wasn't really going to be the problem. The main problem that I was trying to figure out,
was how I could manually adjust the iris on those two cameras while running the third camera.

This is the solution that I came up with...
I set both locked down cameras to the same remote frequency,
and adjusted them both on the fly with one remote control.
I even occasionally adjusted zoom on the medium shot camera depending on
how much of the stage was being used for that particular dance number.

As I said, I wouldn't recommend doing something like this,
unless you are really, really good at multi-tasking,
and enjoy having a little extra stress in your life.

Thanx for the responses...
as always you guys are the best.

Todd