DavidBeier
Veteran
Over summers I teach a short film course for the Advance Program for young scholars (a credit based program for gifted high-schoolers kind of like the Duke program). In the process of the course, we produce a short film. Even though i have an HVX200, I decided it would be best not to try to use it for the class film since dealing with P2s, worrying about focus, and the generally more professional needs that such a camera has would slow us down (not to mention that I still don't have a good tripod and it takes a ton of light).
Anyway, I decided to simply use a cheap, $300 Pansonic consumer mini-DV camera as we had in previous years. In the process however, I discovered something odd that I couldn't figure out how to turn off. Often when an actor would be larger in the frame and would then move, the image would actually follow him a little. The camera would remain completely still on the tripod but the image would actually pan a bit to the right or left to move with the actor.
On the one hand, i found this TOTALLY frustrating as I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. It struck me as the kind of "cool" feature that is a totally pain in the butt if you don't want it. It's like if you ran out of tape and the camera suddenly grew legs and decided to walk to the nearest store and buy you some more. It might be nice for tourists and such but is a royal pain for the rest of us.
On the other hand, I'm kind of interested in what exactly this is called how it's possible. I assume that even with cheap cameras the image you get is the whole image so I don't get how it could suddenly pan left or right a bit when the camera is perfectly still.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
Anyway, I decided to simply use a cheap, $300 Pansonic consumer mini-DV camera as we had in previous years. In the process however, I discovered something odd that I couldn't figure out how to turn off. Often when an actor would be larger in the frame and would then move, the image would actually follow him a little. The camera would remain completely still on the tripod but the image would actually pan a bit to the right or left to move with the actor.
On the one hand, i found this TOTALLY frustrating as I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. It struck me as the kind of "cool" feature that is a totally pain in the butt if you don't want it. It's like if you ran out of tape and the camera suddenly grew legs and decided to walk to the nearest store and buy you some more. It might be nice for tourists and such but is a royal pain for the rest of us.
On the other hand, I'm kind of interested in what exactly this is called how it's possible. I assume that even with cheap cameras the image you get is the whole image so I don't get how it could suddenly pan left or right a bit when the camera is perfectly still.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?
