Proud Dad Syndrome

Ah being a kid in Winnipeg is better.
Your last problem gets better with two things; practice and a decent fluid head. Cannot do it without either.
 
lhryshko said:
The last bit of confusion for me deals with the neccesity for fast panning if I hope to fill the frame even partially with a kid vs. zooming out so much that I'd have to point out which pixel my kid was.
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Following a subject is different than panning a scene. As long as you can follow a subject fairly accurately (which does take a bit of natural ability as well as considerable practice), that can make for great video. Panning a scene too quickly and especially without purpose, just like zooming to quickly or without purpose, looks like amateur hour crap.
 
This is some footage I shot (purely handheld with an HV20) of my puppy last year. I can certainly improve my shooting, but I do think this is a good example of what I'm talking about with camera movement. Even though I shot this at 24p, I do move the camera quite quickly to follow my puppy (having a purpose), but moved the camera very little otherwise (without purpose). If you don't notice the zooms, then I did well. (Yes, there are some zooms - very s-l-o-w ones, indeed with a purpose when my puppy strolled considerably away from the cam).

http://vimeo.com/8273770
 
I agree with Robert M Wright and his video actually looked pretty decent for swift movement at 24p. I believe, though, that your HPX170 is going to be a bit more difficult to maintain focus and fluid recording than the Canon, especially if you plan to shoot in film cam mode at 24p. I also have a small little consumer Canon camcorder, not HD version, and I can move that almost out of control and it still tracks and focuses pretty good. The HVX and HPX cameras are not simply point and shoot cameras...they are designed to capture a specific look that you want and need to setup to achieve. There aren't really any basic all purpose settings. You may want to start by shooting in video mode at either 720 60p or any of the 60i modes if you're just doing this for home entertainment, until you get a better feel for the camera. The autofocus (at least on my HVX200a and I suspect also on the 170) is fairly slow when in film cam and 24 or 30p modes).

I'm not trying to discourage you...you have a great camera capable of capturing outstanding images, but it loves light, correct exposure, manual white balance and slow steady movement to give you the best of what it's capable of. Trial and error is invaluable.
 
Thanks DGW. An excellent summation of my fears.

I'll try to post some representative footage soon that was easy to get on a point-and-shoot, but I'm presuming will be a nightmare on the "new extension of my ................video capabilities."

Just have to learn that skill next. Is Vimeo best?
 
No disrespect, but if you use 1/48th shutter on someone cartwheeling and flipping through the frame, it won't matter how close you are zoomed in, it will still be a blurry mess. Experiment with shutter speeds on something moving as fast as your kids doing gymnastics (like maybe your kids doing gymnastics). I just shot two tennis videos and it was indoors with bad lighting so I decided to keep it slow at 1/60th (was shooting 30p) and it was not very crisp at all. I should have bumped up the gain a little to allow for 1/120th. Unless your kids are going about 60 MPH or whatever that is KPH, you won't get strobing at the shutter speed.

ANother way to capture the action without panning as fast is don't shoot the scene perpendicular to the path of motion. try going at a 45 degree angle or whatever is possible. this will add a little perspective to the shot, plus the subject will grow as it approaches the camera, which slowly reveals the details. It's a nice effect. If you do that just don't zoom in so much that you can't keep the subject in focus the whole time.
 
I do like Canon's instant auto focus. Somehow, it often seems to perform astonishingly well. I don't know where it was actually at, but I'm sure the aperture wasn't wide open when I shot the footage I posted earlier (helping focus with deeper DOF). I locked down exposure, but I was in shutter priority mode and the LCD/viewfinder doesn't tell you where the aperture is at - I like the HV20, but it's very much a consumer cam.

I wouldn't suggest shooting gymnastics at 24p (it's the only progressive mode with the HV20 tho) - I'd suggest shooting at 720p60. If you have enough light, going to 1/120 with 60p could look good, but that makes it tougher to choke down the lens to get deeper DOF and get more leeway with focus. When I've tried shooting 30p at 1/120 shutter there's been quite notable judder, even just following people as they move at a leisurely pace. 30p footage at 1/60 seems to give the most natural look. Freeze frames won't be tack sharp, but played at full speed it looks pretty good. Video is motion picture imaging, not still photo imaging, and eliminating motion blur entirely is generally not desirable.
 
lhryshko said:
Is Vimeo best?
Click to expand...

That depends on a lot of things. Vimeo is what I use, and now as a plus member you can actually upload 1080p. There are many good video upload sites I've heard discussed here, but I only ever tried Vimeo and seem to be satisfied.
 
One thing I really like about Vimeo, is the ability to download the source footage file (the one that was uploaded to them, rather than only being able to view the re-encoded version).

If you want to do the best quality online streaming video, you can do it yourself. Web hosting is dirt cheap nowadays, and you can use something like Flowplayer (free) to put flash video on your site reasonably easy. By doing the encoding yourself, you can get considerably better quality streaming video than having Vimeo or YouTube encode it. x264 is really pretty dang sweet for encoding video to stream from a website (but it does take some know-how to be able to optimize encoding settings really well).
 
For my (virtual) money, once you've had your fun (figuratively) shooting the kids, you should write and shoot a narrative film, and it should absolutely, positively be a comedy. You have a genuine knack for humor, and that is a very rare thing. Seriously...

No, wait...not *seriously* seriously, but, you know...I meant...um...ahh crap...
 
Interesting. Both you and the agencies that fund my research have arrived at the same conclusion.

My Vimeo and Christmas are both coming. First failed attempt last night.
 
Well, having two dominant copies of the smart ass gene isn't my only talent/curse.

To showcase my business acumen and marketing savvy, I am breaking my Vimeo hymen by releasing my first vid to compete directly with Superbowl. Here goes.

http://vimeo.com/9271724

Password is test if you need it. It's the same as my bank account, but the HPX purchase has made that irrelevant for at least a few years.

This is just badly edited footage from my daughterès first competition. Ièll be shooting stuff like this for at least a decade and would like to do it well. Representative types of shots are shown for comments and suggestions, particularly with regard to maintaining focus. Ièm pretty sure that I wonèt be able to get a film look.

This forum has been awesome so far and I promise to go away soon and just shoot.

Thanks to all. Apparently, there are a lot of Proud Dads out there.
 
Nicely done Ihryshko. If you really want to woo the spouse, shoot some routines at 50 fps. Some of those flips would look amazing at half the speed and the wife would certainty think the purchase was justified :)
 
Larry (self-talk),

Now that you've read all 12 of Barry's focusing tips in the HVX/HPX book, why don't you leave these nice people alone and go practice?

Besides, the straw that you were grasping for was to have someone authoritatively state that you MUST have a Varizoom PZFI to shoot this kind of footage.

Were it not for the Superbowl, I'm sure they would have done this automatically and it would have nothing to do with wanting to justify this essential purchase to your wife.

Larry

P.S. This post may self-destruct if something unexpected were to happen.
 
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