Shooting 60 minute speaking events with GH1 and low-light?

G

GavinGear

Active member
Hi all- I may be on point to shoot some approx. 60 minutes clips of someone speaking in a dimly lit auditorium.

I was wondering if shooting 60-80 minute clips is feasible with the GH-1, and what kind of clip file sizes I would expect shooting at 1080p 24fps.

Also- how well do you think the camera would to in a dimly lit auditorium (exposed for speaker with spot light, so not TOO high ISO) with kit lens?

Any other thoughts to share about shooting these types of events with the GH-1?

Thanks!
 
AVCHD doesn't have a file size limitation. So you could shoot continuous until you run out of card space. The stock lens is going to give you some trouble here I think. You are going to have to raise the ISO. But it doesn't look as bad as some cameras with high ISO. The best thing to do is to test it first. Then if it is going to still be too dark then you will need to get a faster lens.
 
I did a long form gig on the fly of some Indian dance shows called SAYA. I made some errors of course and had a few focus and white balance glitches here and there as I was adjusting on the fly and had not sen the show. I made $300 for the hour of taping and then another $500 for a clean HD youtube conversion and 10 dvds for parents. Not a bad deal for a short bit of work and the client was VERY happy because he could send the url to his relatives in other countries and they could watch it hd.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdKwoqx8VrI&hd=1

I am lucky in that I have a 'legacy; youtube director account so I can post very high quality videos far longer than the ten minute limit.

I had a 16 gig card in and it records about two hours.
 
The crux of the matter will be (a) how much light they shine on the speaker, (b) sitting close enough to stay within range of the 14-140mm kit lens, and (c) stabilizing your camera. You will get the best results with a tripod and turning of OIS.
 
I recently did something similar to this... What I was told be a 30-40 minute talk turned into a 90 minute talk. BUT, I was pleasantly surprised that my 8gig card handled it with no problem! I recorded 720/60p for 90 min and it only took up 5.8 gigs on my card (your results may vary) and 66.2 gigs after transcoding. The lighting I had to work with was pretty terrible as well, but with a little Color Correction it looked fine. I used the kit lens set at f6.3 so I could zoom through the whole range with out seeing it stop down. I also ran run the shutter at 50, which gave me duplicate frames, but that didn't matter to me because I was planning on the final product being 24p.

And, what noirist said is dead on, I sat on the front row which was about 15-20 feet from the speaker.
 
I just did this about a week back. I am not a pro and it was a mess, without proper equipments and preparation.

I had no idea about the amount lights available and I had carried both the kit 14-140 lens and 20mm pancake. The hall was dark, so I put the 20mm on. It soon became apparent the 20mm was not the solution as I was not the official shooter and didn't have access to prime close to the action shooting spots. For capturing a speaker, you need something longer unless you are on the podium with the 20mm. Once I put on the kit lens, the light became a problem, but loved the freedom it offers in capturing the event. You will have a tough time shooting in manual mode unless you bump up the ISO generously with the kit lens.

I had to ditch finally the manual mode and resort to Ai mode and the clips do not look all that good. There are issues in the video when flashes from other cameras were fired. It didn't help I accidentally pressed the white balance button and some of the clips came out reddish.

Please make sure you carry spare batteries. 2+ hours of continuous shooting is good enough to burn 2 fully charged batteries, if you are continuously shooting 1080p with LCD on.

I had a monopod with me. While the monopod was very flexible in unplanned panning and movements, it do not prevent the handshake, especially when shooting at the tele end. If it involves shooting fixed areas, or even otherwise, a tripod and a smoothly panning head will go a long way to make the clip look professional. If you are not manually focusing and you are shooting from a fixed location, don't forget to lock the focus, because both lenses have a tendency to focus hunt, especially in dim lit areas. If you disengage focus lock, then enabling at again require restarting the recording, I believe(?) 16gb class 6 card should suffice for the 2+ hour shoot.
 
Oh without a DOUBT you need a tripod. I got a really good one for relatively cheap that I will deal with for now.. a pearlstone vt2000 - $65 bucks and it was fairly smooth and stable.
 
qap15 said:
As a amauter, i see nothing wrong with the dark scene. what lens and setup did you use?
Click to expand...

It was the kit lens and I was way zoomed in almost fully most of the time. As others have said you can get these fast lenses but if the position you are give is not up close what good does that do you?
 
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