Well, I had some fun this weekend since I volunteered to record a music festival at a local pioneer village living museum. This was the first I’ve run-and-gun so much with this little camera. Also remember this is a hobby – I’m no pro and it shows!
https://vimeo.com/44304647
What I learned:
- This is a great camera for the purpose. Small, light, not too expensive, and stunning images.
- The lighting was mostly outdoors, so not a problem. Many backlit scenes had to be manually adjusted.
- I relied on the autofocus too much and it often let me down due to music stands in the foreground, etc. Given the small screen, I didn’t realize it until later. Lesson: always zoom in and use the focus assist. I’ll need to be able to find it without taking my face off the viewfinder (the LCD was mostly washed out in the sun, so I did most of the outdoor shots with the viewfinder).
- Auto white balance mostly worked. The worst case where it did not is the scene with firewood, where the white balance changed to the log cabin, and the white mortar was greenish.
- Daytime window lighting was enough for the indoor scenes. The only high gain scene was filmed by candlelight, and it is grainy.
- The zebra stripes worked well. I left them at the factory 80% and the scene with the boy in costume his sleeves were all zebra, but I filmed anyway. It is over exposed.
- I used an external mic and several times forgot to turn it on (did not want to run around with headphones on). Silent video of a music festival is not a good idea.
- I edited with Avid Studio: nice price and does the job for me.
https://vimeo.com/44304647
What I learned:
- This is a great camera for the purpose. Small, light, not too expensive, and stunning images.
- The lighting was mostly outdoors, so not a problem. Many backlit scenes had to be manually adjusted.
- I relied on the autofocus too much and it often let me down due to music stands in the foreground, etc. Given the small screen, I didn’t realize it until later. Lesson: always zoom in and use the focus assist. I’ll need to be able to find it without taking my face off the viewfinder (the LCD was mostly washed out in the sun, so I did most of the outdoor shots with the viewfinder).
- Auto white balance mostly worked. The worst case where it did not is the scene with firewood, where the white balance changed to the log cabin, and the white mortar was greenish.
- Daytime window lighting was enough for the indoor scenes. The only high gain scene was filmed by candlelight, and it is grainy.
- The zebra stripes worked well. I left them at the factory 80% and the scene with the boy in costume his sleeves were all zebra, but I filmed anyway. It is over exposed.
- I used an external mic and several times forgot to turn it on (did not want to run around with headphones on). Silent video of a music festival is not a good idea.
- I edited with Avid Studio: nice price and does the job for me.
