Which camera to rent to match the 7D

J

jrod81

Veteran
Hey guys,
I am shooting a deposition for a law firm in town. It gives me a great excuse to rent a 7d to mess around with. They will pay the rental fee on it. But due to the 12minute cut off, I feel I should probably have a video camera in there too. I have access to a JVC GY-200U, but I doubt that will match very well. Should I try and rent an XHA1 to go with the 7d? Any other suggestions on what would be easy to match the footage from both cameras w/o too much post work (on a strict 2 week timeline).
thanks guys
jared
 
Just to be clear, my plan is to setup the 7D and use with the ZaZa slider for emotional sections of the interview and things of that nature, while camera B (the xha1 or whatever you guys suggest) will be stationary and capturing all the audio.
 
Use another 7D! J/K No other camera except the 5D will match and then you have different frame rates. White balance both cameras under the same lights. Be prepared to do some color correction. Can you do a test in advance?
 
they want cinematic depositions now?

I think "adding" emotions to a court document sounds unethical to me....
 
I wouldn't feel comfortable using a camera with a 12 min max recording time with something as important as a legal deposition. That's just me though. A couple attorney buddies who have videos made for their depositions don't want edits in them so there is no speculation that something was edited out.
 
Yeah, with a situation like that, where you can't control what happens, how long they go... etc. Wouldn't it be better to go with a video camera that can roll for an hour without... "oops can you hang on a minute, I have to change mem cards, my camera is overheating, just say that last part again..." among many other things?

Although, I've never tried the SD recording mode that records in 640x480. Might work well for that to get more time (still limited to 30 min, I think)... but there's still the audio issues.
 
Call the attorney and ask how long he estimates the deposition to be, I was in one that lasted for 5 hours once.

You can get 160 minutes per 64 gig P2 card on an hvx in 24p 720. That's over 2 1/2 hours, 2 cards would give you over 5 hours with no cuts and good audio with an exteral mic or lav's. You won't have to sync up the audio either.
 
okay, deposition might have been the wrong word. i do this for a law firm off and on and have been doing so for about a year. it is not really a deposition... basically they have family members come in and talk about the character of the "victim" (most cases someone has died, been paralyzed, etc). it is usually about 10 family members and it has to be edited together. last time we did this i had two cameras and had 9 hours on the day so that was 18 hours of footage to go thru...
so yes a video camera will absolutely be used. that is what i was trying to say/ask...
video camera will run the entire time and will be capturing the audio. the 7d will be my cut away camera 2. this gives me the opportunity to work with the 7d on my own. my wife will be running the video camera while i mess around with added stuff on the 7d...
 
Rod,

Do not use the 7D for the depo. Most court reporting agencies want standard def miniDv tapes with another backup source (Sony MC5 DVD recorder or Sony 700E mini DV recorder). Plus, you need a camera to burn in the date/time stamp during recording.
 
record on the gh1 lol- that doesn't have a time limit does it? I don't know if you can rent one out though.
 
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