Cameras

[elwillo]

no shes that blonde stripper that grandpa married for his second wife shes like what 19??

[Your Mothers Boomstick]

shit i did not notice that. hopefully i can milly vanilly most of the dialogue. then again there isn't much dialogue in this save for the intercom

[Westcroft]

Just get yourself a digital voice recorder with a 1/8" mini stereo mic input... you can get cheap ones nowadays. Just attach a cheap mic to it and record your audio through and synch it up in post-production.

[Your Mothers Boomstick]

i will most definetly do that for the next film. but i might be out of time for this one (filming saturday if all goes right). you never know though, ill see if i can get one

[Westcroft]

Wal-Mart or... I guess Target if you're from the states will definately have some, a cheap one can be as low as $30. Go with your folks or if by yourself if you have a car, next time you need some frames or something. Trust me, it'll be worth it...

[Your Mothers Boomstick]

30 bucks sounds very reasonable, but our budget is tapped on this production. however, it will be first item on the list next film


edit: might just have one

[Westcroft]

Sweet, if you can get a wired lav. mic and plug it in, it'll be just like using a wireless lav mic... but instead of puting the wireless transmitter in your back pocket, you put the voice recorder. This will skip all the risks of having weird noise or fuzz caused by the transmission between the transmitter and the receiver connected to the camera.

If you get yourself two or three voice recorders for your next film and pick up three cheap wired lav mics, you can have a very superior arsenal to tackle sound.

Remember before every shot to hold a small dry erase board with the scene number and take number (or a clapboard to be more professional) then read said numbers into all the voice recorders used in that shot so you can synch up all the audio... Remember to clap! Always have yourself push record and then go infront of the camera, read the numbers, clap and then start the scene.

Hope this helps!


EDIT: Here's a more expensive low end microphone... I'd recommend this if you're only buying two. If you're buying three or more, go cheaper... if you're buying only one, buy a good one. You can also buy a cheap shotgun mic (ATR55) and hook it up to the voice recorder...

Also remember you can shoot silent movies and use the ATR55 or a computer microphone to dub over the movie... it's called ADR. Use Audacity or if you have your own sound recording software, use that. I'd stay away from the sound recorder that comes with Windows Vista and XP. It doesn't have any manual controls over the sound and if it's XP you can only record for a minute... Audacity is free (go check out the list of free software I posted for more info).

[elwillo]

any body wanna trade cameras mine has a beer holder and now a bugzapper

[Westcroft]

Lets see a picture of this camera... I'm interested in it.

[djsmokingjam]

At work I regularly use a Sony HDV Z1 - it's light, dead easy to use and the resulting image is gorgeous.  With a great DoP you can get some stunning results from it.

On the other hand, I absolutely loathe using the Sony DSR 250s and 570s.

[Westcroft]

Do you have pics of your set-up? you should post in the film gear thread, I'm interested to see the arsenal the rest of the peeps online have.

[Omni]

Aiptek R-HDV



● 1280 x 720 H.264 Video @30fps        
● 3x Optical Zoom w/ Auto Focus    
● LED Lights    
● Night Shot    
● 8GB SD Card Slot Expansion    
● Remote Control Included    
● .MOV Video Format
● 2.4" Swivel-Reversible LCD
● Night Shot
● HDTV Component Output
● No Internal Memory (must use SD)
● 5 Mega Pixel Digital Camera
● 2-inch Macro Zoom
● Flash w/ Red Eye Reduction
● Easy Charging via AC or USB

I love this camera
there a few bad things about it though

● No manual focus and no threads for 35mm (or whatever its called) adapter
● No Mic input
● Mic sucks

buts its not bad for its price

[Westcroft]

Aiptek R-HDV



● 1280 x 720 H.264 Video @30fps       
● 3x Optical Zoom w/ Auto Focus    
● LED Lights    
● Night Shot    
● 8GB SD Card Slot Expansion    
● Remote Control Included    
● .MOV Video Format
● 2.4" Swivel-Reversible LCD
● Night Shot
● HDTV Component Output
● No Internal Memory (must use SD)
● 5 Mega Pixel Digital Camera
● 2-inch Macro Zoom
● Flash w/ Red Eye Reduction
● Easy Charging via AC or USB

I love this camera
there a few bad things about it though

● No manual focus and no threads for 35mm (or whatever its called) adapter
● No Mic input
● Mic sucks

buts its not bad for its price

Oh that's too bad about the lack of threads, that's more of a sport camera though. You should definately check out ebay for a cheapie DV camera with a mic input and some threading for filters and such. I highly suggest the Panasonic PV-GS14.

It's got great manual controls such as white balance, gain (my HV20 doesn't ever have gain control, unless you do this trick that involves aiming it at a lamp), exposure and frame rate [HINT: If you want that Saving Private Ryan look, go for a frame rate of 1/250ish), it has a mic input, a HEADPHONE JACK! This is great for monitoring obviously, it has image stabalization (this is good for ditching the tripod and getting more stable handheld shots without the risk of making your audience vomit), it has a 1 CCD chip (this might sound bad, but can actually perform better then the newer 3 chip models because with the 1 chip it resembles film).


The audio itself is great (this is from Camcorderinfo)
"The Panasonic PV-GS14 allows the user to select the sound quality by scrolling through the menu and choosing between 16-bit 48-kHz two-track recording for high quality sound, and the 12 bit, 32-kHz mode which allows for four-track recording, leaving two tracks open for audio dubbing. The in-camera microphone, with its -50 dB sensitivity for a stereo mini-jack mic input, also comes with a wind noise reduction option that is accessible in the menu"

Also the camera allows for 16:9 widescreen, this is great for getting yourself the silver screen resolution. the only downfall is that it isn't HD, that's okay though... most people don't shoot HD unless you're doing documentaries or big budget movies.


The best thing of all is the price tag, for less then 250 usually or even around 100 for used on eBay, you can't beat it. It's a great camera to start out with. Add on a ATR55 shotgun mic, a pair of headphones, a tripod and you're done.