Dudgeman Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 We fancy videoing a live show..but with good quality video. Sound from the desk and mixed seperately. Just wonderd what you guys thought was the best camcorder to shoot it on. Obviously it needs to be able to cope with lowlight, strobing and lasers etc...Best to hire one or get in the pros? What do you think. It will be used for promo and Youtube etc..not a resale item. Any thoughts or comments gratefully received. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bankai Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 I'd recommend a Flip HD model with the upgraded condenser microphones, if you're looking for something simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killerfridge Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 [quote name='Bankai' post='1333110' date='Aug 9 2011, 02:13 AM']I'd recommend a Flip HD model with the upgraded condenser microphones, if you're looking for something simple.[/quote] I've found the FlipHDs don't cope with low-light particularly well - but then no cameras are great at it. I'm also fairly certain that you can't plug in external mic's. If you want it for promo material, I would suggest getting someone to do it for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dubs Posted August 9, 2011 Share Posted August 9, 2011 Depends how much income you think it will generate. Things like this can go both ways - if it looks cheap and sounds bad then you'll probably lose bookings. May be worth getting some 'pros' in for it. Another thought if you're on a budget - contact a local university who run a media type course and see if anyone would be interested in using you for a project? That way they get a subject for their coursework and you get some filming done for free... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 14, 2011 Author Share Posted August 14, 2011 Thanks guys. It is a toss up as to which way to go. Totally with the "Bad publicity isn't good publicity" slant...will probably go with trying to get a local organistation involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 14, 2011 Share Posted August 14, 2011 [quote name='Killerfridge' post='1333249' date='Aug 9 2011, 09:48 AM']I've found the FlipHDs don't cope with low-light particularly well[/quote] Totally agree - the Flips are great in daylight but pretty rubbish in the dark. If you can, I'd go for sthg like a Nikon D7000 with lens opened up, but switch focus to manual. The main thing here is high ISO - the D7000 hits 25600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 [quote name='stringintheshade' post='1340205' date='Aug 14 2011, 11:56 PM']Totally agree - the Flips are great in daylight but pretty rubbish in the dark. If you can, I'd go for sthg like a Nikon D7000 with lens opened up, but switch focus to manual. The main thing here is high ISO - the D7000 hits 25600.[/quote] The noise level at 25600 in lowlight would be unbearable for a quality video..surely? Just checked it out on DP review and you would have to be desperate to use an ISO that high. I would have thought you'd be better off hiring a decent lens for the night and bringing the ISO down to a usable level. Unless you wanted the noise level as a specific feature of your video..In my experience there are very few digital camera ccds that cope well with high ISO settings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 (edited) True; you can catch starlight from zillions of miles away with that. The fact it can go so high means that @ 3200 or 4800, it's substantially less noisy than others. You're absolutely right about a fast lens. Going from eg 3.5 to 2.8 is the same in terms of light captured as going from eg 800 to 1600. But, and it's a big but, you'll have to watch out for depth of field. An f2 or f1.8 lens is going to be very shallow, so you're focusing has to be spot on with not much between your frontman & drummer. An f1.2 could be virtually unusable unless it's set to infinity. Edited August 23, 2011 by stringintheshade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 23, 2011 Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 I shot a load of bands at a mini indoor festival a couple of weekends ago with my 10d and a Canon 50mm 1.2L Lens..had to keep the ISO at 1600 to get fast enough shots and didn't like the noise results at all. Ended up playing with them all in PS to make them more interesting. You'll see what I mean if you go to facebook search "Dev ilsadvocate" and check out my public photos... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 If you're miffed by f1.2 @ 1600 then you're not going to fare well unless your in control of the lighting desk and substantially up the watts for the duration. Avoid framing it surrounded with audience darkness; fill the frame with a well lit stage and you'll notice the noise a lot less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 23, 2011 Share Posted August 23, 2011 Not necessarily for the pro market, but check out the YouTube videos for the handheld Zoom Q3HD. I bought one secondhand from a fine fellow here on BC and it is brilliant. It records in stereo and does not distort, even when right up against a drum kit - I see you'd rather take a feed from the PA instead for sound, but for a way of recording a gig quickly, it is rather good! ;o) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 24, 2011 Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 I have to admit the stage was not well lit and I think in a big gig situation I would have got better results..all a learning curve. The photos I took around the house and of my little one with the 1.2 were amazing RE;Recording live...I would like to take a feed from the desk and use ambient sound and try to merge the two if possible. I think the layering would be really interesting. Most of the venues we play DI both of my bass heads but tend to only use the clean channel to boost the bottom end relying on the stage set up to push the effected sound..it is a pet hate of mine but whenever I have heard ambient recordings both bass channels have been well balanced...will take a look on youtube and see what I can find. We once had a dep harmonica player in a 9 piece soul band..he turned up with a little Sony camcorder and just stuck it in the middle of our rehearal on a tripod..I could not believe the quality of the sound on the cd he gave us...picture was shocking though..but the sound quality was genuinely astonishing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 [quote name='dood' post='1349707' date='Aug 23 2011, 11:27 PM']Not necessarily for the pro market, but check out the YouTube videos for the handheld Zoom Q3HD. I bought one secondhand from a fine fellow here on BC and it is brilliant. It records in stereo and does not distort, even when right up against a drum kit - I see you'd rather take a feed from the PA instead for sound, but for a way of recording a gig quickly, it is rather good! ;o)[/quote] I just bought one off here too! I've only tried it at practise so far. The audio quality is amazing, and the auto-gain levelling was very quick. I wasn't too impressed with the picture, but I bought it for the sound quality as this is what's often lacking in live videos. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 [quote name='Dudgeman' post='1350910' date='Aug 25 2011, 12:09 AM']I have to admit the stage was not well lit and I think in a big gig situation I would have got better results[/quote] Another trick is to crop to mimic the Panavision format to give a true Hollywood look. This fills the stage and loses the dark noisy bits. Use an aspect ratio of eg 2.20:1 rather than 16:9 or 4:3. Very easy to do in Premiere or whatever you're using. On YouTube, you'll just get black bars top and bottom which is a much cooler look than noise. It's amazing how useful even 16:9 is for filling the stage. Old 4:3 would always get dark and noisy tops and bottoms .... or you'd miss out the bass player stage left or right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 25, 2011 Author Share Posted August 25, 2011 Took a look at the zoom on you tube..the audio quality is really good.. It reminds me of the quality you get with the little stereo mic that Sony used to make...perhaps still do. There is a fantastic side by side comparison with a couple of other HD cameras of a guy playing an acoustic guitar but I noticed quite a lot of blocking going on..especially on the backdrop where there was just a large section of solid colour..is this the quality of the vid or something that happens when you upload to youtube? There is some great footage of Rammstein that a bloke had taken live that was so much more impressive than other fan shot footage...looks like a good bit of kit. Will definitely take a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 25, 2011 Share Posted August 25, 2011 (edited) [quote name='Dudgeman' post='1351130' date='Aug 25 2011, 11:17 AM']Took a look at the zoom on you tube[/quote] Very impressive. Looks like there's always a very decent amount of stage light. It'd be nice to see some footage from someone other than the manufacturer. Did you find any? YouTube conversions won't introduce artefacts in my experience - it's pretty faithful. The Amazon reviews are worth a read through [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-Q3HD/dp/B004DIL50Y"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-Q3HD/dp/B004DIL50Y[/url] Edited August 25, 2011 by stringintheshade Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 26, 2011 Author Share Posted August 26, 2011 [quote name='stringintheshade' post='1351151' date='Aug 25 2011, 11:32 AM']Very impressive. Looks like there's always a very decent amount of stage light. It'd be nice to see some footage from someone other than the manufacturer. Did you find any? YouTube conversions won't introduce artefacts in my experience - it's pretty faithful. The Amazon reviews are worth a read through [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-Q3HD/dp/B004DIL50Y"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zoom-Q3HD/dp/B004DIL50Y[/url][/quote] I found this [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeWk996-SDA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeWk996-SDA[/url] he has a couple of others up..listened to it through my skull candy IE buds,,you get a real sense of the bass and general feel of the concert..I've seen Rammstein live and this brought it all back. I came accross this as well but my Internet conection won't stream it properly in 1048 and I can't be bothered waiting for the constant buffering...good sound again though [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qk7TEF7IUk&feature=fvsr"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qk7TEF7IUk&feature=fvsr[/url] but visuals aren't great...good enough for youtube though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Sound qual is great, isn't it. At 1080 it's not looking stellar to be honest. Needs substantially more stage light, imo. On the other hand, with all these clips the easiest method to look pro by far is to get the bleedin thing on a tripod. Do that & you're halfway there, whatever the visuals Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted August 27, 2011 Author Share Posted August 27, 2011 or use a decent vid camera and let the zoom take care of the sound.....shimples.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stringintheshade Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 But then you're back to square one - decent audio is the easy bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 [quote name='Dudgeman' post='1351130' date='Aug 25 2011, 11:17 AM']Took a look at the zoom on you tube..the audio quality is really good.. It reminds me of the quality you get with the little stereo mic that Sony used to make...perhaps still do. There is a fantastic side by side comparison with a couple of other HD cameras of a guy playing an acoustic guitar but I noticed quite a lot of blocking going on..especially on the backdrop where there was just a large section of solid colour..is this the quality of the vid or something that happens when you upload to youtube? There is some great footage of Rammstein that a bloke had taken live that was so much more impressive than other fan shot footage...looks like a good bit of kit. Will definitely take a look.[/quote] I would say that's more of a problem with the amount of compression that Youtube forces upon your work you have painstakingly and lovingly poured in to your HD quality video!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dood Posted August 27, 2011 Share Posted August 27, 2011 [quote name='stringintheshade' post='1352581' date='Aug 26 2011, 03:27 PM']Sound qual is great, isn't it. At 1080 it's not looking stellar to be honest. Needs substantially more stage light, imo. On the other hand, with all these clips the easiest method to look pro by far is to get the bleedin thing on a tripod. Do that & you're halfway there, whatever the visuals [/quote] The Q3HD (and lesser Q3 model) both have tripod mounts on the bottom too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 Thanks..been away gigging and just come back to this. We did some videoing at a gig with our drummers new proper sony HD camcorder using external condenser mics..but I am still not happy with it..too much picture noise and not enough definition even in HD..i really like the little zoom..have checked out a load of videos and the audio is nearly always good..very rounded with plenty of bottom end and virtually no distortion... I think re vid it just needs lots of good lighting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philsimmonds Posted January 16, 2012 Share Posted January 16, 2012 I use a Cannon SLR 600d and sometimes with the 550d It's all good. syncing music with video is easy enough.. these camera's are the cheaper in the SLR range.. recommend a 50mm lense. but the standard ones that come with it are cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dudgeman Posted January 16, 2012 Author Share Posted January 16, 2012 Nice one..I got involved in a bit of vid editing over Christmas so am Happy overlaying audio to suit video and I think that is what we will do. Get the best picture we can and sort the audio out separately Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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