tricks and tips on filming and capture

[MoiHawk]

Hey whats up so im gonna start filming after a long time of being away from the technology game of editing. It's pretty much the same ... pc vs mac adobe vs avid blah blah.... if you can help me out thats cool im not really looking for the "best" because its mostly opinion but maybe just some heads up to where to look or find the best.....

biggest problem at the time:
I'm doing my best to keep quality but i dont know good shutter speed and and light sensitivity settings while using a fisheye
(i just got a tip the other day never use steady shot and you have to use manual focus)
[nothing too simple]

big problem #2:
when i go from camera to computer quality goes to CRAP i mean.... terrible, is it settings? is it the cap card? the program? ughhh

for now we can assume i have a system good enough to support some hard processing, what would be your software recommendation?

[al dolega]

Exposure principles are the same whether you're using a fisheye or not, so just do some reading on basic photographic principles (shutter speed, aperture, f-stops, EV, ND filters, depth of field, etc). Google will give you thousands of hits for basic photography guides.

The tips about turning off steadyshot/OIS and focusing manually (or using autofocus and then locking it) when using a fisheye adapter are good ones, though.

We can't help you with your capture/quality problem until you tell us what you're working with- camera model, how you're connecting it to the computer, what your computer setup is like, and what software you're using.

[cj miller]

need more info bruh

[StarScream]

loose the fisheye ;)

and work with raw/uncompressed/as less compressed as possible data till you want to put it on dvd or teh intarnetz

[MoiHawk]

I do have basic photo knowledge exposure I'm gonna have to clock some hours behind the viewfinder

Well im working with a vx2100 my machine is running
windows 7 with
8 gig of ram and 200 gig hard
2 dual core 2.6ghz intell
64 bit

software im still going to choose, thats why i was wondering whats a good system to trust. I'm sure if i get the most expensive everything will work out fine but im trying to take a more humble approach and be a real rookie before i have my own opinion

when i tried im using firewire to stock capture card (dont know whats in there) using windows movie maker....
I'm hoping to get a copy of premiere but for now i just have some free ware so get some weekly/chill clips. I have goggled around and people have opinions so of course everything has at least a couple of reviews good and bad, and the freeware may not even have reviews

[cj miller]

on a pc, get avid or premier. for quality importing your going to need a decent capture card. black magic or kona are great, but can be pricy

[al dolega]

DV footage is pretty lightweight so there shouldn't be any issue capturing it with that system. Your quality issues are probably a setting in WMM, it might be compressing/degrading the footage for some reason.

As for general guidelines for settings, stay in manual and don't go below 1/60th and try not to go above 1/1000th. Use the ND filter in bright sunlight as needed to get into an aperture and shutterspeed you want. White balance manually. Turn zebras on the 70% setting and try to expose so the bright areas of your image have just a few zebras running on them. You can mess with the custom presets to change your color balances but I wouldn't fuck with it too much.


on a pc, get avid or premier.

Yup. Premiere, most likely. You can pirate it, or get the Production Suite on student discount for about $400 (assuming you're a student).


for quality importing your going to need a decent capture card. black magic or kona are great, but can be pricy

Not for DV. All you need is a firewire port and the appropriate software.

[MoiHawk]

Thanks for the feedback bro! I'm glad i dont need a good capture card and unfortunately/fortunately I take no part in structured education. I'm gonna try to give the homie like 50 bucks and have him get premiere for me... pirating takes some time and patience at which im spending on other things. Thanks for those tips i didnt really understand zebra's and where they should and should not be .... and as far as fps i thought the higher the better, any reason to specifically use low frames per sec? how do YOU personally set your white bal? i was told everytime I get ready to film put the cam up to a white paper...... press that bitch.... set it!