Hi all,
I have been volunteering at my Church and doing live webcasts of the Church services. We were using a Hi-8 camera and I just purchased a Sony DSC-VX2000. I love the camera, but I have a problem. My background is in computer engineering, but when it comes to proper video camera techniques I am about as new as anyone can get. I am looking for recommendations on web sites or books on the basics such as proper exposure settings, what depth-of-field means, f-stops, etc. I am wanting to get the most out of this investment as possible and give the viewers the best possible presentation. I feel that the environment that I am shooting in is probably not the easiest to learn in either. I am fairly far back from the stage and the the lighting is probably not tweaked for this. For example, with the Hi-8 camera the peoples faces would looked washed out, with the VX2K I manually adjust the exposure and it looks better, but then when I pan over the crowd it is extremely dark and I have to readjust. Would adjusting shutter speeds help? You can see that I am need of basics, I am just wanting to know proper techniques for this type of shooting. To see what I am shooting you can check out http://ardellabaptist.com:8080/ramgen/Archive/ardella_live.rm?usehostname

You will need RealOne Player.

Thanks in advance!!

Brent

Hi Brent,

You're definitely in the right place to learn more about DV. We have over a tenth of a million posts here at dvinfo.net; all you need to do is search for a specific topic and I'll bet you'll find several discussions about it, no matter what it is.

There are also a number of useful articles on our main site at http://www.dvinfo.net/articles/index.php

And for a list of good books about a variety of production topics, see our Read About It (http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=36) forum.

Just dive right in and start exploring! Welcome aboard,

Brent,

I second Chris and say that you are definately in the right place. I come from a background of computer engineering just like you, and I have spent almost a year on these boards. I have learned a LOT from it.

Just browse the forums, use the search engine if you are looking for specific things.

If you are interested, I can send you a list of my favorite DV links. They reflect my interests of course, but might help get you started. If you want it, send me an email at: hhb@post7.tele.dk

why not just post the links here?

i'm sure there are a lot of folks who would like to discover some sites they don't know about.

i know i was thrilled to stumble onto this site when i did.

matthew

Okay, I can do that. Just thought it would be a bit messy - but here goes.... Below I pasted a copy of my bookmarks. They should be directly importable into MSIE.

There is no particular order, hope it will be useful to someone.

paste begins....

.....paste ends

No, I guess it doesn't. The message was too long to be allowed.

Hans Henrik

Ok, just manually edited the bookmark file and removed all the html stuff... It should fit here now:

http://www.sounddogs.com/start.asp
http://www.findsounds.com/
http://www.lafcpug.org/review_shotgun_mic.html
http://www.smartsound.com/
http://www.promax.com/SteadyTracker/cobracrane/crane.html
http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/7385
http://www.mvsvideo.co.uk/
http://www.steadicam.com/prohh_jr.htm"
http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/may_the_force_of_after_effects_b.htm
http://www.techtv.com/interact/netcamnetwork/jump/0,24353,2280643,00.html
http://www.xpi.org.uk/~swma/
http://www.wings3d.com/
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
http://www.birnsandsawyer.com/
http://www.cyberphoto.se/
http://www.promax.com/Products/
http://www.scandinavianphoto.se/
http://www.bluecoremedia.com/index.html
http://www.cmvideography.com/video.html
http://momentsinmotion.com/demo.htm
http://desktopvideo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm
http://www.csb-digital.com/alamdv/
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bh5.sph/FrameWork.class
http://www.dvinfo.net/canongl2/index.php
http://www.consumerdvreviews.com/
http://www.cyberfilmschool.com/
http://www.detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm
http://www.digital-digest.com/
http://www.dvfreak.com/
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/
http://www.ecoustics.com/
http://www.filmmaking.net/
http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/
http://www.geocities.com/pixelmagic2002/forcelightningtutorial.html
http://www.digieffects.com/frames/transferfilmtovideo/filmtovideo.html
http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php
http://www.internetvideomag.com/
http://www.ketzer.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/may03/05-01amazingdvdpr.asp
http://www.save-it-smart.de/
http://www.preisauskunft.de/
http://www.darkskies.info/rotoscope.html
http://www.scandinavianphoto.se/
http://screenwriting.about.com/mbody.htm
http://www.eeplaza.com/bestbuy/#vcam
http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php
http://www.tiemdesign.com/HowTo/
http://www.warmcards.com/
http://www.theforce.net/theater/
http://windowsmedia.com/9series/DemoCenter/VideoQuality.asp


There is no particular endorsement of the individual pages. It is just a raw dump of my DV related bookmarks.

Hope they will be useful to someone.

Hans Henrik

And while I am having fun in notepad, here is the clickable version:

http://www.sounddogs.com/start.asp
http://www.findsounds.com/
http://www.lafcpug.org/review_shotgun_mic.html
http://www.smartsound.com/
http://www.promax.com/SteadyTracker/cobracrane/crane.html
http://homebuiltstabilizers.com/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/7385
http://www.mvsvideo.co.uk/
http://www.steadicam.com/prohh_jr.htm
http://www.digitalproducer.com/pages/may_the_force_of_after_effects_b.htm
http://www.techtv.com/interact/netcamnetwork/jump/0,24353,2280643,00.html
http://www.xpi.org.uk/~swma/
http://www.wings3d.com/
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
http://www.birnsandsawyer.com/
http://www.cyberphoto.se/
http://www.promax.com/Products/
http://www.scandinavianphoto.se/
http://www.bluecoremedia.com/index.html
http://www.cmvideography.com/video.html
http://momentsinmotion.com/demo.htm
http://desktopvideo.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm
http://www.csb-digital.com/alamdv/
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bh5.sph/FrameWork.class
http://www.dvinfo.net/canongl2/index.php
http://www.consumerdvreviews.com/
http://www.cyberfilmschool.com/
http://www.detonationfilms.com/free_stuff.htm
http://www.digital-digest.com/
http://www.dvfreak.com/
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/
http://www.ecoustics.com/
http://www.filmmaking.net/
http://shelob.mordor.net/dgraft/
http://www.geocities.com/pixelmagic2002/forcelightningtutorial.html
http://www.digieffects.com/frames/transferfilmtovideo/filmtovideo.html
http://www.archive.org/movies/prelinger.php
http://www.internetvideomag.com/
http://www.ketzer.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2003/may03/05-01amazingdvdpr.asp
http://www.save-it-smart.de/
http://www.preisauskunft.de/
http://www.darkskies.info/rotoscope.html
http://www.scandinavianphoto.se/
http://screenwriting.about.com/mbody.htm
http://www.eeplaza.com/bestbuy/#vcam
http://forum.rpc1.org/portal.php
http://www.tiemdesign.com/HowTo/
http://www.warmcards.com/
http://www.theforce.net/theater/
http://windowsmedia.com/9series/DemoCenter/VideoQuality.asp

Thanks alot!! With this site and all those links that should get me going in the right direction. Thanks again for your time.

Brent