I am VERY new to videography. I just purchased a Sony HDR-CX160 that I am hoping will do well for producing a video for a dance recital. I have been asked to record the recital and create DVDs that can be purchased. Last year the recital was done by a professional, but the quality was not that great. The studio feels that they could probably get as good of quality from an amateur at a much lower cost and I am hoping for the same.

I have no concern with the DVD production, but I do with the quality of video I might be able to capture with this camera. Does anyone have any thoughts or advice? The setting will be an old music hall that will be dark except for the stage lighting. I'm really hoping this camera will do an okay job.

Well, the cost will be lower...

The CX160 is a small chip CMOS, and while Sony has done wonders with these, I'd have my doubts as to how well it will perform under difficult lighting conditions. I use Sonys myself, but the higher end consumer ones, which have larger sensor chips and thus better deal with lighting of the sort you're talking about...

FWIW, I'd never cover something like this with less than TWO cameras, 3-4 preferably. I have some doubts as to the "professional" they used, but without knowing more it's hard to say what happened. I shot some stuff as favors, with lower end cameras, and well, it showed... I found the results painful personally, and I learned the differences better cameras make rather quickly. You don't have to spend HUGE amounts, but the lower end consumer cams can only do so much... they are what they are.

Don't want to overly discourage you, I'd suggest you take the camera to the venue and TRY it to see how well it does (heck, I just bought a sub $200 discounted, 2011 issue, Sony point & shoot camera that might do OK... I was impressed in my low light tests...). Consumer grade stuff gets better all the time, and some is actually pretty impressive in practical performance situations.

There's an awful lot to shooting a stage production, and so you probably should attend any live rehearsals to try to find the problem points. If there's more than one show, shoot them ALL, and mix together the good bits to make up for the one camera issue - remember you can't shoot "wide" and "close-ups" with ONE camera... you'll have to compromise or record multiple shows, while trying to get the needed framing.

WIthout knowing how "bad" last year's production was, it's hard to say whether you'll be starting out ahead or behind...

Here's a play I shot by myself, using 2 cameras. One was fixed wide, the other close-up. In between close-ups I'm whip panning back and forth, then editing the pans out in post.
YouTube - My Son Pinocchio-Toys (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbH0SMMGjRE)
I'm recording the sound directly off the mixer board.

Hi Brad,

As has already been mentioned there is a lot to filming a live theatrical production. I don't do as many as I use to so I've reduced down usually to only two cameras. I have done single camera shoots. Here's one I did last year:

The Nightmare After the Nutcracker - Trailers on Vimeo

They did two shows so as Dave has suggested I shot both shows and planned out the shots so that I could edit them together. The first show I shot mostly wide since in general the first show is where performers make more mistakes. Also, since I had the experience of capturing it once already, I could anticipate what shots I wanted to get for the close ups and focused shots.

The biggest difficulty you'll most likely have with the camera you're using will be controls. I use a Canon HV20 as a backup cam and while it has the ability to allow me to lock exposure, gain and such, it is not meant to allow me to really make adjustment during the performance. Lighting during most dance shows is really taxing on your camera operators. It's always a balance between capturing the changes in lighting without blowing out the picture or not getting anything at all because it's so dark. So during filming I'm always making minor adjustment to the iris. Also, focusing is a huge issue. Close ups will kill you without having a good focusing ring on a lens or better yet a follow focus. I measure out target points prior to the performance and mark focus on my FF so as the dancers go to the different regions of the stage I can get critical focus.

Sound is another issue. I only use direct board feeds for announcements and such. Remember their mixing for the venue and not for video. Usually I get a sound track of the music and mix that along with two mics placed mid house, two stage mics to capture taps, dancers expressions, etc. and another pair of mics placed back of house. Mixed all in post.

After a while you'll get it into a routine but it does take more than people think to get a decent stage show on video.

Good luck and let us know how things go.

Garrett

I shoot All State Choirs in my area, I have 2 events coming up this month, and my setup consists of 3 video cameras a Sony AX2000, a Canon HG21,and Canon HG10....
The HG21 is stationary for the group shot, The AX2000 is used for closeups and pans, and the HG10 is for the musicians ...
All 3 cameras are connected VIA a HDMI switch to a Dell 24" Monitor, so I can flip between each to make any corrections if needed, 2 of my video cameras are attached to Bescor motorized heads, so I can pan and tilt each via a remote controller..Record,zoom and focus are controlled by a Monfratto Lanc for the Sony, and a remote for the 2 Canons since they are not Lanc capable...I basically never have to leave my seat when the show begins....The Canons do a very good job even with the harsh stage lighting with their HD footage compared to the Sony AX2000 even though they have less Bells and whistles in the settings, but I know their limitations and always keep that in mind during the shoot.
Any differences in footage between the cams is easily fixed in Vegas pro 10.....The final Edited product is Delivered on DVD as well as Bluray...And the Customer loves the result..

Equipment

Sony HDR-AX2000 (2-32Gig Transcend Cards Class 6) Rode Shotgun Mic, 7" Marshall LCD
Canon HG21 HD-120Gig HD (Wide Angle Lens Canon)
Canon HG10 HD-60Gig HD
Rode Stereo Mic
2-Bescor Motorized Heads
2-Fluid Head Tripods
1-Reg Non Fluid Tripod
24" Dell HDMI LCD
Editing Software- Vegas 10d Pro, Sound Forge 10
Editing PC- i7Core 920,12Gig RAM, GTX295,3-1TB Hds, 2-24" LCD Monitors

Thanks to all for the advice thus far.

This particular recital that I will be capturing is going to be approximately 5 hours long. Most of the performances are going to be groups of dancers. I am thinking that a majority of the shooting will be fixed wide with a small amount of panning and zooming during smaller groups or solos and when awards are being administered.

This whole situation is coming about as follows. My wife asked the studio director if she was planning to use the same videographer as last year and expressed concerns with the quality of video that we received for a $40 purchase. Conversation led to the studio director asking if we would be interested in doing the video ourselves. I made her very well aware that I am not a professional and have no experience doing this type of event and that I have no idea what to expect from the equipment I have available to me. Since time is running short and she hasn't yet hired someone, she asked if I would give it a shot. I reiterated my concerns and she mentioned that the only concern she has is "not having any video at all." OK. I'm going to give it a shot.

I have no idea what type of equipment last year's videographer had, but I do know there were two cameras and operators set up side by side. I do not know how much mixing and/or editing they did between the two cameras or if one was strictly used for backup. I do know that most of the video was out of focus, panning and zooming were very shaky, and shots were not captured well. I am thinking and hoping that I can produce something at least as good as (hopefully better than) last year.

Here is a list of the "simple" equipment I will be using:

Sony HDR-CX160 Camcorder
Transcend 32 GB Class 10 SDHC Flash Memory Card (Storage)
Sony VCT-R640 Lightweight Tripod
Azden AZSMX10 SMX-10 Stereo Microphone (there's an input on the cam for a mic, but no accessory shoe so I'm not sure how I am going to mount the external mic - I haven't received it yet)

I am planning on shooting in HD - High Quality (FH) mode and editing and converting to DVD format later (probably 2 discs with about 5 hrs of material total). I will need the AC power adaptor plugged into the camera.

I know that Pros have a lot better equipment than what I currently have available to me. I will be making everyone aware that this will be an amateur production - by no means do I intend to pretend I am professional. I am only hoping to make a decent video production.

Do you have enough storage on the 32 gig card? I'm not familiar with the camera, but 5 hours seems like it will exceed the storage limit. I would recommend having another card and plan on changing in order to not fully fill the card. I would also recommend getting another camera as a back up. Even if it's an SD camera that you have or borrow, just in case anything happens to the main camera. Any image, even SD, is better than no image at all. If you have any failure or something goes corrupt than you won't have anything. Of course another HD camera would be best, but anything is better than nothing. 5 hours is a long time of shooting, even if there are some intermissions. Borrow or rent another camera from someone. Good luck.

A side bar but you SHOULD be aware that the inclusion of audio in this video may very well be contrary to the copyright of the artists who recorded it or their management.

Not saying I've never done dance recitals, I have. But when I became aware of the legal implications I stopped.

I know this isn't the question you asked but be aware that what you are doing MAY not be technically legal.

And it doesn't matter whether the DVDs are for sale or not, BTW...

You can get decent results for staged shows with consumer cameras.

Your biggest problem with be exposure. Left to themselves, little consumer cameras will often blow-out the dancers under the bright lights, especially in a high-contrast stage environment. Learn to use the manual exposure. But that isn't necessarily enough. The little LCD screens aren't exactly accurate and can make you think things are over-exposed when they aren't.

Does any of this make sense?

Use your camera as much as possible, shoot some rehearsals, and hopefully you'll have an idea of what you are doing by the time the show rolls around. GOOD LUCK!

Thanks again for all the tips and advice.

The recital is Sunday, May 22 and there is a full dress rehearsal on Thursday, May 19. Hopefully the rehearsal will be under the same lighting conditions as the actual performance so I can try different settings and see the results before the show date.

I'm sure I'll be asking more questions before the big event!

Don't forget that audio is half of video. It's the quality of the sound that sets amateur and professional apart. Will any of the performers be mic'ed? Will audio tracks be used? If so, you'll want to have a recorder connected to the sound board which you can sync later in post. If you rely solely on the on-camera mic, then you will most definately appear amateur.

BTW, Shaun is right. You are most likely going to be making a "bootleg" DVD and violating several laws. Like Shaun, this is the reason I stopped doing this type of work.

I'm involved with dance shows from a production viewpoint - it could be the video elenet, or often lighting and sound - and lighting and video frequently fight it out. I just took a few clips from a production from a while back where the venue had been hired and the in house team had been asked to design the lighting. If you look you will see that some sections have dark blue saturated colour. In this case, Congo Blue 181. It's a really gorgeous colour, but very dark - and it has very strange spectral balance, Plays havoc with cameras. Two cameras (JVCs if it helps) coped quite well - but note the deep blue is not that deep - certainly in the venue it was VERY blue. However, the rear camera, front of house was a fair way away, and was a Sony - with a lens with extender, and the blue light was, in reharsal, noticed and the decision made to chuck in extra gain - the results are very poor - however, the point is that the colour is much better - certainly more like what it really was. We spend most of our time white balancing to remove subtle tints, but in theatres, especially for art genres like dance, forget the pastel colours and hit them with the big guns. For info, the blue lighting was around 20KW worth - but you'd not notice this.

Cameras all perform differently in low light, and in saturated colour. Focusing is also much more difficult - especially on saturated reds.

Here's the clip
dance lighting problem clip on Vimeo

Brad - a couple things offhand...

The auto settings of the Sonys seem to handle backlight and spotlight situations fairly well, so you may find the auto settings work reasonably well, and quite possibly faster than you can adjust what little you can adjust on that small camera. You're going to be relying on the built in "brains" of the camera, there's not a lot of adjusting you'll be able to or even want to attempt, that's the facts of a smaller consumer camera. BUT, the Exmor R CMOS with the in camera processing isactually fairly good...

Focus won't be a big problem as that small camera/chip will have fairly deep DoF, although you'll have to watch for focus hunting with dramatic lighting, it can be a major reason to set focus manually.

You should at least consider "dual audio" - can you get a CD recording from the house deck? The shotgun may or may not improve your audio acquisition, you should try it and see with headphones before deciding. You can either get a small flash bracket (a bit clunky) or a shoe adapter (they run about $10-15 on eBay for plastic import versions, solid machined ones are available) that should fit the Sony AiShoe and give you a cold shoe to mount to.

Storage wise, an hour is about 8G of data, more if that particular camera records 24 bit rather 17 Mbps (not 100% familiar with the CX160)... you should have a bit more memory available.

The thing that scared me the most was the tripod... I'm guessing that's one of the ones with the LANC, hopefully the one that connects to the A/V jack on the camcorder, so it's of some use, but the heads and for that matter the legs on those are BARELY going to be stable, pans will be atrocious, tilts worse, and that's being generous from my experience with those inexpensive pods...

I've got relatively cheap "junk" in the tripod department, but the Sunpaks and an old Focal have fairly heavy, sturdy legs - they are pretty stable, and very tall, most importantly, to shoot over heads. The Sunpak heads hold the camera in place (can't ask for more...), the old Focal one actually has a fairly nice fluid action... that's the ONLY one I pan or tilt with, and I've added a couple lightweight Bogen heads to the mix that I may try mounting on the Sunpak legs.

I know you're probably on a tight budget, but you might consider asking around to see if anyone has a decent old tripod laying around in their garage or something, and as long as you're going "low budget", at least consider one of the new Sony P&S line (I think the DSC WX9 is $220 retail, and BB had it on sale a few weeks back for even less). You'd of course have to double your memory requirements and battery/power supply (oops ALMOST forgot you'll need multiple batteries for a 5 hour gig!!), but it would give you a usable wide shot, (there's a 30 minute clip limit in the P&S line, but you can stop and restart), then you could concentrate on the close ups. The new 16.2 "R" CMOS in these P&S cams is really pretty good for video (may even be the same chip as is in the CX160?), seems to handle low light fairly well considering how small the chip and cameras are.

If you've got any basic machining skills, it's pretty easy to make a simple add on bar that allows you to mount more than one camera, or there are some simple clamp mounts that would work - I've used both, I now have a custom "3 head hydra" tripod head system, plus a Pedco Ultrapod I lash to the upright shaft for another angle (usually the "wide shot"). My rig is a bit over the top, but since most of the stuff my kids are in is performed on a VERY wide stage, it's a "3 zone" situation... so 4 cams is about right!

Hope this is all helpful, just going from the top of my head on "things I learned while shooting stage productions"...

Thanks again for all the tips and advice.

The recital is Sunday, May 22 and there is a full dress rehearsal on Thursday, May 19. Hopefully the rehearsal will be under the same lighting conditions as the actual performance so I can try different settings and see the results before the show date.

I'm sure I'll be asking more questions before the big event!

Okay, here's more advice.

First, get several cards and shoot in FX, not FH. Dancing is often high-motion, high-contrast action. The more compression you use, the more likely you will get artifacts. FX has less compression than FH. (That is why it uses more file space.) So, just get more cards.

Absolutely beg, borrow or buy a second camera and put it on a tripod. Virtually any HD camera can work but it is best to use another CX model so you won't have to think about color matching or differences in controls. Also, for this length of time, it is good to get a camera with enough hard drive space or cards or flash memory. Five hours is too long for you to have to worry about changing tapes every hour. Do you know anybody else who has a CX you could borrow? (Or an XR?) If you are considering doing this again, but a second one. Buy a used CX cam if you can find one. Virtually any tripod will work with a locked-down camera.

Having a second camera on a tripod (especially when working with tiny consumer cams) is one of the biggest things you can do to make your production look like something people will actually want to pay for. Heck, back in the previous century, I started recording dance recitals and festivals with Hi-8 and Digital 8 cameras, and the multiple views, clear focus and steady shots are why people were willing to buy the resulting videos. Really, having a cut-away shot makes all the difference in the world for things shot with little cams and makes it much less stressful for the kind of extended shooting you will have to do. Having a cut-away shot to cover most zooms and pans is an absolute blessing for your editing and the viewer.

Set your second cam up in a place with a significantly different angle of view. If you are shooting from the right side of the room, put your other cam on the opposite side. Maybe in a front balcony in a different part of the room. This avoids the dreaded "jump cut" when editing and gives some visual relief. Even if you are letting both cameras just roll, it still gives the varying views that folks are conditioned to expect. Having the second camera with a very different angle of view can also mitigate color differences when you use different brands of camera.

Get the second cam just close enough to the stage that you can fill the field of view without zooming. You want to be able see faces in the video. Plus, zooming in limits how wide the camera's iris can open, and you want a wide iris for any dim lighting situations.

How tightly you zoom depends on who and what you are shooting. Zoom close only when shooting for the parents of young children in the performance --- they are paying to see their kids' faces. Otherwise, dancers want to be able to see feet to face, and sometimes more when the arms are raised. (Yet another reason to have a second camera for cut-aways.)

To avoid the previous videographers' problems with out-of-focus video, put the cameras on manual focus with maximum depth of field. (I'll explain how in a moment). You also do this to avoid "focus hunting" which can be caused by patterned backdrops, lights going to black between numbers, and "artistiic" lighting situations, as well as closer dancers pulling the focus from dancers who are further away. Here is how you do it. Zoom in on something on the back part of the stage, to maximum zoom. (If the CX160 has "expanded focus" on the viewscreen, enable that, too). When you are sure the focus is sharp, switch to manual focus. If the CX160 is like the other CX cams, just press the button in the middle of the control knob on the front of the camera. Now back out to your normal shooting range. This gives you "depth of field" and the camera will be in focus as you zoom in and back during the show.

Adjust the auto exposure for theater lighting. For CX cams, go into the "Manual Settings" menu, select "AE Shift" and bump it down to -3. This helps deal with stage lighting. If you want to read more on this, Ron Evans has a number of postings in other dvinfo forums about using CX/XR/CR cams for theatrical shoots.

Set both cameras to use indoor white balance. Better yet, bring a large white posterboard up on stage under full lighting before the shows start and use the "One Push" white balance setting. (Read the manual on how to do this.)

If there will be dimly lit or dark stage performances, turn on the "low lux" setting on your CX. (I think the CX160 has this.)

Turn off the steadyshot. Using it (particularly the active steadyshot) will do weird things when you start to pan or raise and lower the camera/) You are using a tripods, so turn it off.

If the productions will be using spotlights or if the stage lighting is not even, go into the menu and turn on spotlight mode. (I'm not sure if the CX160 has this or not, but check and use it if it does.) This keeps faces from being grossly overexposed when a spotlight hits them.

Take a small point and shoot cam with a flash. Get your cameras rolling before a performance starts. Stand in front, in view of both cameras and set off the flash. This allows you to sync the video from the two cameras. (The flash is -- usually -- 1/30th second which is one frame of video. Match the frames and the video and audio are in sync.)

Audio will be an unmitigated bear. Your external stereo mike would be best placed on a mike stand. That avoids picking up camera handling noises. I do not know how big the venue is but I'd consider putting your stereo mike on a stand on the floor in front of the stage (is their an orchestra pit?) and running cable extensions back to one of the cameras. Is anybody bring live musicians? Will they be playing through the house sound system or from the stage or orchestra pit. If so, you will get better audio with the mike down front and center. (Might be a lot of extension to buy and long unshielded cords might pick up hum and interference, so test it out beforehand.)

You might be able to record from the house sound system panel but you would need more equipment for that. You could use a digital audio recorder (I've got an mp3 recorder with which I've taken a feed from a panel's unused earphone out to the line-in jack on the mp3 thingie) but the internal clocks on many of these devices tend to drift out of sync with the camera audio. That means you will spend editing time trying to match up wave forms and making sure that they stay matched. If you are willing to risk yet another copyright infringement charge, you could get copies of the CDs or mp3 or iPod files they use for playing during the shows and drop those files into a performance audio track. You will still need to check sync as you edit, but it can give you much cleaner sound with stereo separation, too boot. You lower or fade down the volume on the house sound during the edit of the dance and fade it back up for applause. (Be judicious; some dances will have a lot of audience response and you want to keep that in the audio.) While this copyright infringement is not as likely to attract the attention of copyright enforcers as, say, running a site for pirated tracks, it is actually just as much a violation as the dancers use of the music for a public performance.

By the way, have you checked with the theater to see if they charge fees for recording or video? Some venues do.

It might be possible to place a camera next to the audio and light panel and take a feed directly from the panel to the mic-in jack on a small camera. That avoids sync probelms but you would need to buy or borrow an adapter like a Beachtek, Juiced Link, or Studio One to take line level feed into CX cam's mic jack. (Do not just hook an earphone or line out jack from the panel directly to a camera's 1/8th inch (3.5mm) microphone mini-sport!!!) The adapters are small passive pre-amps that take in both line level and XLR microphone inputs and output them to cameras through the small mini-stereo plug that goes into the camera's mic jack. For more money, these companies also make slightly larger active, powered preamp units of which Juiced Link's seems to be the one that got the most favorable reviews from DVinfo members. These are cost as much or more than your CX160 and are probably out of the question.

So, to sum up: (a) absolutely use at least two cameras, one locked to a full stage view the other with a different location for zooming closer; (b) set focus manually with depth of field; (c) use indoor or one-push white balance and adjust the AE setting; (d) use tripods; (e) get several SD cards and shoot in FX mode; (f) use a flash to sync your cameras; and do what you can for audio.

Audio recording for dance is actually very simple: don't even try. Jay already said this but I'll just reiterate for emphasis. Use the on-cam audio for sync and all the screaming and applause only. It's fine for that purpose.

For the music, just borrow the CD they played off of in the booth and import it directly into your editor. Drift isn't an issue with a 3-minute piece, becasue you'll be cutting out all the dead spaces anyway.

There is no sound to dance unless it's tap, and even then it always sounds like it's clipping anyway. Fidelity is not an issue.

Concerts -- band, orchestra, choir -- sure, audio is much more than half the show. But dance-- hell, you're already incredibly illegal anyway so just take it straight from the CD. It's not any more or less illegal to do that than to record it via your mics.

"There is no sound to dance unless it's tap, and even then it always sounds like it's clipping anyway. Fidelity is not an issue."

This is soooooooooo true of hip-hop which we see a lot of in these parts.

The music for the hip-hop performances sounds like clipping because it usually is. It is part of the performance when you are there but can seem annoying when watching it on tv via DVD after the fact. Taking a CD track and making it prominent in editing can mitigate the buzzy, very hollow sound produced in a large performance space. We also get clogging and stepdancing in addition to tap, and we get some oriental (belly) dancing which often involves bangles and finger cymbals and a lot of audience reaction. In the summertime, we have a kind of ethnic folkways festival with a mix of live bands and recorded music for the dancers. Here, as above, the main thing you do with audio is try to keep it from sounding annoying to the majority of your audience. For these kinds of videos, fidelity is rarely an issue, as Adam so rightly points out.

The most shocking thing I've noticed at the dance recitals I've done is that the audience seems to feel they are a part of the show. Maybe they are. But it's just constant screaming, howling, "You go, Shannon!", non-stop through the show. Really? And this is from the parents, who should know better.

Clogging and step dancing would be a welcome change for me. But now it's all seven-year-olds grabbing their crotches.

Ah, times they are a-changin'

Jay makes another good point. If there's live music there I'd certainly put a huge amount of effort into capturing really nice live sound. It's just recorded music I don't bother trying to capture. It's already perfect -- at least in the artist's opinion.

All good points but if you are not comfortable doing the syncing later in post then I was going to recommend taking an in house feed. I guess it depends on the house and your level of "comfortableness". I usually take an in house feed into a mixer with an audience mic and do it all there, but the place the I shoot has a good in house audio guy. I put the audience mic low so usually you just hear the clapping at the end. But you have much better control mixing it in post. It just depends how much work you have time to do. In the end the most important thing is, did you get the dance from start to finish, can you see the dancers and can you hear the audio. Remember the old saying "Cheap, Good, Fast" pick 2 because you can't have all three. If I wasn't 3 hours away I would lend you a hand.

Okay, here's more advice.

First, get several cards and shoot in FX, not FH. Dancing is often high-motion, high-contrast action. The more compression you use, the more likely you will get artifacts. FX has less compression than FH. (That is why it uses more file space.) So, just get more cards.

I was originally thinking that I might as well shoot with more compression since I am ultimatley going to compress to DVD format anyway, but now I'm thinking that my thought process may be off a little. I'm not sure I understand completely, but I'm getting there.

A 32gb card should get me approximately 3 hours of video in FX. With FH, I'd get about 4 hours, so I'd still need another card, just not as big of one. I was tring to prevent having to buy more storage and also timing the "changing of the cards" during the performance. The card slot on this cam is on the under side so I will probably have to unmount from the tripod to swap cards.

There is no sound to dance unless it's tap, and even then it always sounds like it's clipping anyway. Fidelity is not an issue..

Not to be argumentative but I'd actually disagree with this statement. While it's not as important as a concert, there are a lot of sounds during a dance performance. Dancers clap, stomp, yell, and especially with character numbers, may have some words. Also, getting the audience reactions, even if it sounds like a sporting event at times, is what makes the difference between a live performance and studio performance. These are the things that studios owners, at lest the ones I've worked with, find are important. Capturing all of these ambient sounds is a little tricky and unless you have a dedicated sound person, will require having several capture points with levels set to allow for maximum coverage . In other words, set at various levels to capture both the louder sounds which would otherwise clip your normal recording levels as well as softer sounds. Mixing in post to make it sound natural, just like in any production, is where the magic needs to bring it all together. If you don't have all of these elements it just doesn't sound like a live performance. Lack of room acoustics is one of the things that makes watching a live performance seem dull. The sound is just too dry IMHO.

As far as taking the music from the CD a word of caution. Make sure you get the CD they used for the show. A lot of dance studio owners cut the actual song they use, as someone who's studied music it often drives me crazy because they do it in a way that just butchers the song. They make the song fit the dance they choreo'd. So make sure that you get the cut that they use during the show. It also is a good idea to get a board feed if possible because sometimes technical difficulties with the music make the CD track unusable. If you've got a board feed you can use that, if not you'll have to use the sound you captured live which may not be the best but at least it will match what's happening on stage.

I do have one strong suggestion, well actually a couple. I'd recommend that you barrow, beg, or rent a second camera. Set it wide to capture the whole stage. This isn't primarily used for you to cut to, it's for your sanity and is a backup camera. I doesn't have to be a great camera. You may never use the footage from it but it will give you a level comfort and help make your day less stressful. If something goes wrong with your main cam, power failure, card error, missed something because you were focused on another part of the stage, you'll at least have that. Like I said, you probably will never have to use it but it just helps relieve stress.

Also, once you start your recording don't stop between numbers, even when the show has technical problems and there is a fairly long pause. You may be tempted to to save on media but don't do it. This really helps you synch in post. Also some of the funniest things happen between numbers, great for out takes and during the credits.

Memory now a days is cheap so I'd make sure you have enough memory cards to swap out at key points and when you have a break. I usually make sure I swap cards during intermissions even if the card is only half full. You can't tell if something will cause a segment to run long and you don't want to get caught having to change cards in the middle of a number. But, if you do have your backup cam running at least you'd have that.

-Garrett

"Not to be argumentative but I'd actually disagree with this statement. * * *"

I think we may be talking past each other a bit and we are not really in disagrement.

With his CX160 and soon-to-arrive stereo microphone, I think Brad is going to get audience sound, stomping etc. that is as good as he needs for his project. The question is what does he do for musical fidelity because recording the room sound system from the middle of the floor won't give very good sounding music. When Adam and I were referring to "fidelity," we were aiming at the music tracks. You suggested (as did we), that Brad could try taking an audio feed from the house sound panel. That requires equipment that, in view of his very tight budget and limited borrowing resources, means he is better off laying in the CD/iPod tracks in editing. Doesn't seem to be actual disagreement between us here.

You are absolutely correct about using the actual CD/iPod/whatever tracks.

Garrett, I get what you're saying and I don't disagree. You'll note I did mention the sounds in the house; my point is that the on-cam mics will pick this up just fine and there's no need to make things more complicated and expensive than they need to be. Mounting a stereo mic on the cam is a complete waste of time, money and effort.

And of course you must use the same CD they use in the booth for the show; I believe I said this as well. If that wasn't clear I apologize. And if you can't spend thirty seconds syncing the CD audio with the video then you shouldn't be doing a job like this anyhow. It's really a simple no-brainer to line up the waveforms.

Look, guys, all your tips are absolutely right but he's not going to use the feed from the board with a cx160; if he can't afford a better cam then he can't afford a proper XLR adapter to get the sound into the cam. And from everything I can find, it doesn't even have an input to try to do so. And Sony doesn't make the AIS/Input adapter anymore. [Edit: Of course it does -- Sony gave me the wrong manual when I searched for cx160 -- got the 150 instead. But as Brad points out, no shoe to mount the mic.)

The sad ugly truth is that this cam is singularly unsuited to this purpose; if you tried to find a worse cam for the job you couldn't. The chip is way too small; the internal memory is too small as well and it has very few manual controls.

But it was very generous of Brad to volunteer to do this and he's got to make the best of this with what he's got. Absolutely try to get a second cam to cover your moves. The wide shots are there to cover your moves. The choreographer wants to see everything wide but the parents want to see the faces. Absolutely don't stop recording once you start, except to change cards/tapes. Absolutely get good tripods. Absolutely use SPOTLIGHT mode and AE SHIFT -3 if you have them. Absolutely lock WB to Indoor. Absolutely turn Steadyshot OFF. But DO NOT use the LOW LUX setting; it will slow down your shutter speed and you will get huge weird motion blur. (And actually, low light will not be your real issue -- the areas that are lit will actually be quite bright.) If it's dark onstage then it's supposed to look dark.

Thanks everyone for understanding my limitations and still providing advice and encouragement.

I'm working on getting a second cam. I think I am going to buy an HDR-XR160 which I believe is the same as the CX160 but with a 160gb hard drive. I will use both cams for the performance and then return one or the other even if I do have to pay the 15% restocking fee.

As far as suggested settings...
* I do know how to turn on the spot light mode in scene selection.
* Not sure about AE shift - is this automatic exposure? I can control exposure manually but the cam just shows a reference slider bar - no values.
* I do know how to lock WB to indoor
* I do know how to turn off steady shot
* I do not know how to prevent the cam from Automatically turning on LOW LUX and I cannot figure out how to manually set the shutter speed - could scene selection be setting the shutter speed?

I was reviewing the DVDs last night from the last several year's performances. It seems to me that previous videographers had issues with overexposure probably due to the bright row of lights on the front of the stage floor (I have been told that those lights will be fewer and smaller this year). On one year's production, all of the performers looked like bright ghosts - it wouldn't even be possible to tell who is who as no faces were even distinguishable. The video had overlays of some closeups on top of the wide shot that was way overexposed, but the closeups missed a lot of the performance. I'll be asking questions about the editing and mixing later, but I need to focus on capturing the performance first.

I am continuing to research, learn, and prepare for this event and am grateful for all the input thus far.

One follow-up on low lux. At least with my CX550 cams, I have not found any harm in having it engaged. The setting only allows the shutter speed to go below 1/60th when needed but otherwise has no effect that I have seen. Last weekend, for example, I shot a long dance recital with my CX cams locked down on the edges of the stage, with low lux engaged. The well-lit portions were fine even with twin spotlights being used and even with my having forgotten to engage the cam's spotlight setting. (The programming for the auto functions in the CX cams is pretty darn good.) If there will not be dances where they put the lights way down for "artistic" reasons, or times when the dancers go out into the audience, or times when they resort to things like black lights, just leave Low Lux off. Even so, that ¼" chip in the CX160 might or might not be sufficient to capture any of those things even with low lux engaged. Brad won't know until he goes to the rehearsal. (Hopefully, it will be a dress rehearsal with full tech.)

Brad, from going through the manual it appears that the 160 does not have AE SHIFT as an available function. Page 70 of the Handycam Handbook tells how to turn off Low Lux and how to set Spotlight mode. Note that If you set [Scene Selection], [White Balance] setting is canceled. which is bad news. It'll throw itself into Auto WB, which means it'll constantly be shifting with the light, which you really don't want. Unless Spotlight mode puts it into Indoor WB. Sony doesn't say. It's possible.

If you're going to get another cam, I'd really highly recommend against another anything in the 160 line, and this is coming from a Sony guy. Much better to look for something used in the 500 line, which has many more features and a massively larger chip. The 100 line is fine for birthday parties outdoors but little else.

Interestingly, the manual claims that the iAuto setting will kick the cam into Spotlight mode if it thinks it's necessary. Might be fun to try this in rehearsal. If it works you're home free.

Thanks everyone for understanding my limitations and still providing advice and encouragement.

I'm working on getting a second cam. I think I am going to buy an HDR-XR160 which I believe is the same as the CX160 but with a 160gb hard drive. I will use both cams for the performance and then return one or the other even if I do have to pay the 15% restocking fee.

As far as suggested settings...
* I do know how to turn on the spot light mode in scene selection.
* Not sure about AE shift - is this automatic exposure? I can control exposure manually but the cam just shows a reference slider bar - no values.
* I do know how to lock WB to indoor
* I do know how to turn off steady shot
* I do not know how to prevent the cam from Automatically turning on LOW LUX and I cannot figure out how to manually set the shutter speed - could scene selection be setting the shutter speed?

I was reviewing the DVDs last night from the last several year's performances. It seems to me that previous videographers had issues with overexposure probably due to the bright row of lights on the front of the stage floor (I have been told that those lights will be fewer and smaller this year). On one year's production, all of the performers looked like bright ghosts - it wouldn't even be possible to tell who is who as no faces were even distinguishable. The video had overlays of some closeups on top of the wide shot that was way overexposed, but the closeups missed a lot of the performance. I'll be asking questions about the editing and mixing later, but I need to focus on capturing the performance first.

I am continuing to research, learn, and prepare for this event and am grateful for all the input thus far.

These are all menu functions. Check your manual. It is on page 61 of my CX550 manual.

"AE Shift" is the setting you want rather than exposure. It should be in the Manual Settings Menu. It adjusts the range within which auto exposure works. You want to use manual focus which means you can't use manual exposure. Auto exposure on this teeny cam is very good. (See above). EDITED TO ADD: Just read Adam's simultaneous post and see that the CX160 does not have this, so never mind.

"Low Lux" is a menu setting. It should be in the "shooting set" menu. Again, setting this simply allows the shutter speed to drop to 1/30th sec when you get dim or weird lighting. Otherwise, it has no effect. (See above.) Go the rehearsal. If they are not doing really dim lighting etc., don't worry about it.

Hi Brad, you're getting a lot of good practical advise. I'm not very familiar with the camera(s) you're planning on using so I won't try to comment specifically on those issues. As a thought, since you won't have a way to mount the mic on your camera which isn't optimal anyway, you might think about returning it and putting that investment into a small portable field recorder such as those offered by Zoom, Tascam or Sony. It would give you the flexibility to place it away from your camera so accidental bumping of it won't be an issue. Most can be mounted on a standard tripod.

Also, check with the sound guy at the venue where the performance will take place. A lot of newer boards have the ability built in to record the house feed to a usb drive. I just did a show in a church auditorium of all places that had a board that did that. It was really easy for the sound tech to just pop in a usb thumb drive and give me the wave files.

And most important don't get discouraged by all the info flying at your. It is actually fun to do live shows. Just a little preplanning, which you are doing, is involved and once the show starts it off to the races.

Garrett

I was reviewing the DVDs last night from the last several year's performances. It seems to me that previous videographers had issues with overexposure probably due to the bright row of lights on the front of the stage floor (I have been told that those lights will be fewer and smaller this year). On one year's production, all of the performers looked like bright ghosts - it wouldn't even be possible to tell who is who as no faces were even distinguishable.

With these kinds of issues, you could try using the "spot meter" function at the rehearsal. This allows you to point on the touch screen and have auto exposure set for that area, and to change as you go. I think you can combine that with the spotlight mode. This would likely avoid the problem with the front of stage lights blowing out the faces. My CX550 also has a SpotMtr/FCS function (combining both spot metering and spot focus with one fingerpoint). If your CX160 has that function, you could try that as well. Might give you some of the benefits of manual exposure without having to fumble with buttons in the dark.

You could do this with the second camera, although you might not need to reset it the since it will be a fixed frame view. I recall Ron Evans posting about using these functions on the SR11 and XR500, which are predecessor models to the current CX and XR models.

Garret's point about getting a USB recording is a good one if the board has that capability.

I was originally thinking that I might as well shoot with more compression since I am ultimatley going to compress to DVD format anyway, but now I'm thinking that my thought process may be off a little. I'm not sure I understand completely, but I'm getting there.

A 32gb card should get me approximately 3 hours of video in FX. With FH, I'd get about 4 hours, so I'd still need another card, just not as big of one. I was tring to prevent having to buy more storage and also timing the "changing of the cards" during the performance. The card slot on this cam is on the under side so I will probably have to unmount from the tripod to swap cards.

"FX" should show "24 Mbps" where "FH" is a lower 17Mbps bitrate - shoot the higher bitrate - more data=better resolution and motion capture, Yes, it uses more card space (more data=more space), but cards are cheap, 8G and 16G SDHC cards are pretty cheap nowdays. Yes, you'll end up "tossing" (more accurately "interpolating" down) most of the added data before you finally burn to DVD, but the better the image quality at each stage in the workflow, the better the final render/burn.

I was going to go check the CX160 manual, looks like others have already, and as I feared, the lower end Sony doesn't have many of the settings/adjustments that we are all used to on the "5xx" series cams many of us use for their size and versatility....

Your description of the prior video is "blown out" - i.e. badly overexposed... this is where those of us familiar with Sonys tend to use the AE shift function to lower the exposure a couple notches, which helps avoid this... spotlight mode, if you have it, should also help. What happened is the cameras, left to their own decisions, looked a the overall scene, and since I'll bet there was LOTS of black background, they tried to bring that "up", thus overexposing the stuff that was SUPPOSED to be properly exposed... Your CX160 should have "face recognition" - turn it on, it will also help- if it can find a face, it will adjust exposure and WB automatically to it... which may or may not help with wide shots where faces may not be easily seen - it should work great on closeups, although dramatic lighting can throw the AWB a curve ball...

You'll need to flip the LCD open and go through the available functions and menus options. I'd concur with Adam that iAuto may be your best bet - the firmware algorithms in these cams are usually fairly accurate, and far faster than you could manually adjust them... won't be 'perfect", but likely faster than the average camera op (myself included!)

I fear that the CX160 (and probably the XR version) strip out so many features and capabilities that it's going to be tough to adjust adequately... BUT the newer Sony handycams tend to have good "lattitude" (handle high to low lighting range in a frame) fairly well. That small CMOS chip is also going to struggle with lower light, I'd go ahead and turn lo lux mode on if it has it (you probably have to set it as on the CX550's it "resets" after a few hours to "off"...). Again, I concur with Adam on getting a used 500/520/550 series camera - you'll be happier with the results, although your wallet will be less happy... you can pick up a used CX500 for around $500 (I may be selling one of mine if you're interested), and it's got the bigger CMOS and most of the menu options/adjustments.

If "last year's video" was as bad as you say, you still may well come out ahead of the game - while the lower end consumer cams have pretty severe limitations, they also have a lot of "idiot proof" improvements and features that give pretty impressive results when compared to cameras from even a few years ago...

I started out with pretty cheap consumer cameras, so I totally understand where you're at, just be forewarned, you'll likely find the limitations fairly quickly and want to upgrade your gear <wink>! We'll all be here for support when you joint GA (gearheads anonymous)... "Hi Brad, welcome, I'm Dave, and I have a gear addiction..."

Best of luck, I think we all would drop in with gear and a helping hand if we were in the neighborhod, but we'll give as much "remote advise" as we can!

A lot of newer boards have the ability built in to record the house feed to a usb drive. I just did a show in a church auditorium of all places that had a board that did that. It was really easy for the sound tech to just pop in a usb thumb drive and give me the wave files. But, um, er, isn't that just a more complicated way to just borrow the original files? He can just hand you the original source. Why take ten steps when one would do?

For five hours of show with various acts who may be bringing various disks and such, might be easier to get all the wave files on a single drive and not have to worry about returning everybody's disks. Also, if the audio is being played from an iPod, I've found that format to cumbersome to convert into wave files I can bring into the NLE.

Excellent points. My experience it they usually have everything on one or two disks, but the scenario above is certainly possible. And if that's the case, Garrett's dub-to-USB-drive solution is ideal.

But, um, er, isn't that just a more complicated way to just borrow the original files? He can just hand you the original source. Why take ten steps when one would do?

In addition to the reasons Jay already mentioned, which I've run into all of them, especially the iPod issue, I like to have a clean feed of the announcements that often occur at the beginning and end of shows, and as I mentioned earlier, a lot of the shows I've done have some kind of technical glitch. Wrong song starting and restarts, etc. I just did one where the sound tech put the wrong disc in and fired it up. The dancers, little 9 and 10 year old's, had been taught to just go with it no matter what, it was great see them improvise for the 20 seconds it took for the dance instructor to run to the sound desk and have them start the right music. That was one of the scenes I left in because everyone at the performance was raving about how well the kids just went with it.

On another one, I got the disc from the school and four of the 25 numbers they had the wrong cut of the music. The instructor thought she burned the correct versions but it was about 20 bpm too fast. turns out the girls needed the music slowed down to keep up with the steps. This particular school takes forever to get me the sound track so it would have delayed the production of the video. Having the board feed saved tons.

As a side note, a lot of people think I go overboard with redundancies and the amount of equipment I bring to a shoot, but there's one thing I've learned unfortunately through experience, if I bring it, I have about a 20% chance of using it, if I don't bring it, I have a 100% chance that I'll need it.

-Garrett

Garrett, you're absolutely right. The belt-and-suspenders approach is always best.

We should just pile into my truck and go out there and help Brad. We can pick up Jay on the way. Oh, damn, I have a show in the 21st. D'oh!

Again, I concur with Adam on getting a used 500/520/550 series camera - you'll be happier with the results, although your wallet will be less happy... you can pick up a used CX500 for around $500 (I may be selling one of mine if you're interested), and it's got the bigger CMOS and most of the menu options/adjustments.

Dave... If you are selling one I might be interested. PM Sent.

I had typed a nice response and lost it.

So now cliff notes - Shooting a dance recital can be very intense. I've been doing them for almost 10 years. My biggest one is this coming weekend with some 350 dancers. 3 shows on Sat starting at 10:00 AM and ending at 10:00 PM and then 1 on Sunday at 2:00 PM.

Use to do multi cam shoots back when we started, but the studios began requesting single cam shoots so they can just view the performance/spacing of the dancers on stage. Also, parents were getting upset because "their kid" didn't get a close up shot, when another kid did. Doing a one cam shoot puts an end to that.

You've got to be able to handle lighting changes not only from dance to dance, but within the same dance. There is no such thing as a "dull moment" because at just that time, the lights will go hot and then blow out your shot. You gotta always be on your toes and ready to adjust exposure.

One thing that definately will not work in a dance rectial is auto exposure of any kind on a video camera. The lighting is just too dramatic.

For audio, we've always just used the ambient audio via on cam mic. You definately want to hear the crowd. A direct board feed is too sterile imo.

It would be a good idea to find out what the studio wants.. if all they want is the wide shot (as many do), no need to set up a bunch of extra stuff.

It's definitely the dance show season. All the studios are trying to get them in before school lets out and summer camps/programs begin. I don't do very many anymore and I've got three coming up.

Brad, a word of warning. Dance shows are how I started out down this black hole of the production business. I started much like you doing a local dance studio show that my nieces were in because the previous videos looked pretty awful. I got some family and friends and we did a 5 cam shoot. How hard could it be to edit and color balance 5 different cameras, right?

I really intended to only do if for myself and my family but other people saw it and wanted to buy it. That was it, after that I was hooked. And then what my wife now calls "a hobby gone bad" started. My other equipment junky friends and I have what we've dubbed EAD (equipment addiction disorder). I've lived through some very hard times of withdraw when I've been between cameras but I've learned to control my addiction.

With the questions you're asking and the enthusiasm that you're showing to capture this show I see all the signs. But just know that there is a support group and another EAD victim is always welcome to the club.

-Garrett

One thing that definitely will not work in a dance recital is auto exposure of any kind on a video camera. The lighting is just too dramatic.Here's the problem with that statement: It will get you into trouble if you take it seriously. Without Zebras and histograms, which very few consumer cams have (the cx700 is an exception) you cannot judge exposure from looking at the LCD screen, and it isn't designed for that. And with the limited manual exposure controls on most consumer cams and certainly the cam in question here, it is virtually impossible to expose manually. So you must work within the limitations of the various auto-exposure modes the cam actually does have to let it get your exposure right. The methods detailed above in the other posts should work well. Trying to do it manually will unquestionably fail. If you're riding the EXPOSURE slider on your LCD, all you are doing is adjusting the iris (and sometimes gain, and rarely shutter speed) based on a non-calibrated picture which doesn't reflect what the camera is actually recording -- and you're doing it more slowly and less accurately than the cam would be if you just let it.

It's all about percentages and odds. Working the auto modes properly will get you a higher percentage of properly exposed footage than trying to do it manually will. Auto will do it quicker and more accurately than you can, provided you can tweak it properly.

On a larger scale, you have to understand the differences between the human eye/brain and how a camcorder works. We can deal with massive dynamic ranges in brightness. A cam can't. It must shift exposure constantly to keep the light levels within a fairly narrow range. Auto exposure does this, and quite well, as long as you can find a way to tell it to kick everything down a couple of notches to avoid blowing out the bright faces and not try to pull up all the black on the stage to a middling grey.

The rest of the post has some really great advice, but this one sentence can and should be taken with a grain of salt.

We've been doing all kinds of shows for four years now and have gotten to the point where they look gorgeous. The only time they look crappy is when we try to use manual exposure or focus -- it's guaranteed to result in more crappy unusable footage than when we let the cam do it all. Of course, there is massive tweaking going on before we shoot, using the tools Sony makes available to us, like the above-mentioned AE SHIFT, SPOTLIGHT mode, AGC LIMIT and about a dozen other things, all of which make little icons in our LCDs so we can confirm all our cams are on the same page. I know this will elicit howls of disapproval from the purists, but we never have anything out of focus when using AF on our Z5s, and exposure is always close to perfect, exactly capturing the feeling of what's onstage.

Got to differ here - big time. Auto exposure for lighting states that vary so much always lag behind - so the lights go bright, the lens starts to stop down, then half a second later, the lights go dim, it tries to open up again. If you're unlucky enough to have the lighting changes in sync with the speed of the auto iris - you are stuffed! Much depends on the camera and how it deals with lighting changes. If you are lucky and your camera responds slowly, you may get away with it - but if your camera is a fast responder, the results are up and down like a yo-yo. For dance, the critical bit with fast moving lighting is to adjust to a setting that works for the entire piece if you don't have a racks man doing it for you. You can't frame, zoom, focus and be accurate with exposure. I tend to find in these situations that if you find the darker moody pieces need f4, and the bright ones are f8, then you can ramp from one to the other reasonably quickly - assuming your camera has a rotary control rather than daft up and down buttons.

The biggest problem for me when working with two separate cameras is that each op, as has been said, will adjust exposure to what their viewfinder suggests is ok, with no thought to how they will match. If you had a racks man in a truck, you could see that because of the composition in the shot, it is too dark or light and match face tones. Your camera on auto, on a wide angle, even with spot metering will expose the whole thing - the other camera on a tight shot will expose for that one person - and if they are wearing bright colours, they probably won't match with the wide shot. Exposure is really tricky with dance shot single cam, or separate multicam.

Brad, if you're still out there and haven't been scared off by all this arguing, as you can see there are plenty of opinions on this and we will all likely never agree. Each of us has our own methods and we all think ours is the best. Fortunately you have some rehearsal time when you can try various things and see which is best for you -- that's really the only way to go.

Hope it goes well and please let us know what happens.

Totally agree with Adam. I don't think we're arguing - I think we're discussing techniques that can work - and I happily agree manual or auto can both work fine, but equally both can fail miserably. Dance shows are a bugger to predict - there's so many variables. I know for certain, that mine are always so close to the clock as to be unpredictable - very often you just get set up, the bright lights vanish and lots of moody gloomy states appear that wreck everything you planned!

I'm in the no auto camp on this one, well really I'm in the full manual camp on just about any shoot except maybe if I came upon an emergency and happened to have my cam with me and just needed to get some news coverage.

As for auto focus, I have never seen an auto focus that works correctly. Especially for stage numbers where the changes in lighting fool the camera's focusing. Most small consumer cameras have sensors that are small enough and irises that don't open up to very wide that their DOF will cover the stage from front to back. So setting your manual focus at mid stage will cover you. Between numbers if the lights go down, it's been my experience that cameras set to autofocus will hunt when the light come back up.

If your camera doesn't have full manual controls, the trick is how to fool your camera into giving you the most control over it. And that's a particular function of each camera.

As Adam said, there a many ways to do any one task. He has been able to get his cameras to respond how he wants using the built in auto features, and I and apparently Paul, have gotten better results using manual controls. But one thing that is a running theme is the need for preparation and planning. Adam spends time setting up his cameras auto feature controls and limiters so that he can get what he wants. I approach it much more like I do when filming a movie. During test shots and setups we record all camera data so when we actually shoot the scene we have everything planned out. That's essentially what I 'm doing when setting up for a live show. I spend planning and prep time getting all of the settings for the various numbers so that I make the adjustments manually.

Please keep the advise and tips coming, I'm taking it all in!

As an update, I am working on getting a used Sony CX500V or XR500V to use as my main cam with the intention of setting up the CX160 as a backup and returning it when done.

Now I am looking for advice on a decent affordable tripod. I already bought a cheap Sony, but as soon as I set it up, I quickly found that it's not going to be sturdy enough - maybe for a fixed cam, but not for panning and tilting.

I am now looking at the following Sony tripod which may work well with one of the above mentioned used cams, but I'm still not confident of it sturdiness.

Amazon.com: Sony VCT-60AV Remote Control Tripod for use with Compatible Sony Camcorders: Camera & Photo


Does anyone have any experience with this specific tripod? Any suggestion for a good, sturdy, fluid tripod that might fit into my tight budget?

The 80 will be better than the 60, but both are very lightweight. But they're not bad for this price range and they both have the proprietary remote in the handle that you need with the Sony cams, which will help. Don't extend the center column for extra height; they will be a bit more stable this way. If you can keep the legs compacted they will be more stable still.

I have a couple of small Sonys similar to these that I use for sports with my minicams but I keep them close to the ground and don't extend the legs at all. Always extend the thickest portions of the legs first.

The heads on these are actually remarkably smooth for the price.

There's a whole 'nother Tripod subforum here where there's a great deal of discussion about cheap sturdy tripods; there might be some other good ideas there.

Another side note that may make your head spin: Although it is logical to use the lesser camera for the wide shot, you may find that the smaller chip will struggle with the relatively finer detail in the wide shot. We certainly found this to be true. So this is something else you should experiment with during rehearsal. I would take wide and close shots, in auto and manual exposure and focus modes, every way imaginable, and then when you get home play them all directly to a good large HDTV and take copious notes about which does best in each situation. If there is a way to display all the camera data during playback (hang on... checking manuals) you should do this during playback so you can see exactly what you did. [Edit: Yes, both the 160 and 500 series have the DATA CODE > CAMERA DATA function on playback.]

Brad:

there is a forum here that is devoted to tripods and such. Scanning through those posts may help educate you faster than we can here. Unless somebody has a good fluid head tripod they want to sell or loan Brad?

A CX500 or XR 500 sounds like the best choice for you main cam. I believe that, unlike the 550 and 700 models , the "500"models (and the new 560) only have a viewscreen (no viewfinder). Some people really want a viewfinder and some would only use the viewscreen, anyway, and could care less. Personal preference.

Garret, Kyle and Paul: I think we are getting off topic here in talking about manual operation. There have been plenty of other threads where folks have debated the merits and demerits of full manual and full auto for a variety of cameras including EX1, XHA1, NX5, etc.

Those discussions are academic for working with a CX160 and XR/CX500 as Brad will be. These cameras are tiny. They are ergonomically unsuitable for full manual operation even if they were capable of it. Which they are not.

I also want to draw a distinction between a manual focus and manual focusING. The first is something done before the show starts, and was part of the recommendations above. Both Adam and I have recommended this. Set a fixed focus with maximum depth of field. Leave it there. That avoids focus hunting created by lighting, intervening dancers, blackouts, patterned backdrops, etc. Manual focusING --- constantly adjusting focus as you shoot --- would be an exercise in frustration with these little cams

I have to ask if you ever used any of the CX cams? If your frame of reference is older model small cameras, such as the Sony HC1-9/AU1 line or the Canon HV20/30/40 line, I think you will be surprised at how good the CX cams are.

As for color differences between the cameras, Brad is doing two things that largely obviate the problem. Number one, he is using similar cameras with matching settings. Number two, Brad will be placing them so that they get entirely different angles of view which tends to mask color differences, anyway. If there are problems, they will be minor and, if they bother him, they can be fixed with minor tweaking in editing.

He is not shooting for PBS or the BBC, here, either. The video only needs to be better than what the parents could do for themselves and better than the what the previous sets of videographers did.

My original intention has always been to only use a single cam but I'm also really nervous about something going wrong and losing some (or all) of the footage. Since I am considering a "better" camera, I though that I could possibly still use the "lesser" cam for backup purposes only before returning it to the store. I would prefer to use all the shots from one cam because I'm not so confident in my editing skills with multiple shots and I'm not going to have an abundance of free time for editing either. A majority of my shots with the "better" cam will probably also be wide with some occasional close-ups.

I did just find out too that the rehearsal next Thursay will not have any stage lighting and not all the performances will be rehearsed. I was told that we may be able to turn on some stage lighting after the rehearsal is over, but that not going to help a whole lot.

As for auto focus, I have never seen an auto focus that works correctly. I know we're continuing to veer horrendously off-topic with this, but it's a subject that deserves continuing exploration as equipment evolves. The common thread that I think Garrett, Paul and I can all agree on is that there is no substitute for preparation and knowing your equipment. I'm a little surprised that Garrett's EX3, which I'd consider to be one of the finest pieces of equipment ever made, doesn't have an auto focus that pleases him, but then he has one and I don't so he knows better than I possibly could.

Years ago when I was shooting Baseball with a VX2000, the AF was dead solid and without fail locked razor tight ... on the fence behind the outfielders. Nothing I did could shake it from its relentless grip on that fence.

As we moved to other cams, including FX1s, 7s and 1000s, as well as HC3s, 7s and 9s, and HD1000s and MC2000s and my beloved crop of Z5s, it became scary how well they did, especially with fast moving sports like soccer (that's Football to you, Paul). The Z5s are positively frightening... how does it know what I want to focus on? There must be some kind of brain control mind-reading chip in there. Plus it can virtually see in the dark. But I digress.

Thirty-five years ago, when I first learned how to do all of this on film, there was no Auto anything. You had to do everything manually. You wore a light meter around your neck. Even if your camera had an internal light meter, you still had to set the iris and shutter manually for each shot by lining up the needles. (Gain? What's that?) When Auto functions began to creep in they sucked so you still had to do everything manually. As they became better, you still did everything manually because, come on, no machine could ever be as smart as a person. Then you had to go manual because only rookies did things with auto; Pros Used Manual.

But now my ego is no longer involved. I only care about how much good footage I get. With my gear I know my odds are better when I don't try to outsmart the cam. But Garret, Paul and the others are smarter than I am and have figured out how to get better footage on manual. But until you've seen those little boxes appear around people's faces and watched the focus and exposure snap into exact precision, you can't begin to appreciate how brilliant these little devices have become.

Know your gear. Prepare. And Practice. And Prepare some more.

I would prefer to use all the shots from one cam Then realistically you should just invest in a good 500 series, lock it down on a wide shot with fixed focus and shoot without moving it for the entire show. Kyle has a very good point about the politics of closeups. We do most of our shows in closeup and use the wide shots only to cover the moves, because all the whip pans and zooms as we choose the next CU are unwatchable and should not be in your final video. But the editing on a five-hour show will be daunting and if a locked down wide shot is acceptable you should take the lesser-stress route and just get a good wide shot of the stage.

I think we all have to be careful about turning a simple project into an Elephant. I know I am certainly guilty of this. Sorry about that.

Did not see Adam's post before I replied. All good advice. I would have suggested that your primary camera be the one with the larger viewscreen, but I suspect that both of these cams have 3 inch view screens.

If you do not use a locked down, fixed frame approach, editing with two cams is pretty easy. (With five hours of show, the hard part is disk storage and feeding it all into the computer.) All you have to do for each segment is find the flash and line up the two tracks in your editor. Follow your primary camera --- you can scroll through with a mouse --- and find the parts of the main camera track that you want to cut out. Make the same cuts on the second track and drop that bit over the part you do not like in you main cam's shot. It is quick and simple. Only complicated when you go to more cameras. For a bit better timing, look at the wave-form display for the audio track and make the cuts where you see a sharp line (usually that will be a musical beat).

As for turning on the stage lighting after the rehearsals, you want to do that. This will tell you quickly whether on not you are going to have any low-light issues with your cams. Actually, this may be good news. If they were going to do much with the lighting, they would be having tech rehearsals with the lighting crew or the guy who is programing the computer that controls the setup.

Then realistically you should just invest in a good 500 series, lock it down on a wide shot with fixed focus and shoot without moving it for the entire show. Kyle has a very good point about the politics of closeups. We do most of our shows in closeup and use the wide shots only to cover the moves, because all the whip pans and zooms as we choose the next CU are unwatchable and should not be in your final video. But the editing on a five-hour show will be daunting and if a locked down wide shot is acceptable you should take the lesser-stress route and just get a good wide shot of the stage.

I think we all have to be careful about turning a simple project into an Elephant. I know I am certainly guilty of this. Sorry about that.

No problem! This really isn't a simple project for me personally because it's a first time experience. I am taking in all the advice and will format it to suit my particular needs. Most all advice is good advice for me whether it be for this project or a possible future project.

In this case, the studio director has specifically asked that I capture most of the performance wide and occasionally zoom in on the "younger" performers and during award recognitions. I believe someone has already mentioned something similar to this in this thread that is becoming rather lengthy (sorry I didn't go back to quote who this was). I'm going have a lot of re-reading to do as I get closer to actually shooting!