Miguel Morejohn
February 21st, 2006, 11:35 AM
I am realtively new at shooting HD and I thought I would share a few of my observations about recording in HD with the HC-1. After a 2 week trip to Costa Rica with the camera here is what I learned...now that I am back home editing the content! I am sure some of these topics have been touched on before and may even be applied to standard def shooting but they really stood out in HD on the HC-1.
1) Correct focus is absolutely paramount with the level of detail in HD, it is very apparent even when the subject is out of focus just slighty. When the subject was in focus with proper light and no camera movement the results are incredibly good.
2) Camera movement and panning must be keep to a bare minimum or extremely slow because the image can become blotched and blurry and very unnatural. This is not to be confused with natural motion blur. Walking, even with a 0.5x wide angle lens was less than ideal because the image suffered greatly, I don't think a steady cam stabilizer would improve this greatly. I had much better results shooting with camera motion with a DV camera in the past.
3) Avoid high contrast shots where the subject is against a bright background or sky because the results often produced very visible purple fringing and haze around the subject.
4) Subjects in low light combined with camera movement was a disaster. Noise plus image blur.
5) Auto focus hunting was a problem at times so I ended up shooting 50% of the time with manual focus and I lost some good opportunites shooting wildlife, especially birds.
6) I saved this for the end so it will remain in my head longer. Using a good tripod is so very critical for 90% all shots. The slightess camera movement is amplified so much in HD that for me camera stability becomes as important as having tape in the camera. This saved many of my shots on my Costa Rica trip.
This was especially important with vistas because of so much subject matter in the field of view and in high detail.
Summary:
From this limited experience I feel that I will become a better filmmaker
because I will be forced to choose my subjects and the type of lighting very,very carefully, and when I do the results should be very rewarding. I hope this will be helpful to some of you.
Good shooting,
Miguel
1) Correct focus is absolutely paramount with the level of detail in HD, it is very apparent even when the subject is out of focus just slighty. When the subject was in focus with proper light and no camera movement the results are incredibly good.
2) Camera movement and panning must be keep to a bare minimum or extremely slow because the image can become blotched and blurry and very unnatural. This is not to be confused with natural motion blur. Walking, even with a 0.5x wide angle lens was less than ideal because the image suffered greatly, I don't think a steady cam stabilizer would improve this greatly. I had much better results shooting with camera motion with a DV camera in the past.
3) Avoid high contrast shots where the subject is against a bright background or sky because the results often produced very visible purple fringing and haze around the subject.
4) Subjects in low light combined with camera movement was a disaster. Noise plus image blur.
5) Auto focus hunting was a problem at times so I ended up shooting 50% of the time with manual focus and I lost some good opportunites shooting wildlife, especially birds.
6) I saved this for the end so it will remain in my head longer. Using a good tripod is so very critical for 90% all shots. The slightess camera movement is amplified so much in HD that for me camera stability becomes as important as having tape in the camera. This saved many of my shots on my Costa Rica trip.
This was especially important with vistas because of so much subject matter in the field of view and in high detail.
Summary:
From this limited experience I feel that I will become a better filmmaker
because I will be forced to choose my subjects and the type of lighting very,very carefully, and when I do the results should be very rewarding. I hope this will be helpful to some of you.
Good shooting,
Miguel