Gian Pablo Villamil
April 9th, 2006, 08:05 PM
I just took an HC1 on a 3 week trip to Russia and Turkey, for shooting video of and around the recent total eclipse. Results were generally quite good, and I am pleased. However, reviewing the tapes highlighted a few areas where things could have been better. Here are some brief notes of what I've learned - there will not be any surprises for anyone with experience!
1. Buy A1 if possible. The differences in image quality between the HC1 and its pro cousin, the A1, are negligible. However, there are a bunch of small things that make life easier on the A1, that are worth the price difference - even for an amateur. First is the sound - much better, and more capable. Second is a whole slew of tiny conveniences, eg. the shot transition mode on the A1 has a variable transition time, and 4 different curves vs. a fixed 4 seconds and straight line on the HC1; or another, the optional center point marker on the LCD/viewfinder on the A1. A lot of these features are things that an advanced amateur will find convenient, not just a pro.
2. Use a tripod. HD is much less forgiving of camera shake - it's all noticeable. Use a tripod whenever possible. I used a lightweight Hakuba tripod with pan/tilt head, made a huge difference. Can also use the the tripod as a stick to lift the camera above crowds.
3. Use a GOOD tripod. The Hakuba was OK, but upon review I realized that a heavyweight fluid head would have made a noticeable difference to smoothness of pans. Also would have reduced camera shake when operating controls.
4. Use the remote. The IR remote is a handy tool for controlling zoom, and recording start/stop, without moving the camera. I wish you could trigger shot trans mode from it as well.
5. Use auto, then manual focus. It takes a while for focus to lock in low-light, also camera will refocus when things change ie someone walks in front of the camera, then take time to regain focus. So use autofocus at first, then switch to manual to lock in the focus. I found manual focus directly to be inaccurate - when manually focused to infinity, landscapes appeared to be blurred. I needed to rotate the focus ring back 20 to 30 degrees for distant landscapes to pop into focus. When I did this, manual focus indication ranged anywhere from 1.0 to 20.0 meters. Maybe defect?
6. Invest in wide-angle lens. I almost always had the wide convertor lens on. It is extremely useful for shooting video of people: you can get close enough to interact and engage, while still getting whole body shots, or framing the person and whatever they are doing. Much trickier with standard lens.
7. Use manual exposure control. Automatic exposure varied a lot, leading to distracting and unnatural changes while shooting. For almost all shots I would auto expose, then switch to manual and make a slight correction, and stay at that level for the duration of several shots.
8. Keep sound levels lower. When using auto sound levels, I still experienced clipping on the sound recording. Use the manual mic level control, and use a slightly lower level than would seem reasonable. Clipping ocurred even when the meters seemed to show acceptable levels.
9. HDV doesn't handle complex motion well - may need to switch to DV for some things. For the most part, the HC1 performed well and the footage looks very good. However, I found a few circumstances where the MPEG2 encoder would fail badly and the footage would look very blocky. These circumstances were a) flickering lights eg. neon or strobes, that made big changes to full frame, or b) highly detailed random motion eg. snowfall, flowing water. In these cases, switching to DV mode led to more usable (though lower res) footage.
10. Get 2 batteries and a separate charger. I felt much more comfortable leaving an inconspicuous battery & charger alone while charging, than a much flashier camera. Also, this way you can shoot while charging. I used the mid-size battery, with 3 hours or so of shooting time.
Like I said before, no surprises for any pros here. However, the lessons were really brought home by using the camera in the field to shoot 16 hours of tape!
1. Buy A1 if possible. The differences in image quality between the HC1 and its pro cousin, the A1, are negligible. However, there are a bunch of small things that make life easier on the A1, that are worth the price difference - even for an amateur. First is the sound - much better, and more capable. Second is a whole slew of tiny conveniences, eg. the shot transition mode on the A1 has a variable transition time, and 4 different curves vs. a fixed 4 seconds and straight line on the HC1; or another, the optional center point marker on the LCD/viewfinder on the A1. A lot of these features are things that an advanced amateur will find convenient, not just a pro.
2. Use a tripod. HD is much less forgiving of camera shake - it's all noticeable. Use a tripod whenever possible. I used a lightweight Hakuba tripod with pan/tilt head, made a huge difference. Can also use the the tripod as a stick to lift the camera above crowds.
3. Use a GOOD tripod. The Hakuba was OK, but upon review I realized that a heavyweight fluid head would have made a noticeable difference to smoothness of pans. Also would have reduced camera shake when operating controls.
4. Use the remote. The IR remote is a handy tool for controlling zoom, and recording start/stop, without moving the camera. I wish you could trigger shot trans mode from it as well.
5. Use auto, then manual focus. It takes a while for focus to lock in low-light, also camera will refocus when things change ie someone walks in front of the camera, then take time to regain focus. So use autofocus at first, then switch to manual to lock in the focus. I found manual focus directly to be inaccurate - when manually focused to infinity, landscapes appeared to be blurred. I needed to rotate the focus ring back 20 to 30 degrees for distant landscapes to pop into focus. When I did this, manual focus indication ranged anywhere from 1.0 to 20.0 meters. Maybe defect?
6. Invest in wide-angle lens. I almost always had the wide convertor lens on. It is extremely useful for shooting video of people: you can get close enough to interact and engage, while still getting whole body shots, or framing the person and whatever they are doing. Much trickier with standard lens.
7. Use manual exposure control. Automatic exposure varied a lot, leading to distracting and unnatural changes while shooting. For almost all shots I would auto expose, then switch to manual and make a slight correction, and stay at that level for the duration of several shots.
8. Keep sound levels lower. When using auto sound levels, I still experienced clipping on the sound recording. Use the manual mic level control, and use a slightly lower level than would seem reasonable. Clipping ocurred even when the meters seemed to show acceptable levels.
9. HDV doesn't handle complex motion well - may need to switch to DV for some things. For the most part, the HC1 performed well and the footage looks very good. However, I found a few circumstances where the MPEG2 encoder would fail badly and the footage would look very blocky. These circumstances were a) flickering lights eg. neon or strobes, that made big changes to full frame, or b) highly detailed random motion eg. snowfall, flowing water. In these cases, switching to DV mode led to more usable (though lower res) footage.
10. Get 2 batteries and a separate charger. I felt much more comfortable leaving an inconspicuous battery & charger alone while charging, than a much flashier camera. Also, this way you can shoot while charging. I used the mid-size battery, with 3 hours or so of shooting time.
Like I said before, no surprises for any pros here. However, the lessons were really brought home by using the camera in the field to shoot 16 hours of tape!