I was filming a bunch of bands yesterday, and was right up against the stage. So the sound was crazy loud, and the vibration would travel all the way through one's body. So would the vibration do any harm to my camera, would it mess up the optical stabilizer, bounce that heads at all? The footage looks fine, and the camera still works perfectly.

I've shot a number of raves where at a certain point, usually around 3am or so, the volume rises to an extremely loud, almost tenuous wall of sound, vibrating "all through your gutty works" as Anthony Burgess would describe it. Your OIS will be fine and will help dampen anything reaching the camera, and I've never had a problem with the tape transport (however I do send mine in at least once a year for a tune-up regardless). Hope this helps, and be sure to wear good hearing protection.

I once did a shot in which I was on the ground, right under a cop as he jumped out from behind a wall and fired his .45 right over the top of the camera. I wanted realism, but that was dumb. The concussion actually damaged the heads and apparently caused the tape to come up off the heads or something because there was a big glitch there. And I couldn't hear for about 10 minutes. It probably wasn't as loud as some rock bands, but because it was a shot and I was so close, the shock wave was really abrupt. I think at a concert where the noise level is loud enough to damage your eardrums probably won't hurt the camera, unless you're so close to a speaker that the shock wave is strong enough to cause trouble.

I've had similar experiences but with fireworks. I was over 1/2 mile away, but the concussion from the sound caused distortion in the video. No damage to the camera. This was in the days of analog and I think there were more video sync issues with the older equipment.

I don't shoot fireworks any more but I think it might be less of an issue with digital.

Good point about analog--my experience was with a BVW300.

I've had a few dropouts with my Canon XL1s during the newyears
party with fireworks going off. Ofcourse it was quite cold as well...
But it mostly seemed to happen with large bangs and stuff

It shouldn't do any harm. I only have a Panasonic DV52, nothing like what you guys are shooting on, but i've shot a few bands, standing right beside the PA stacks, and these guys play very loud, and the video comes out fine, no harm to the camera, and no dropouts...

In an environment that had loud shock wave type sound, would recording directly to disk (firewire disk) prevent the type of dropouts you guys are talking about? I'm guessing a disk may be better protected from the shock.

Using a Canon XL1 I videotaped F-18's taking off with full afterburners without a problem, and that's really loud. Vibrates the entire body.

Also videotaped an MP-5 machine gun at full auto with no problems.

I've noticed that when I recorded loud audio with a Sony EVW-300 (Hi8) the video signal would get distorted if the audio was recorded onto the AFM track (which was part of the video signal).

However, if I recorded audio onto only the PCM track then the video wasn't affected, no matter how loud the sound. And that included high-powered rifles going off, as well as drag racers roaring off the line.

By the way, be sure to wear hearing protection when working around firearms. You will get permanent hearing loss otherwise.

I said, YOU'LL GET PERMANENT HEARING LOSS!!

:-)

Dean Sensui
Base Two Productions

WHAT? WHA'D YOU SAY? SPEAK UP!!!

<<<-- Originally posted by Bill Pryor : WHAT? WHA'D YOU SAY? SPEAK UP!!! -->>>

Given this is a message board, are you saying you're blind? :D

well I guess the my camera is safe, and yes I did wear ear protection. I wore my moitoring headphones which really dampened the noise.

Thats one thing I usually forget, ear protection. I am going def from it also. The shows I go to see (metal) usually crank it as loud as they can, and it wears on your hearing. I see this one kid at most of the shows I go to, he stands like 5 inches away from the PA stacks, everytime. No joke, he doesn't wear any ear protection either. Not sure if he thinks he is cool or something, but I know one thing, he will be def soon.