So I bought PMW200. Now what?

[Sara Jourhmane]

I sold my Sony S270u and Z5u.

I am a Still Photographer who shoots videos on occasions.

Most often than not, I use manual focus using one push AF. Also I set my own Iris and gain settings. I am not very familiar with picture profiles, other than what I read in this forum.

I mostly shoot company’s press conferences and staff meetings etc.

This is what I bought:

PMW200
One SxS 32 GB Card
Two SxD SDHC Adapters.
Two Sandisk Extreme 64GB Cards
One BPU60 Battery

Need advice.

Sara.

[Cees van Kempen]

I have no idea what advise you are looking for, but I have two.

1) The obvious one, start filming and enjoy your camera.

2) have a look at Alister Chapman's website http://www.xdcam-user.com/
There is an enormous amount of (technical) information about profiles, camerasettings, techniques etc. Not speciffically for the PMW200, but certainly a lot of it is useful for you.

[George Griswold]

If you work commercially I would find out the prevailing rates in your area and stick to them. Low balling usually gets you problematic clients and tanks the entire market.

[Don Bloom]

Sara,
Read the manual cover to cover and try the various settings while reading. Yes it will be boring but since it is a new camera to you and you're not familiar with all the buttons and controls if you spend a bit of time wwith the camera now, when you use it for a paying job you won't be in a panic if something happens and you need to go away from the settings you have. Like any camera, the better you know it the less you have to think about the camera and the more you can concentrate on the job at hand. Since you're not spending money on tape stock and you can clean and use the card over and over again, I would shoot anything and everything that gets in the way of the lens.
Congrats on the new toy and have fun with it.

[Sara Jourhmane]

The advice I am looking for I guess, is how to obtain quality footage from this camera. I am a salaried employee by my company.

TIA

Sara

[Noa Put]

Practice makes perfect, you can read as much as you want about a camera but there is only one way to find out and that's to shoot with it and look at the result. If you then encounter a problem you can narrow your questions here down to that particular problem, only then you can get a helpfull answer.

[Ozgur Iskin]

Do what you were doing with your Sony S270u and Z5u. Results will automatically be better i guess? :)

[Bob Jackson]

Originally Posted by Sara Jourhmane

The advice I am looking for I guess, is how to obtain quality footage from this camera. I am a salaried employee by my company.

TIA

Sara

Buy Doug Jensen's book / video when it comes out.

[Jack Zhang]

Stick to your SxS card and stick to 50Mbps UDF mode.

Unfortunately, the SDHC adapter and SDHC cards do not support the highest quality recording mode on this camera. My advice is to exchange them for XQD cards and a XQD adapter.

Also, you should be aware that there now exists a BP-U90 battery which would be very helpful for your case of long-form recordings.

[Sara Jourhmane]

So here is my shopping list:

1. Doug's Book about PMW-200
2. BPU-90
3. XQD Cards with SXS adapter.

Questions:

Currently I am using Sennheiser EW 100 ENG G3. I need a decent, not too expensive shotgun microphone.
Sony ECM-674 and Rode NG2 (Both under $300 USD) fit my budget. Are these ok?

Sara

PS: Jack: The reason I want to keep SxS to SDHC adapter is becasue I own bunch of high speed cards for My Canon 1DX.

[Jack Zhang]

You can only use SDHC cards in 35Mbps mode. This is 4:2:0 color and is inferior to the 50Mbps this camera is capable of. You must set your File Format to "FAT" in order to use them. The 200 defaults to "UDF", so you'll encounter an error if you use the SDHC adapter without changing a setting.

These SDHC adapters are also USB based. You will not notice a transfer speed increase because it's an "ExpressCard." The max transfer rate is no faster than USB 2.0 (not 3.0) Some adapters are slower than USB readers in some instances.

FYI, Cinegammas are called Hypergammas on the 200. This is a good Picture Profile to start off with: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-xdc...tml#post814941 (Only thing that needs to be figured out is an equivalent to the "High Sat" matrix preset on the 200)

[Phil Murray]

Originally Posted by Sara Jourhmane

Currently I am using Sennheiser EW 100 ENG G3. I need a decent, not too expensive shotgun microphone.
Sony ECM-674 and Rode NG2 (Both under $300 USD) fit my budget. Are these ok?

I think you mean a Rode NTG-2. It's a very good microphone and works well on-camera for ambient sound and really close head shots and probably on a boom, too. ( I've not used it on a pole before.) If you could find a used NTG-3, it's a big step up in sound quality. I started out with an NTG-2 and was quite happy with it till I heard the NTG-3. Still have it, though I don't use it anymore.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Bob Jackson

Buy Doug Jensen's book / video when it comes out.

Bob, thanks for the plug. The training DVD is in production and should be released in late November. If there is a book it won't be until sometime 2013.

[Doug Jensen]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

Stick to your SxS card and stick to 50Mbps UDF mode.

For most people that would be good advice, but Sara says she shoots staff meetings and press conferences. I'm sure that the 35Mbps HQ mode in FAT is going to be plenty good enough for that and she'll have much smaller files sizes, and get significantly more recording time on her cards. Plus she can use the cards she already owns. That's my advice anyway.

[Sara Jourhmane]

I am planning to go to Central Park, weather permitting to test this baby out.

Meanwhile its sitting in my living room.