FS5 - audio in Premiere Pro

[Nigel Davey]

Recently I used my FS5 for a job with vox pop interviews. I had it set up with my rifle mic gong ito input 2 and the internal mic patched to input 1 (on auto).

When I imported the files into Premiere Pro CS6 it generated one track of stereo audio. This surprised me a little since I can't see any stereo settings in the audio menu on the FS5.

Now I know I can break the imported stereo out into two mono tracks in Premiere, but is there a way to force the camera to record mono onto input one and two rather than have the hassle of doing this?

[Doug Jensen]

The FS5 records two channels of mono and there is no stereo option, so whatever issue you are having is with your import into Premiere. Premiere allows tons of flexibility with how audio is imported so take a closer look at that part of your workflow and you'll find what works best for you. Right-click on any clip(s) in a bin and choose "Modify > Audio Channels" to see the choices.

[Nigel Davey]

Thanks Doug. I'm half way between leaving CS6 and upgrading to CC (on two seperate machines). I'm also half way through the CC trainng on Lynda (not audio yet) and your FS5 training on Vimeo. So it can be a little daunting when I run into something that doesn't work like it 'used to'.

Anyway it's good to know it's Premiere based and I'll sort it out in a day or two.

[Doug Jensen]

Yeah, it's easy to figure out once you know that it CAN be changed. At the tail end of the audio chapter of my FS5 master class I show how I configure my own audio in Premiere CC, but there are many different ways it can be setup according to one's needs.

[Nigel Davey]

I'm only up to chapter 6 right now. Looking forward to your profile, I'm not over the moon with the default and haven't had time to explore others yet.

The other thing that bugged me on a shoot last night (indoor, fluorescent lights, light coloured walls) was the tendency for the AE to overexpose. In the end I assigned AE shift to FN6 wound the shift down 1/2 a stop and flicked it in and out as needed. But my XF300 exposes fine in that same environment, so a bit annoying.

[Doug Jensen]

One of the best things you can do to improve your work is to learn to turn off AE, AF, and all other auto settings. It is within anyone's ability to take manual control of those things 100% of the time. Anyone who says they can't has less faith in their abilities that I have in their abilities. :-)

[Nigel Davey]

For run and gun I can live without autofocus and image stabilisation, but I do find AE useful. For interviews, drama, etc, I would go full manual.

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Doug Jensen

One of the best things you can do to improve your work is to learn to turn off AE, AF, and all other auto settings. It is within anyone's ability to take manual control of those things 100% of the time. Anyone who says they can't has less faith in their abilities that I have in their abilities. :-)

The auto settings are nearly always counter intuitive when it comes to grading. I've had the misfortune to have to grade some legacy footage provided to me where AE had been used and having to track the changes while the camera's AE does it's thing was time consuming.

Likewise I had some footage of a presentation provided to me where the operator had clearly used auto white balance. The camera was constantly hunting between the colour balance of the projector and the fluorescent lighting. Again some time consuming colour correction was called for.

Auto settings may seem a convenient time saver but I personally wish professional cameras omitted them and the money was spent on more useful features.

[Chad Johnson]

Plug the mic into input 1, then you can rout that to both channels in-camera. For some unknown reason you can's do that if you plug the mic into input 2.