AV News 190 - Novembert 2012
The conversion of a video ‘Luddite’
Peter Appleton
At the end of January 2012 I was totally antivideo in AV. At the time of writing this, the end
of August 2012, I am totally pro-video in AV.
How did my 'Road to Damascus' conversion
happen?
Back in February I came into an unexpected
windfall of money. After making the major
disposals of the cash, I had some leftover:
enough to allow me to buy a second-hand
Nikon D300s. I have spent the summer
exploring its capabilities and, in particular, its
ability to capture video. The D300s can capture
video in three formats, the highest quality being
1280x720 pixels. Whilst I would have preferred
a camera capable of capturing video at
1920x1080 pixels, the left over pennies wouldn't stretch that far.
I have now arrived at the point where I have just completed the first
'director's cut' of my latest AV project - a sequence about our local water
powered corn mill: 'Tocketts Mill'. I'll be touting it around the autumn meetings
of the RPS AV Group at Snods Edge, Bradford and Wilmslow so some of you
will get a chance to see it there. The sequence is built up from 19 video clips,
27 still main images, 10 'picture in picture' images and two animated objects.
The hardware used has been my Nikon D300s and my trusty Zoom H4 sound
recorder. The software used has been: Lightroom, Photoshop Elements,
Audacity and PicturesToExe v7.0. Note the absence of any video editing
software. What have I learnt while doing this project?
Capturing the video
It is important to think of video as being like sound: you must get it right at
point of capture - there's no second chance (at least, not with my set-up).
· Keep the camera rock-steady: it is the subject that moves, not the camera.
· Beware bouncy floorboards and passing strangers when filming indoors!
· Keep the camera dead level if possible: you cannot easily level up a
sloping horizon.
· Pay attention to the same things that you would if shooting stills:
· Get the exposure right
· Get the focus right
· Watch the lighting: rapidly changing if outdoors, colour balance if indoors
I tried to simplify things for my first attempts by not trying to capture the sound
in the camera. I captured the location sound asynchronously (sometimes on
a different day) using the H4 and then brought that sound and the silent
movie together in PTE. As the subject did not involve 'talking heads' there
was no issue with 'lip synch'.
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