Nu b with thanks and a request

yes i finally did it i bought it, after the price finally became justifiable, (not comparable to a motorbike), and i am one happy customer.

I would like to give thanks to everyone who has posted on this site and particularily this forum. It has been the primary source of information that guided me towards my decision of camera. that and a kind of love at first sight, always a good basis to part with your money.

although i confess i nearly saved more and went hd, fx7 or canon a1 i loved playing with them in the store and they both had different but great qualities. but as i have no hd television, it would be insane, and i have a new computer that would struggle with it. and at such a price i expect there is somewhat of a technology leap to be expected in the future to flash hard drives. i will sit tight for three to four years.

i would like to offer my gratitude to all but in particular to a man called 3ccd whose footage is lovely and input to this forum has been considerable. and also to a man callled turtle, whose advise and knowledge is appreciated and respected and is always noted. By the way that free online course offered by the bbc was great. For beginners it s a must.

http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=5914&cat=2781

i was out last night in shinjuku doing some night shots and basically playing with it. great. but wow the step up is just to great a leap for me. coming from a point and pray model to this camera is overwhelming.

please an appeal to all who have developed their own preferences for the scene files. could you please send me some example set ups. Night day, scapes or people, low light, bright light, anything please

i understand the advice given in many threads on this sight (of which i have read all), play with the camera and you will find your own subjective preferences. My knowledge base, experience and most of all personality (indecisive, whch pencil is beter, one hour later, still cant bite the bullet) and would appreciate some base to work from. Besides a good picture talks for itself. i think 90% of the time to 90% of the people.

I think such advise should be provided by the manufacturer, are all camera manuals so bad.

thanks guys love my new family member. thats two babies in one year.
A recommended scene file for taking shots of my new son would be really nice. I cant stop following him with the camera is this normal behaviour? :eek:

Thanks for the kind words and welcome to the DVC30 club.

Where to start....

first, if you have setup in your camera, turn it to zero. I think only the yankee camera's have it.

next, pick a scene file to start with that you like. the first two are the same, b-press and movielike are the last two. I dance between the two of them as a base. Next, I turn frame mode to normal. I turn off skin detail as it tends to soften the picture a little (which may be a good thing). next I play with chroma, up more colour, down less. I usually tweek the phase only 1 up or down depending. maybe i'll push the pedestal down a tad to make the blacks a little deeper. this stuff is all very subjective so you just have to tweek and watch. after a bit, your eye will gravitate to what you like more.

Next, setup some user buttons with things that you think you'll use the most. This will change about 20 times as you learn the camera.

Next, keep an eye on the light source. moving a few feet one way or another could be the difference between a horrible shot and a great shot.

I should also suggest kicking the camera in auto at first. just shoot some stuff and get used to it and how it looks. as you get braver, start to work one thing at a time in manual. When you are doing two or 3 things in manual, you'll notice that your video will be horrible. don't get discouraged, just keep at it and your video will get MUCH better.

But most important is to join us in the theme videos. This will get you to shoot some stuff you might not otherwise shoot. It'll also get you to use your camera in different ways. Now if it would just stop raining, I can get out and shoot some golden hour.

My master ped setting:

I am a newb as well and I have learned a lot from this forum and dvxuser.com as well. Thus, I recommend you to browse as much as possible from any forums related to the dvx100 and this camera.

One thing I learned from the dvx forum was to play with the master ped in the scene file. What the master ped does is that it makes the blacks blacker (contrast) if you set it to the lowest level. Thus, the contrast of the picture is better if you have it at a lower level. Check this comparison out on the dvx100 (similar to our dvc30):
http://www.dvxuser.com/MP/MP.htm

I also read that if you cover the lens and have it totally dark and turn the marker on (zebra button) you will see that it is at 8% or so. The percentage of the marker should be at 0% for good contrast so what I did is brought my master ped down to -7 in the scene file and it gave me greater contrast and the 0% I was looking for. You can play with the contrast at post, but it is more time consuming. Anyhow, for SNS (night shot) I set up the master ped at +15 and gives and the croma level at -7 (extremes, but they work for me) and gives me a great pic without any noise. You will see the difference with the SNS and master ped +15.

I recommend you not to go with anybody's settings but rather you try your own and see how they fit you type of shooting. I tell you this because I shoot mainly outdoors at daytime where light is abundant. But maybe you shoot differently and you will need a different setting for master ped.

Regards

Great tip and link for master ped. I think this would work great for controlled, well lit, scenes. I've always had mine set to around -4 or so, I'm going to try it at -7. If you use b-press, you get a similar contrast range and you might not turn it down so low.

Also someone posted about shooting a silouette against light. Master ped cranked all of the way down would give it that extra umph.


I also agree with Juanillo on the settings. I shoot most stuff inside with lights and it's totally different than outside at a different light temperature.

I also change my settings constantly, I wish they would have included something like a memory card where you could store the various settings. Keep the ideas and tips coming. I learn something new all of the time with video.

What a kick changing the master ped gave to the picture. An instant bam in your face. Thank you for that information Juanillo. I also got a zero reading on the zebra marker. I am guessing thats a good thing. It makes perfectly logical sense, no light and no reading. right? Seriously, thanks my picture has come alive.

I adjusted my scene settings according to your input thanks Turtle. I cant wait to join the themed video thread. (It will have to be unedited though, i ve recently being indulging in Adobes full production suit that makes shooting look comparitively easy. Is swearing exceptable?)
I would however prefer it to be a competition or at the least some sort of rating system.

Why? Obviously not because i would do well. I beleive it would make it a lot more interactive, informative, critical and fun to join in.

Oh yes guys I m currently working on a night scape in the city with lots of bright neon lights. i played with 1/60, 1/100 1/30 dbs and f.s....Only. None of the shots looked perfect, inparticularily, i could not come close to reproduce the scene which i veiwed with the naked eye. The colours just so wrong.

One more sample scene pleeease.

I would however prefer it to be a competition or at the least some sort of rating system.

Why? Obviously not because i would do well. I beleive it would make it a lot more interactive, informative, critical and fun to join in.

Oh yes guys I m currently working on a night scape in the city with lots of bright neon lights. i played with 1/60, 1/100 1/30 dbs and f.s....Only. None of the shots looked perfect, inparticularily, i could not come close to reproduce the scene which i veiwed with the naked eye. The colours just so wrong.

One more sample scene pleeease.

Having someone knowledgeable enough to critique one's work is always good but especially someone who can do more than "oh, that's just horrible" without giving you the why it's bad or come up with a suggestion or two to better the work.

Your night scenes may have to do more with Colour Balancing than anything else if it's your colours that's giving you a lot of probs.

I found this camera very easy to set colour balance with. Though I haven't done anything outdoors with it 'YET' I plan to before it gets tooooo cold out there..

Turtle,

Thanks for the input on the thread. I have personally learned a lot from your threads.

Marques,

The other thing I have learned is that if you have shaky hands (I sort of do), if you are shooting telezoom you might want to you use the viewfinder instead of the LCD and push it (not to hard, but hard enough so the shake is gone) against you eye so that you will a more stable hand. This can be tiring, but it works for a couple of minutes (at least for me it does). I learned this from a photography forum about Panasonic Lumix cameras (by the way the digicameras from pana are just as good as their video cams - great built).

Turtle,

I went to your website and noticed that you are into pro sound recording. I have used pro tools LE and adobe audition, and I know how to use them, but I would like to learn more about sound itself. Do you recommend any books or websites?

Regards

Juanillo, actually i ve started using the viewfinder for another reason that is to conserve the juice. but thats incredible to know and good advise. i always got too much shake on my pictures on my previous point and pray model. Not to mention any names he he he he hitachi.......ooh bless me. damn cold. good hard drives though.

I bought myself an expensive tripod (20pounds)to rectify this, which is great but my shots are not as interesting any more and lack a certain quality that i am having trouble to define at the moment. and given the many threads that indicate the OIS is (I want to swear again). What can i do? i thought about putting the tripod on wheels, but i dont know where they sell roller skates for a skinny three legged guy.

seeking

100% but i also think that even people with no knowledge or skills can add vital input and reveiw, whilst sharing comments and giving a grade. after all the end user is the most important concern in commercial products, whom actually, generally know and care little about how the product was put together.

for example, one theme was trees but i thought whilst watching one clip that it was way of theme or in another i didnt like the sound track and it was boring as hell. And then i watched a willd car scene, blur, of subject, etc. but i found it interesting and different and actullay managed to stay awake.

yes you are right i have no technical knowledge to back up my subjective opinions, in order to advise the creator but Hopefully the producer may take those issues into consideration in the next theme.

Actually i enjoy watching them all. One thing i have noticed about Turltle is his clips are always different and interesting. By the way turtle nice dog.
And a man called Mark Williams your stuff is so so nice, that ocean clip i want to live right there.

ah question.
Colour balance. Could you say that slowly. How do i do that man.

by the way i took somebodies advise about whte balancing every time the light source changes. But yesterday i looked at my notebook and actually its not white its cream is this important.
will any old screwed up piece of paper do.

there's a lot of good places to learn more about audio. Forums are good because you get specific question answered. recording.org is a good place. gearslutz.com is another. recforums.prosoundweb.com has good info too but it's best to lurk as posting something dumb might get you a lot of flack. these 3 places alone would be about 6 months of reading threads.

I think a competition would be great, but it would need some serious organization and a sponsor. Without a prize, it's not really a competition. We would also need a objective 3rd party(s) to judge too. What would be nice is if Panasonic would sponsor a DVC30 competition with DVC30 prizes. They could also be the judge.... hint hint anyone from Panasonic watching???? maybe some batteries, tapes, shotgun mic, t-shirts, bags. Now that would be cool. I think people that could see the camera in action would buy more of them. So Panasonic would make their money back if just 1 person bought the camera as a result of the competition. Hint Hint...... I think i'm going to email Panasonic to see if they'd be interested.

Ok, I emailed them. I have no idea if I emailed the right person though. we'll see. Maybe someone knows who to contact at Panasonic to get something going. Or maybe it could be another sponsor. Ideas?

wow that would be incredible if something like that could happen. i wonder how they kick started the competition over on the dvx sight. :p

Incidently, how do you post a clip on the sght for you guys to view, i know i am a bit behind the times. its not unusual. :mad:

Marques,

You wrote:

"for example, one theme was trees but i thought whilst watching one clip that it was way of theme or in another i didnt like the sound track and it was boring as hell. And then i watched a willd car scene, blur, of subject, etc. but i found it interesting and different and actullay managed to stay awake."

If you think that this kind of criticism is good for sharing examples or for competition, I have to say that I don't want you as a judge.

Keep this forum free from such comments!

Regards,

/Bo

Before we decende into HELL. Let's realize that no one hear besides Mark or maybe a couple of others is doing this for something other than fun. I think we are all here to learn and improve. Knocking others attempts is not constructive to either the shooter or the viewer. Respectful and constructive critisism is the only thing that should be posted. If one is looking for hollywood movies, i'm sure there is a theater near that is showing some. Here we shoot within our means and ability. Within every shot you can find something interesting or unique. Until someone here posts something that wins a big award, we're all just a bunch of hobbiests trying to make better video. So let's keep that in mind.

Now go shoot some freaking golden hour videos.

I've noticed that morning doesn't look nearly as interesting as evening. I wonder why? with daylight savings, It's damned hard to get off work early enough to shoot. So I have to wait for the weekend, but then it rains. I've been watching a lot of movies that have scenes shot at this hour and boy does it look good. One night last week I had the perfect oportunity to shoot some amazing golden hour video but I didn't have any batteries charged. hahahah. All i could do was stand on my balcony in NYC and look at it thinking what an oportunity I missed. Every evening seems to have a different look to it.

Wow touchy...
I am sorry. I do hope you can accept my sincere apology.　I do have a terrible sense of humour. But I was merely stating a point. I did go on to say "actually I enjoyed them all". However, your right i do need to grow up a bit, boy. I see I have to keep my guard up.

i repeat to anyone else who got upset. sorry..


This evening i went into tokyo about a half hour trip, one to buy an on-camera video light and secondly, to film a scene.

Video lights are ridiculous, there was an LED on-camera light which was small and not so bright around 150 pounds. Then anything stronger required a dc socket. Or panasonic offered a poor 10watts for around 45 pounds. I could get a sony light 20watts if i buy a sony camera battery but 20watts is nothing Tokyo must be one of the worst places for video equipment.

secondly I went to a spot to film looked around for ten minutes and found a suitable sight relaxed sat down started witing in the log and set up tripod, pulled the camera out of its many bags and..yes....it rained.

Next i return home and somebody takes a shot at me. hahaha

He is absolutely right. He is bang on. You dont want me as a judge.

on camera lights are very expensive for good ones and even then they don't throw very far. I think they are mostly used for interview kind of stuff. To get any kind of power out of a light, you will have to get a battery belt (heavy) to power it. I have a 100watt light, it's big, and the belt is huge and heavy, and that lasts only about 2 1/2 hours.

Marques, I'm in Kyoto and about to join you in the DVC30 club. I'm interested to know where you bought yours (Akihabara?), and the price, if you can tell. I'm going to buy from a shop here in Kyoto that also sells on Yahoo Japan Auction site, for ¥169,800. Actually, I would have gotten it on Monday if they had it in stock. Probably tomorrow.

Hey Guys,

People like different things. That's what makes us unique. I shoot what I like and hope that someone (at least one) out there likewise finds it enjoyable. But I also welcome constructive critcism. It helps me become better at what I do. A recent observation about some artifacts in one of my clips posted here helped me learn how to encode to get better quality at a similar bitrate. What we need to take into consideration is we all have different technical and story telling skill levels, with hopefully one common goal that is to get better at what we do whether it be a hobby or a commercial venture.

One thing I like about this forum is the helpfullness given to others as well as it being DVC30 specific. That's what will keep me here.

Regards,

Mark
natureflixs (http://www.natureflixs.com)

Kyoto

You are a lucky man. I love Kyoto, so much beauty and rich colour. Just great. I went two years ago for four days and enjoyed it so much. urrrh...anyway i bought mine from the same shop in Tokyo. They give a one year manufacturing cover which was an important factor for me because i originally was gonna go second hand. Sony f1 240 000, dvx 100 is 220 000 and a sony 2000 arond 150 000. all of which were covered for three months being second hand, with the exception of GL2 with tons of extras for 120 000 with no shop warranty whats so ever......not surprised given its reputation. Oh buy the way the dvc 30 comes with a free bee as well.

I however have just been blessed with a son who I am totally nuts about. So i was driven to buy right now by a kind of panic frenzy so not to miss those sacred moments in life. otherwise i would have held out until march when the anticipated panasonic lines will begin to be upgraded thus further reducing the price on the dvc 30. although stocks seem to be running low. such a great picture no regrets.

I love my camera and its everything i anticipated and more. I have rarely been so satisfied with a purchase. However audio is in my opinion a real issue. Why? well from reading in this forum I new I would probably have to spend more money, no surprises there. So i had 70% made up my mind on the rode NTG 2 (although I read it may be over sensitive) but i want to see it and get a hands on feel for it before i decide to buy it. Here in Tokyo i couldn t find it anywhere.. :( .....There were two manufactures of which i know little azden and shore in abundance. I could bite the bullet and order. :confused: ....bottom line, in my opinion and many others apparently, depending on your requirements and desire your gonna have to spend more on audio. the built in mic in my eyes is no better than the built in one i had on my previous point and pray model. well actually worse considering the price difference.

Turtle man. If i ever come to your country i want to buy you a drink.(only a small one though). at this point i beleive no one mic is suitable for all scenarios that i intend to film in (loud, birds, babies, interviews, you name it i wanna film it) but i just cant buy more than one mic in the near future so Sorry i have a terribly hard subjective question that others may not agree with. but If you could only buy one mic. (on-camera) what would it be? Do you know anything about the above makers shore and azden.

I surfed through forums on lighting last night. to be honest i wish i never did...fatigue...I ve just opened the light door again in my life...This is what i think I learnt. Bright lights are really good but they should be made soft with the use of filters and reflectors so to make the light look natural and they prevent beams, etc. its important that you consider the whiteness of the light or the so called warm redish spectrum of white and cold the blueish spectrum of light. dont understand the blue and red thing though. u should use at least three lights. although i ll begin with one. step by step. position is important. use natural light and complement it.
as you kindly pointed out the options are good light for a price and weight, poor light for a price no weight or no light. what i did have a problem in finding information about is why i cant use a really powerful industrial sized set of torches with some very fine cloth over them. their is little heat generated from torches and cheap. there must be reason.

Mark Williams. nice message. Thats exactly what i wanted to say. Nice like that.

that's a loaded question.... 1 mic to pic??? well for video and on camera, it would be a shotgun. Now which shotgun is up to your pocket. the bigger the pocket, the better the mic. But like i've said, all the top manufacturers have great shotgun mics. I'm not saying all of their mics are great, but they all have at least one shotgun that's nice. The first mic I bought for my camera was a Rode NTG-2. great mic, not the best mic, but for $250 you won't find one better. Anything you buy is going to be leaps and bounds better than the mic on the camera. so in that respect, you can't loose.

off topic:

I've heard that in Japan there is an Uni festival. Is that true? and if so, when is it, where is it, and how do I get in? I'm an UNI fanatic. I can eat a piece of uni and tell you where it's from, that's how much I eat it.

Marques,

I have heard good things about audio technica atr55 (shotgun). I just bought it but I have not used it yet. However, read the reviews at amazon, they sound convincing.

http://www.amazon.com/Technica-ATR-55-Condenser-Shotgun-Microphone/dp/B00006J04Z/sr=11-1/qid=1163642666/ref=sr_11_1/002-3132926-0466415

Turtle,

Thanks for the links to the websites.

Mark,

Can you post the way to encode at a similar bit rate and get better image? So we can learn how to do it as well.

Juanillo cheers for that link.

Turtle
Your frightening me with that kind of language UNI yipes...whats that? Your pobably right they seemingly celebrate everything. In kawasaki they have a festival for mens p......you know downstairs and they carry these big replicas and pray to them. hope its not that. haha

Tell me what it is, i ll get some info.

man and also $250 and not the best. which one if you had the money to burn?

I just got email that my DVC30 has arrived, so I will be able to get some autumn foliage shots to compare with my GS70.

"Uni" is the Japanese word for "sea urchin." It's the only Japanese food I've eaten that I don't like, so I am not ging to be going to any festival for it, that's for sure.

Congratulations. On the camera man, I was out filming today in the local park. It was awesome all the colours gave new life to me and everything looked so beautiful. i ve gotta get out more often.

Uni its wanna of the many things i cant eat man. Those live little esa fish, grasshoppers and raw horse.

Turtle

sorry gizza, her indoors doesn t know the uni festival. I ll ask at work

Juanillo,

I have been experimenting with Windows Media Encoder 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx), Riva Flash (http://www.rivavx.com/?encoder), and Quicktime. All three will give excellent results. The settings you select will be related to how large a file size you want. Most people won't have the patience or connection speed to download really large files. I selected to use the WME9 encoder based on wide use by PC users, its advanced encoder features and it is free. The best settings that I found for my use is a video window size of 320x240 and a constant encoder bitrate of 900kbs. With these settings the disolves in the clips are acceptable. Also be sure to deinterlace the video.

Oh, and take a look at the Riva encoder. It is also free and has simple controls yet produces elegant results. However, your viewers will have to download the Riva player to view the video.

Of course you need a place to host your video unless you have your own website. Youtube is the most popular. But I urge you not to use them as they re-compress your already compressed video making it look horrible. I use putfile.com which is free and allows you to upload an unlimited number of videos up to 25MB in size.

Hope this helps,

Mark
natureflixs (http://www.natureflixs.com)

Mark,

I am not sure but i think putfile has some regional restrictions. Perhaps you have tried kyoto and can confirm this.

My sister is in Japan right now and is able to use putfile.

Regards,

Mark

Mark

Did your sister register with putfile in Japan. I am able to watch files just not register.

Well I checked and she set everything up while in the U.S. However, she still uploads to the account from Japan. I didn't know there were country limitations. I'll check around and try to find a free service that might work for you.

Oh, I forgot to ask. What country do you live in?

Regards,

Mark
natureflixs (http://www.natureflixs.com)

Mark,

Thanks for the reply

I live in Japan. I guessing you can use all services with the exception of registering

Its my effort with many artifacts when i export to file,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8LeXo8xt7M

on dvd the picture is fine, i use premiere production suite, correction i am trying to use, but i just cant get good results. help!!

I want to keep copies on my hard disc and not be burdened with an ever increasing number of dvds. I ve checked other forums and used settings recommended but still artifacts. I cant bare to see my little son with artifacts. Its like a disease. "artifactuitious". um spell check

Please feed back

Please feed backmarques, I am not sure what you want help on. It sounds like your DVD video is fine but when you upload to YouTube you have a lot of artifacts.

Regardless of the format you upload your video in YouTube will convert and recompress your video into a Flash Video file (FLV) so there is going to be losses. That is a common complaint. They also appear to use a low video bit rate so fast moving objects will get distorted.

I don't know what video format video you uploaded to YouTube, they have recommended formats and image sizes which I found not to be the best.

I started doing some tests and uploaded a .WMV file created with Windows Movie Maker which was 740x480 image size and I think 1010 kbps video bit rate. It is not a video file per say but made from a series of stills a few years ago. So far it is the best results I have gotten uploading to YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye00uIdOmeU



Rich

well the biggest problem is youtube. It's horrible. it takes your already compressed video and compresses it again and just mangles it. yours looks pretty mangled. I'd find another place to put your videos. putfile doesn't recompress the video but it's limited in file size. Some places have larger file limitations but limit the number of downloads. basically all the free places have some kind of restriction or another. maybe others have some suggestions, but in general I think putfile is pretty good, just can't have very long clips if you want good quality.

well the biggest problem is youtube. It's horrible. it takes your already compressed video and compresses it again and just mangles it. yours looks pretty mangled. I'd find another place to put your videos. putfile doesn't recompress the video but it's limited in file size. Some places have larger file limitations but limit the number of downloads. basically all the free places have some kind of restriction or another. maybe others have some suggestions, but in general I think putfile is pretty good, just can't have very long clips if you want good quality.

You get what you pay for, so "free" service isn't always great, there is a price to pay, in one way or another..

This is why I have my own commercial server.. Worth the while.

You get what you pay for, so "free" service isn't always great, there is a price to pay, in one way or another..

This is why I have my own commercial server.. Worth the while.I agree. I have not had suitable results with putfile, and many other free hosts.

I only played around with YouTube because we have so many "whats wrong with my video" questions from beginners.



Rich

Thank you all very much for your quick and helpfull responses.

My main concern is I wish to archive editied videos on a hardrive in preferably a compressed format. When i try to do so i get poor quality results as bad as those that are posted on "you tube above".

I have even tried uncompressed format and still the quality is terrible even though the file sizes are huge just for a five minute video.

yet on divd the images look crisp.

does anyone else use premiere 2 and what settings do they use to archive their material.

I am basd in japan and cannot register with putfule (some kind of regional restrictions)

any other sites i can try.

give us the exact settings you are using. All of them. maybe we can suggest something based on these settings.