Monday, January 01, 2007
Hit by a stomach virus and support for my camera
Well things have been busy which was not the case when I started this excursion in poor time management. So my misfortune, a very distressing case of stomach virus, leads to an actual update.
So I have this tantalizing HD-100 camera, is that the end of it? No, of course not. Does anything that went with my PD-170 work with the HD-100? Let's see, some microphones and cables, the lights and the headphones. That's it. Time to spend some more money! Here's what I ended up with on a limited budget:
Tripod: The tripod I had for the PD-170 was overwhelmed by the weight of the HD-100 with a battery. I have older tripods from my past years with big heavy cameras but I am loath to return to lugging those around. Directed to the Amvona eBay site by the wonderful forums at DV Info net (link to the left), I found very reasonably priced, well constructed, new tripods for auction. I got one, an AT-9903, for roughly $350. How they managed that price I don't know, but while I didn't get the greatest tripod (no fast pans allowed) it certainly works for interviews and other calm shots. http://www.amvona.com/ is the company site. I would give you an eBay link but Amnova tripods are curiously absent from any seaches I try. Perhaps they made their mark and are happier to sell direct now.
Case/Bag: I have an oversized Petrol bag for my PD-170, http://www.petrolbags.com/, which has done it's job very well. It was just a little too small for the HD-100. On a visit to a camera rental house I saw that their rental HD-100s were not doing so well in standard soft camera cases. A design flaw in the structure of the HD-100 (and I assume the new HD-200 and 250 as well) places the viewfinder at risk of snapping off if the soft bag is crushed in with lots of other baggage. That was something I felt worth an investment to prevent.
At the time, only Portabrace made a soft case that protected the viewfinder, at the expence of 6 extra pounds of weight to a normal 6 pounds for a soft bag alone. It does get heavy. I got the available bag but since then PortaBrace has come out with a case designed with the HD-100 in mind, http://www.portabrace.com. Petrol and Kata also have viewfinder support cases now. I'm happy with the Porta-Brace bag but it can be tiring on long shoots, it's just a bit to big to be comfortable for my body shape (skinny).
Filters and Matte Box: I made a purchase of a set of Schneider 4x4 filters to go in my very cheap matte box I got from an enterprising individual who runs http://www.indiesnap.com/. I got the matte box in anticipation of a low budget movie shoot that..... NEVER HAPPENED..... BOTH OF THEM! Well that's the breaks, maybe 2007. At least I'm ready for lighting issues that a matte box can help solve. The indiesnap matte box, while limited in function, is so much cheaper and lighter then anything it completes with that I recommend it to the snottiest cameraperson. The one drawback is that the filter area allows light to hit the lens at certain angles. I solved this with a trip to the craft store. A $5 ribbon of wide velcro solved the issue. I would talk about the filters but I haven't had a need to use them yet.
DTD Recorders: One day I had a shoot and there were no HDV tape to be found anywhere. I gritted my teeth and used off the shelf Fuji DV tapes. The dropout was persistent and severe enough that I had to edit the project (a music video thank goodness) around the dropout. It was so low budget that a reshoot was not possible. By the way, the dropout wasn't noticable on the small monitor that was brought along. I vowed to only use HDV tapes from then on until I was hit with the worst dropout I've had in twenty years of shooting with some JVC HDV tapes. That's when I was informed that HDV tape is no more then regular DV tape from the center of the giant spool when they make it! This is a bind. It was clear that a DTD recorder was calling to me from the near future.
Well, there isn't much in the way of a useful DTD recorder except from Focus Enhancements. Notice the lack of a link? Well they'll have to make up for a lot before I give the very, very minor satisfaction of a link on this incredibly unimportant blog. They have, without a doubt, one of the most customer unfriendly executive mangement teams around. They sell equipment with the promise of support and then change the terms of support. This has happened more then once and not just to me. Check out the forums. Anyway I have an FS-4 ProHD and it works well after a lot of stress about upgrades. I originally had a FS-4 HD but found out that Focus wasn't going to ever offer updates for it. This is a big issue since nobody had settled on a method for capturing HDV to disk yet. There was nothing in Focus' materials that stated, "we will not offer upgrades for this model". Fortunately I was able to return the FS-4 HD and exchange up (with extra money) to the FS-4 ProHD.
The promised upgrade arrived but without support for 24p QuickTime recording. They promised that that was forthcoming but now (as of December 28, 2006) it seems that that was really only for owners of the JVC repackaged version of the same device, the DR-HD100. So I recommend that all users of the HD-100 to avoid any direct purchases of Focus Enhancement DTD devices and get a DR-HD100 thru your friendly JVC dealer. Don't have one? Here's a link I'm happy to post: http://www.ggvideo.com/.
Uh-oh, the stomach virus is rumbling (or is it the sound of Focus Enhancements changing their attitude?)
Next sporatic post - shooting experiences.
So I have this tantalizing HD-100 camera, is that the end of it? No, of course not. Does anything that went with my PD-170 work with the HD-100? Let's see, some microphones and cables, the lights and the headphones. That's it. Time to spend some more money! Here's what I ended up with on a limited budget:
Tripod: The tripod I had for the PD-170 was overwhelmed by the weight of the HD-100 with a battery. I have older tripods from my past years with big heavy cameras but I am loath to return to lugging those around. Directed to the Amvona eBay site by the wonderful forums at DV Info net (link to the left), I found very reasonably priced, well constructed, new tripods for auction. I got one, an AT-9903, for roughly $350. How they managed that price I don't know, but while I didn't get the greatest tripod (no fast pans allowed) it certainly works for interviews and other calm shots. http://www.amvona.com/ is the company site. I would give you an eBay link but Amnova tripods are curiously absent from any seaches I try. Perhaps they made their mark and are happier to sell direct now.
Case/Bag: I have an oversized Petrol bag for my PD-170, http://www.petrolbags.com/, which has done it's job very well. It was just a little too small for the HD-100. On a visit to a camera rental house I saw that their rental HD-100s were not doing so well in standard soft camera cases. A design flaw in the structure of the HD-100 (and I assume the new HD-200 and 250 as well) places the viewfinder at risk of snapping off if the soft bag is crushed in with lots of other baggage. That was something I felt worth an investment to prevent.
At the time, only Portabrace made a soft case that protected the viewfinder, at the expence of 6 extra pounds of weight to a normal 6 pounds for a soft bag alone. It does get heavy. I got the available bag but since then PortaBrace has come out with a case designed with the HD-100 in mind, http://www.portabrace.com. Petrol and Kata also have viewfinder support cases now. I'm happy with the Porta-Brace bag but it can be tiring on long shoots, it's just a bit to big to be comfortable for my body shape (skinny).
Filters and Matte Box: I made a purchase of a set of Schneider 4x4 filters to go in my very cheap matte box I got from an enterprising individual who runs http://www.indiesnap.com/. I got the matte box in anticipation of a low budget movie shoot that..... NEVER HAPPENED..... BOTH OF THEM! Well that's the breaks, maybe 2007. At least I'm ready for lighting issues that a matte box can help solve. The indiesnap matte box, while limited in function, is so much cheaper and lighter then anything it completes with that I recommend it to the snottiest cameraperson. The one drawback is that the filter area allows light to hit the lens at certain angles. I solved this with a trip to the craft store. A $5 ribbon of wide velcro solved the issue. I would talk about the filters but I haven't had a need to use them yet.
DTD Recorders: One day I had a shoot and there were no HDV tape to be found anywhere. I gritted my teeth and used off the shelf Fuji DV tapes. The dropout was persistent and severe enough that I had to edit the project (a music video thank goodness) around the dropout. It was so low budget that a reshoot was not possible. By the way, the dropout wasn't noticable on the small monitor that was brought along. I vowed to only use HDV tapes from then on until I was hit with the worst dropout I've had in twenty years of shooting with some JVC HDV tapes. That's when I was informed that HDV tape is no more then regular DV tape from the center of the giant spool when they make it! This is a bind. It was clear that a DTD recorder was calling to me from the near future.
Well, there isn't much in the way of a useful DTD recorder except from Focus Enhancements. Notice the lack of a link? Well they'll have to make up for a lot before I give the very, very minor satisfaction of a link on this incredibly unimportant blog. They have, without a doubt, one of the most customer unfriendly executive mangement teams around. They sell equipment with the promise of support and then change the terms of support. This has happened more then once and not just to me. Check out the forums. Anyway I have an FS-4 ProHD and it works well after a lot of stress about upgrades. I originally had a FS-4 HD but found out that Focus wasn't going to ever offer updates for it. This is a big issue since nobody had settled on a method for capturing HDV to disk yet. There was nothing in Focus' materials that stated, "we will not offer upgrades for this model". Fortunately I was able to return the FS-4 HD and exchange up (with extra money) to the FS-4 ProHD.
The promised upgrade arrived but without support for 24p QuickTime recording. They promised that that was forthcoming but now (as of December 28, 2006) it seems that that was really only for owners of the JVC repackaged version of the same device, the DR-HD100. So I recommend that all users of the HD-100 to avoid any direct purchases of Focus Enhancement DTD devices and get a DR-HD100 thru your friendly JVC dealer. Don't have one? Here's a link I'm happy to post: http://www.ggvideo.com/.
Uh-oh, the stomach virus is rumbling (or is it the sound of Focus Enhancements changing their attitude?)
Next sporatic post - shooting experiences.
Labels: Amvona tripods, indie snap matte boxes, JVC HD-100, Porta-Brace bags
# posted by The Videoddgrapher @ 12:30 PM 
