Video recording novice questions

[davidedric]

Hi everyone,

I have done very little video recording with my m4/3 cameras.

I am thinking about offering to do some recording for a ukulele group that I play with.

I would be using my Panasonic G80 body, with a lens to suit the venue (mostly indoors, may be outdoors in the summer). This is not intended to be "professional" video, just to record something decent that can be posted to YouTube.

I'm thinking that I'll be recording using a tripod, and will need an external microphone.

Once I start reading about frame rates and so on, my brain starts to freeze.

I'd be grateful for any ideas, pointers and instruction.

Thanks,

Dave

[Manfred M]

Feature films are recorded at 24 frames / sec in North America. I believe that 25 frames / sec may be used in Europe. While your camera can probably record at higher frame rates, this is not optimal for video streaming work; slower frame rates will give you choppy replay. Standard HD recordings are done at either 720p or 1080i (p = progressive and i = interleaved).

Tripod for sure. You really don't want to make your audience motion sick with the bobbing and weaving of most amateur video. Two external microphones (if your camera can handle two inputs) would be good for stereo recording. The built in microphone in your camera body will be mediocre. Positioning of where the microphones go is something you are going to have to figure out. I would not record outdoors as you are likely to pick up all kinds of extraneous noise. Indoors, you will have a bit more control.

If you plan to shoot the whole scene in a single take, that would be fine as that would minimize cuts in editing. If you do want to get fancier, shoot the whole thing from two or three different positions and merge in edit. You might want to do a few closeup head shots of some of the players, but the moment you include hands and the playing of the instruments, the editing of the sound track and video track becomes far more difficult.

I can't help you with editing software other than Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro; I don't think you would be using either package.

[davidedric]

Thanks, Manfred. I was hoping that you would answer.

You're right - I won't be using Premiere Pro. I am on Windows, but that is something I won't be renting.

I think I'll have lots of chances to practice in our our general singing sessions - before going public in the spring. It will of course be different whether I am setting up to record and perform, or whether I am just the videographer!

Dave

[rpcrowe]

Dave,

Premier Elements is the simplified version of Premier but can do a very decent job editing.

Another reasonably priced and very easy to use editing program is Wondershare Filmora which costs USD $30 per year or $60 lifetime. https://filmora.wondershare.com/

Despite owning a plethora of DSLR cameras and lenses, I shoot my videos using my iPhone and edit using iMovie. Most of my videos are 15-30 seconds long and just show my rescue dogs moving around. I can shoot on the iPhone, edit on the spot and publish to our facebook straight from the phone without transferring anything to my computer...

BTW: there are lots of YouTube videos on making music videos.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...eos+techniques

[Geoff F]

I did a bit of experimenting with my Canon 7D Mk II last year and posted some questions on CinC last August.

Eventually after quite a bit of reading and experimentation I ended up with a reasonable result.

Frame rate. You can shoot at double the finished rate so that will give you 1/50 shutter speed, although that can be a bit slow for moving subjects. Shoot in shutter priority but if you need a controlled aperture make these settings manually and use auto Iso.

Yes, definitely require a tripod. Try to work out your 'storyline' in advance so you can easily have your camera in the correct alignment all the time.

How is audio recorded in your camera? With my 7D it is embedded into the images instead of being on a separate layer. This can make editing difficult at times so I tended to shoot with sound off and record audio with a separate recorder than blended the two together along with any commentary afterwards. But this can be difficult to get in synch if people are talking; in which case you have to include sounds with the actual images.

Correct position of a good quality microphone is essential to avoid any unwanted noise such as camera noise or the photographer breathing etc. Would you require a directional microphone?

After a while, I got to understand video editing with Adobe Photoshop CC which does a reasonable job of basic editing with a few enhancements and was much better than some of the free alternatives.

But, going by my own experience, my best advice would be to read as much as possible and experiment, then ask more questions. There are quite a few articles and videos about this subject on the internet.

[Manfred M]

Frame rate. You can shoot at double the finished rate so that will give you 1/50 shutter speed, although that can be a bit slow for moving subjects. Shoot in shutter priority but if you need a controlled aperture make these settings manually and use auto Iso.

Hollywood has been shooting at the 24 fps speed for decades. European television standards of 25 fps and North American / Japanese are just a hair under 30 fps (29.997 fps). Yes one can go at double frame rates (50 / 60 fps) but these are totally unsuitable for streaming video. Not everyone has high speed connectivity that makes these frame rates possible. Higher frame rates will result in choppy playback.

The same issue goes for too large of a resolution. 1280 x 720 is usually recommended for frame size (HD 720) and with good connectivity 1920 x 1080 (HD 1080) is possible. One other thing; use the h.264 video codec; this is pretty well the standard everyone uses.

Much like with posting an image, the better prep that one does, the more likely channels like Vimeo or YouTube won't butcher it too much when they re-encode.

[Geoff F]

That isn't what I meant, Manfred. 50 fps is used for HD video but you are often recommended to shoot your video with 1/50 shutter speed then convert to 25 fps (depending on video format) during the video rendering stage.

I did experiment with shooting moving birds as high as 1/500 then rendering at the normal fps rate which produced some good sharp images, although just a lttlle bit on the jerky side when played.

[Manfred M]

That isn't what I meant, Manfred. 50 fps is used for HD video but you are often recommended to shoot your video with 1/50 shutter speed then convert to 25 fps (depending on video format) during the video rendering stage.

I did experiment with shooting moving birds as high as 1/500 then rendering at the normal fps rate which produced some good sharp images, although just a lttlle bit on the jerky side when played.

Best practice is to capture and render at the same frame rate as that will give one the fewest artifacts / rendering issues. Throwing out every other frame (in a 50 fps to 25 fps conversion) is a bit of a strange approach. I'm not sure why that would be done. The only time where this type of approach would be used would be to shoot slow motion or accelerated motion scenes.

On my high end video camera (as opposed to my still cameras in video mode) I can vary the shutter speed from the frame rate (1/24th second or 1/30th second or 1/60th second) to 1/250th second.

[davidedric]

I downloaded Premier Elements. I'm sure that's the only video editor in going to need.

Thanks, Dave

Dave,

Premier Elements is the simplified version of Premier but can do a very decent job editing.

Another reasonably priced and very easy to use editing program is Wondershare Filmora which costs USD $30 per year or $60 lifetime. https://filmora.wondershare.com/

Despite owning a plethora of DSLR cameras and lenses, I shoot my videos using my iPhone and edit using iMovie. Most of my videos are 15-30 seconds long and just show my rescue dogs moving around. I can shoot on the iPhone, edit on the spot and publish to our facebook straight from the phone without transferring anything to my computer...

BTW: there are lots of YouTube videos on making music videos.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...eos+techniques

[davidedric]

Just thought I'd feed back. I recorded my ukulele group at our local music festival last Saturday. Unfortunately, I couldn't of course perform and record at the same time. In spite of the limitations of the venue and the videographer, the participants are very happy with the results, which are now posted on our brand new YouTube channel.

Thanks to everyone for your help,

Dave