JCCC4 - The AV Crowd

MJPM

New cruise, new thread for those folks who love lenses and mics.

So yeah, I will have my camera in tow once again (or maybe a new one, who knows what Christmas will bring). I may also be pulling in some more folks from the Unofficial PAX Community DVD/Official MAGFest Film Crew/Whatever Our Next Name Will Be. I pseudo promised myself I wouldn't film as much this coming year, but who am I kidding REALLY?! So, who's with me? 

gbasden

I'm in. I picked up a new offboard mic for the camera after the last cruise. I'm going to try to hit more events, but it's impossible to get to everything!

Angelastic

Present! I will probably still have my Canon s100 and D20 and GorillaPods, same as this year. 

I don't actually specifically love lenses and mics (though there's a Len and some Mikes I quite like) I just love rewatching and sharing things. All the things! All the things. You guys can cover the 'quality' side.

ThatGuy

Unless I get a new camera, I'll be going easy on the filming again this year.  I'm looking at replacements for my Playsport, but nothing I've seen so far in the same price range is any better than it.

Simalot

I'll probably do the same as this year, that is, film as I have energy and commandeer the post-cruise spreadsheet populating. I try to mostly film the less-filmed activities (after hours stuff) that might not have as much coverage, but wouldn't mind being given an assigned show.

OXOCube75

Well after being woefully under-prepared for JCCC3 I'll be bringing my kit with me. Shooting with a 6D, possibly vidio camera as well or new toys I get between now and then,

MJPM

So as an update, I will also have a helmet cam (Contour Roam 1600) for some semi-documentary stuff (Presidential Monkeys AKA the "Sex Zechs Party"). I will be bringing back the HDD of Destiny, with a BONUS: I will load all of my JCCC1-3 stuff on it. So, if folks want that, they can grab it from the game room. Trying to see if I can get a USB 3 hub for folks to plug in to so there is less of a queue. Hoping to get this info to the Helper Monkeys so folks know more this time...

Stay tuned for more!.

mikesphar

I'm seriously wondering what the odds are on at least one set of Google Glasses making an appearance. Maybe 2014 will still be too early though.

Angelastic

Oh, I could maybe bring a HDD with all my JCCC1-3 stuff too. I doubt I'd have time to put JCCC4 stuff on it during the cruise though.

Hm, I have a huge number of JCCC3 videos uploaded that I haven't labeled and made public yet. Must find time to do that.

MatMontgomery

Hi! First timer on JCCC - I'd love to help take photos and video on the next cruise. I've got a Canon 6D that will be coming in this week in time for Phoenix Comicon!

DoppelgangerJoe

I should say that sometimes the picture-taking can get obtrusive. On JCCC3 someone shouldered in front of me at the first night's show and started taking pictures with a huge camera. At the time I thought it was someone affiliated with the cruise, so I didn't say anything, but it doesn't seem worth it to me to take away from someone's present enjoyment of an event in order to record it for later.

MJPM

@DoppelgangerJoe I agree 100%. That's why I try to be as out of the way as possible with my filming. I think all of us are adult enough that you don't have to be silent if we get in the way. Totally speak up if we put a damper on your fun and are being obnoxious. I'd much rather people have a good time than sacrifice that for footage for later, but I still feel there is room for AV and real time fun without the two impacting each other.

Remember Wheaton's Law folks!

Just also wanted to update that I got a new video camera: the Canon XA10. This baby is sweet! I can't wait to use it. You can see it in action here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0tZQ_xRYyk

tmentz1

Don't forget that many us also enjoy seeing the final products and are willing to help out if visibility is an issue. I was at a show last year where there was table seating. Unknown to me at the time, there was a local videographer at my table and he had to dodge heads all night. Meanwhile, there was a half wall at my end of the table with an unobstructed view he could have used. Don't be afraid to ask to set up in front of someone in situations like this. Asking to gauge someone's level of distraction is better than assuming.

Also, thanks for your work. I dabbled recording shows years ago, but personally felt it distracted me too much from the performance, so I understand you make sacrifices to get stuff out there and not sure if you are thanked enough.

Angelastic

I know it's hard to complain to strange monkeys, but please, if anyone with a camera is getting in your way or otherwise bothering you (say because you wanted to sing along loudly but don't want to be heard in the footage, although I don't personally mind if someone can be heard singing along in my footage so if you're okay with being heard and the people around you don't mind then don't stop on my account), let them know. I try to obey Wheaton's Law but sometimes I wonder if I'm breaking it without realising. Sometimes I ask the people next to me whether my camera-wrangling (which in my case is getting up every 15 minutes or so to press a button, since I generally just have a camera sitting on a tripod on the stage doing its thing) is likely to bother them, but sometimes I forget.

If you are good at talking to strange monkeys and you see that somebody looks like they're bothered by a camera (or they have a camera and are too shy to ask about that spare spot on a table) then go ahead and see if you can use your communication skills to make things better.

chetman

I may or may not have seen troublesome camera behavior on JCCC3, but I'd be very, very surprised if anyone complained about Angelastic's shooting. She was always in her spot, and seemed to do her shooting very, very unobtrusively. 

They key to getting good shots is, I think, getting a good seat. Then, if you must, decamp to an aisle for some alt  angle shooting, but do so as quietly as you can, and respect the sight lines of the folks behind you when you do it. 

JadeSnake

I do have a couple tiny problems with Angela's shooting. On JCCC2 I was asked to move out of my seat (without Angela's knowledge) in order for her to have "her spot", and I find people walking up to the stage during a performance distracting. But these are small things that I can easily accommodate. I've been shouldered out of the way by enough photographers at shows that I've learned to stand my ground. So for me at least, don't worry about your camera placement. If you're impairing my enjoyment of the show, you'll know.

villicious

I really treasure Angela's and Jason's and many others' awesome footage of the shows. The cruise is beyond the means of so many people, so all that footage means people back on land get to share, and those of us who were there have a recording of the memory of it all. I take very few (and often none) shots and videos of the shows because I know that's in good hands with the folks who have dedicated such a big part of their cruise to capturing it. I would much rather have a few people up front recording as unobtrusively and politely as possible than everyone in the crowd seeing the whole thing through viewfinders (theirs or the many many many being held up in front of them).

BrettGlass

The only thing about cameras you really need to be careful of is to dodge them when they fall from the heavens. ;-)

Angelastic

Oh, I thought I was just lucky to always find a spot. Sorry about that, @JadeSnake. I should be there early enough that nobody feels like they need to save me a spot.

I liked when we had little tables on JCCC2, so I could put my camera on one and press buttons on it without getting up and potentially bothering people. Similarly, Studio B on JCCC3 was good because one could stand by the stage, or (as I did) sit on the side parts with a camera on the railing. Hopefully we can have little tables or something similar on JCCC4, and then everyone will be happy! Or at least they'll have somewhere to put their drinks.

You know what's (hopefully-)hilariously distracting? Shows where there's a very low stage and the seats are a few metres away from it, and I have to kind of crawl over to press buttons every 15 minutes or so. That happened in Bristol last year and it was kind of embarassing and I tried to be less distracting and had my camera on my knee instead for some of it, but it was difficult and JoCo joked about it a couple of times. However, that was the best show of the tour and I'm glad I filmed it (even though Kerrin was also filming, and a lady next to me filmed parts of it.) Anyway, I have nothing to complain about, as all I do is press a button every so often, replace a battery every so oten, and occasionally move the tripod when the layout of the stage changes. Some of the other people on the cruise really seem to watch the whole show through a viewfinder, and get amazing shots. If spots are to be saved, they should be saved for those people.

syscrush

It's been a while since I posted to the forum, but I would love to help out with any and all AV activities that are ongoing, particularly in audio mixing or production.  (I wonder if the powers that be would allow for mixing board recordings?)

Angelastic

An update, since I said I'd still have my s100: My s100 fell into a lake last week (It was securely attached to not-in-a-lake, but someone hit it hard enough to break the tripod), so, not wanting to just get the almost-identical next model in that line when I'd already bought two s100s (the previous one was stolen.) I looked at higher-end cameras and realised the Nikon P7700 had several features that seemed like they would be better for filming concerts than the Canon G15 which I'd assumed I'd get (my G9 served me well for several years while later G models and other brands/models got worse at things I cared about, and it looks like they're better again now.) So I bought the Nikon today. I hope there won't be too many things that are difficult to get used to in this sudden change of brand; having a lens cap to lose was one, but I have solved that problem with Velcro.

One of the good features which is new to me is the port for an external mic, so it looks like maybe I do love mics after all! (And a friend who hosted a Marian Call concert already made a mistake that I can learn from in that department: make sure the external mic is turned on) I will get an external mic for it, and have good sound even when it's too loud (it's never too loud on JCCC, but I've noticed distorted sound in my footage of some other concerts.) Yay!

A couple of people on facebook suggested (admittedly, for a different purpose) Rode videomics. I am wondering about these mics that vaunt how directional they are. Since I usually have my camera on or very close to the stage, is there likely to be a problem with pointing the mic at a performer and getting too much of their audio directly from them (or their monitor) rather than getting the mix that we hear from the speakers? Would I have already had that problem with my on-camera mics and it wasn't bad enough to notice?

Also, what do people think of the Shure video mic? I found that before seeing the suggestions on Facebook, because I know that Shure has a good reputation for mics. Is it likely to be worth the extra price? And how ridiculous would these mics look on a not-pocket-sized-but-still-compact camera like mine?

tl;dr: Maybe I will have quality as well as quantity this time. Or maybe unfamiliarity with my new camera will lead me to accidentally record the whole cruise in time lapse mode.

MJPM

Rode mics are pretty good. I've been meaning to get one, but my Sony ECM MS908C has served me well in the interim. Now that I have the Canon XA10,  I can look into XLR mics too! Rode is in my price range now though (Amazon Prime price rocks right now ).

You can check my vids for audio quality with the Sony though. Most of my concerts recently have seemed quiet as I was trying to reduce clipping, but I never mixed to audio to increase volume again, so my bad!

Angelastic

Another question about the Rode; according to the Rode website:

A -10dB and -20dB level attenuation (or PAD),
selectable from inside the battery compartment, allows recording of loud
sound sources, such as live music or motorsport.

Does this mean you have to open the battery compartment to change the attenuation? Can you do this while it is running, or do you have to know before the event how loud it is going to be, or interrupt the recording to change the setting if it is louder than you expected, or if a certain part of it is louder/quieter? And is there any kind of display to tell you if it's too loud, or do you just have to guess?

srdownie

The Shure VP83 is a brand-new product and sounds great!

Disclaimer: I work for Shure Inc.

Angelastic

Heh. No plug for the VP83F?

The VP83 does seem lighter than the Rode and to have more accessible controls, though when I compared the specs a couple of days ago I noticed the Rode had a slightly wider frequency range. (I can't recheck that now since rodemic.com seems to be down.) Not that I would notice; I actually have Shure earphones (Disclaimer: I chose them for reasons other than sound) so they ought to be able to reproduce all the sounds, but I don't pretend to be able to hear all the sounds.

srdownie

I'm sure I can find a plug for a VP83F around here somewhere. :-)

Speaking of headphones, I just snagged a pair of Shure SRH1840 headphones. Mmmm. Silky.

Go Shure!

BrettGlass

While I am a bit steamed at Shure for its recent activities in the world of radio spectrum (they tried to claim "squatter's rights" for illegal users of wireless mics that should have been licensed), that does seem like a good mic. Pattern is very directional, which might make things tricky when taking video of shows with sound reinforcement.

Angelastic

@srdownie: pff, why use such huge things when you can get the same sound (and better isolation, if my research from a few years ago is still valid, which it probably isn't, but hey, I started this sentence with 'pff', so it should be expected to be poorly-researched and not particularly serious) from in-ear ones?

@BrettGlass: drat, that (directionality)'s what I was worried about. Can anyone who actually films shows with an external mic comment on the effect of a highly directional mic when it's possibly closer to some of the performers and monitors than the speakers?

@MJPM: I just found out what XLR is. nCurses, I only just got a camera with any audio input at all, and already I find out about a potentially better kind.

I think I have more unanswered questions now than before I asked.

srdownie

For stereo recording, the new Zoom H6 looks pretty slick.

Angelastic

So those of you using or planning to use Rodes, are you going for Rode Videomic, Rode Videomic Pro, Rode Stereo Videomic, or Rode Stereo Videomic Pro? How much point is there in having stereo when you're looking at the performers from weird angles anyway? I notice Sony ECM MS908C is stereo so I suppose @MJPM will want to continue with stereo mics, right? I didn't notice anything particularly exciting happening when I went from a camera with internal mono mic to one with stereo, but even the stereo pro Rode is cheaper than the Shure mic, plus it seems to be lighter and possibly smaller than the non-stereo non-pro one, and I know what stereo means, so why not? (That's not a rhetorical question. If there's a reason why not, I'd like to know it.)

And is the VP83 mono? The specs sheet doesn't say anything either way, so I assume so.

The future of your viewing of UK/Europe JoCo/Marian Call shows and of obscure JCCC moments that nobody else films depends on your answers to these and previous questions.

srdownie

The VP83 (in all of its manifestations) is glorious, crystal-clear, truer-than-true-to-life mono. If you buy two mono mics, you get stereo for free!

As icky as I feel promoting some store's promo videos, B&H Photo has some good YouTube videos that put their reviewed devices to work. For example, they have three vids about "Audio for DSLR" that might be somewhat relevant.

Enjoy the Obscure Moment!

Angelastic

Truer-than-true-to-life? Is that when you hear whispers of uncomfortable truths about the things being recorded?

srdownie

I cannot answer that question until I see a receipt for a freshly purchased Shure product.

Angelastic

But… but… what if I show you a receipt for a Shure product purchased long ago and exclaim loudly that I haven't needed to purchase anything else because the product is still working (except for the attenuators. I went through plenty of those before my mp3 player somehow gained the ability to play things slightly more quietly)? Anyway, I did find this B&H video enlightening, though I'm still uncertain about stereo and directionality in a near-stage concert environment. Thanks for that.

srdownie

You're welcome … for everything!

srdownie

@Angeltastic: Another good stream of info can be found at the following address:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/remote-possibilities-acoustic-music-location-recording/461494-excellent-x-y-stereo-sdc-cardioid-mic-field-use-schoeps-x-y-clone.html

Post #6 seems to restate your question. Post #18 (and posts thereafter) seems to provide particularly helpful advice.

Doctor_E

The future holds a video camera for me. I'm waiting 'til after the new year, but this cruise will be my first venture into recording moving images (excluding computer generated animations) since the sixth grade, when some friends and I made a "Cops and Robbers" B & W film where we held up the school and escaped on a go-kart we built.
Beware of strange Sea Monkey plot lines...

Angelastic

I actually found a shop in real life that sells a range of microphones for video cameras, and now I own a Rode Stereo Videomic Pro. I didn't end up watching/reading all the information beforehand, but from what I had read, and from what the people in the shop told me, and from just seeing how ridiculous those huge shotgun mics would look on my little camera, it seemed to be the best choice. I thought I'd get to test it out next week, but the concert I was planning to go to (which I was anxious to get a mic for) was delayed, so I probably won't use it until November. What with a new camera and a new mic, I'm sure to make some hilarious mistakes, so you'd better hope I see the other band I follow around before the first show I see in Marian Call's tour.

jdferries

I don't have a lot of toys but will bring an interview mic for my phone. Also, I have Google Glass for those curious.

Angelastic

Oh, this thread! Hi, this thread. Maybe you can help me. You know how I bought a Rode mic to use with my new camera? Well, I'm having a monkey of a time attaching it to the camera. It goes in the flash shoe, right? It's just supposed to slide in there? And they're all a standard size, right? (Quick, to the wiki! Hey, camera, do you have ISO 518:2006?) Because I've tried and it doesn't quite fit. Like maybe I could do it with enough oil or elbow grease or something but it's more difficult than I expected and I think I must be doing it wrong. Can one of you pros give me some tips?

BrettGlass

Try turning it 90 degrees. Some are not symmetrical.

Angelastic

I was thinking, 'doesn't he mean 180 degrees? And surely the mic is supposed to be pointing forward. I'll go see if the mount turns around or something.' Then I went and picked up the two things with the intent of seeing if anything could twist, and then somehow, by accident, I slid the microphone into place with no effort whatsoever. I don't know what I did differently. Perhaps something got bent/dislodged when I got it almost stuck halfway-in earlier. I'm going to examine this miraculous configuration of parts and then see if I can take it off again and then repeat the feat.

ETA: I took it off and put it on several times without difficulty. It takes a little wiggling to get it off (that's what she said?) but it's still easy. I haven't figured out what I was doing wrong before, unless perhaps I was holding it by the mic rather than by the mount (for the sake of absorbing shock, they're not solidly attached to each other) every time. Rather than believing that, I think I'm going to assume I scraped some extra paint off with all the trying and that made things fit.

srdownie

Shure products *always* fit perfectly and *never* produce doubts in the minds of their owners.

^^^
Joke … OR IS IT?!?

BrettGlass

Are you Shure?

Angelastic

If Shure products always fit perfectly, why do the in-ear earphones come with three sizes of tips instead of one-size-fits perfectly? 

srdownie

Because we want you to dither one last time in the Real World, listening to the wider spectrum of sound, before you select the most perfect of the three perfect fits, acoustically isolating yourself henceforth for all Eternity!


^^^^
JOKE!

Cromely

I recently took over creating some podcasts for work, and I'm wondering about minimizing my travel gear.

If I'm recording a monologue, should I still run through a mixer or should I just plug my Rode mic into the XLR port on my digital recorder?  In general, is it better to have a mixer in the middle or will I actually be better off by not using it unless I absolutely have to?

I have a mixer and assortment of cables for when I bring people on in Skype, or have two people live, but when I'm travelling and will be recording by myself, I'd like to take less stuff, but still get the maximum possible quality out of the gear.

Thanks.

mtgordon

My son's surgery last year seriously undermined his left tragus; he can't keep an ear bud in his left ear any more.  I'd expect in-ear microphones to come in a variety of sizes to fit the actual variety of ears.  Bespoke ear buds anyone?

autojim

@mtgordon: a lot of racers and performing artists use custom-molded earbud housings for 2-way radio headset and stage monitor duty (bonus: ambient noise attenuation, a decidedly non-trivial matter in either a race car or a concert stage), so I would imagine such a beast is only a quick Google search away.

Oh, wait, so it is.

mikesphar

I don't know the situation with how the buds will or won't fit with the damaged tragus, but there's also replacable memory foam tips like these, in different sizes:  http://www.complyfoam.com/

MJPM

Just about a week until the cruise. Getting my equipment ready!