Canon LEGRIA HV40 Camcorder - Black (10x Optical Zoom,2.7″ Widescreen Colour LCD)
Canon HD Camera System for outstanding HDV1080i movies
Instant AF: fast and accurate auto focus
Genuine Canon HD Video Lens, with 10x optical zoom and Super Range OIS
Creative manual control: Custom Key and user assignable Control Dial
Advanced Accessory Shoe, manual audio control and a full range of connections, including HDMI
Ex-Pro 5 -in- 1 Photographic Light Reflector - 32″ Silver, Gold, Black, White & Translucent. £17.99.
It’s amazing just how much using a reflector can help improve the quality of your films. Although it helps to have an extra pair of hands, whilst you’re busy getting the shot, using a reflector is a great way to involve others such as passers by or clients. It’s a fun thing to do relatively simple to re-direct the sunlight onto the subject, and interesting for anybody to watch. Using a reflector adds a greater vibe to the production, especially to on lookers or impressing the client. It doesn’t have to be just for interviews, depending on the reflect screen being used, they can help to light whole scenes, enhance lighting on products or for displaying dramatic shadows or light streaks onto walls and backgrounds.
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He’s a very quick video to show you just how easy it is to do.
Don’t forget to watch in HD!
Having owned larger, more expensive camera’s in the past – buying the HV20 wasn’t, at first, an easy decision.
I work full time as a Video Producer for a Kent based film production company, so looks and first impressions are very important when shooting for or with a client. I’ve seen camera crews turn up on a shoot in a vinyl branded van or lorry unravelling case after case of production gear, but when it comes down to the filming, they’ve only used their standard kit. Camera, tripod legs, mic/boom a reflector and monitor. Was the van and the red carpet really needed? Perhaps.
So why am I mentioning all this, well the Canon HV20, for those in the industry worried about impressions, probably isn’t going to tickle your fancy. It’s the size of a small bag of sugar, and it’s sleak silvery shiney surface will help you blend in with the amateur’s and tourists. Maybe that’s what you’re after? Although this unique little camera can be used like lego to add mic’s,lights,lenses,dof adapters,rail supports and more, I use this camera at home, for personal projects, so I have nobody to impress only impressions to be made from my finished work.
The HV20 has two menus. The first is accessed from a rear joystick to monitor manual exposure and sound levels. The second hosts controls such as shutter speed - and aperture-priority, cine and scene modes, along with image effects, white balance presets and still-image mode. Alongside CineMode the HV20 shoots 24p for those looking to imitate film. To a professional in the field, they’d question the quality compared to real film, but to others none the wiser this little gem really is the icing on the cake.
I use manual focus for all of my filming, but one thing I’ve found when testing out the Instant Auto Focus mode, especially in low light is that the camera sometimes struggles to keep it’s focus. Fortunately the Instant AF uses a special sensor on the front of the tape compartment that measures the distance to your subject, so if it does lose focus, it’s able to rescan the focus very quickly.
The HV20 boasts a 3-megapixel, 1/2.7-inch CMOS sensor just behind the lens of the camera to record in HDV at 1,920 horizontal and 1,080 vertical pixels. You also have the option to shoot still images and SD material, but the camera will downscale this material to as low as 2.07 megapixels for 1920×1080 16:9 still images.
The life of one BP-2L13 battery is about 65 minutes, so I would highly recommend purchasing some spares if your planning any long shoots or holidays. This is where I buy my spare batteries from: HV20/HV30 Batteries.
At 69mm the LCD screen is moderately sized displaying a 211 pixel resolution. With it’s playback options on the bottom of the screen I do find myself pinching the buttons a bit too hard and I worry about damaging the screen, it would be nice to see the playback functions on the top of the camera out of the way of the LCD.
RESULTS:
To anyone looking to enter the HD world, at under £600 this is an excellent introduction to film making and the results speak for themselves.
Take a look at some videos shot with the HV20.
Shot by Sim Warren: Twoneil DOF adapter: Canon HV20
Shot by Sim Warren - With DIY Track & Dolly. Track & dolly article here.
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We found this Large Film Clapperboard on Amazon and we just had to share this with you.
Wether you’re making home movie films with your friends and family or rollerblading videos on the weekends or even professional short films for festivals and competition there is always room for a good old Film Clapper Board.
So why do we use clapper boards?
Well - Clapper boards not only note down the vital information for takes, scenes, date and crewing but clapper boards are mainly used as a way or syncing multipul cameras. All cameras will be rolling whilst the clapper operator claps the board so that the Film Editors in Post Production have a visual aid for syncing multi cam shoots together. A little tip for syncing these shots in Post Production is to visuall match the waveform on the audio track of the clap sound. Make sure you lock all your tracks and this way they wont go out of sync.
MC
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This smaller version of the Gorillapod is ideal for smaller video cameras such as the HV20/HV30 or Sony A1E for example. Although it’s smaller and lighter, it only means you can squeeze this pod into harder to reach areas for more dynamic shots for your films! At £26 this highly affordable peice of kit is going to revolutionise the way film makers approach films.
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At £90 this is the biggest and strongest Gorillapod on the market, able to support camers up to an amazing 11 pounds. (5kg) It only weights 1.1 pounds itself, so it can tuck, curl or fold away into your bag with ease.
Gorillapods are all the rage at the moment, opening new doors for creative, dynamics shots for both DSLR and Video Cameras. The best bit about the gorillapods is that you’re forever finding new places to wrap the legs around giving you a whole new scope for shots and adding variety into your films and photos.
The RODE VideoMic is a professional grade shotgun microphone. Based on the latest ‘Film industry’ technology, the VideoMic is designed specifically for use with high quality Digital Video Cameras.The microphone exhibits low noise and an unusually wide bandwidth for its size. It is ultra lightweight, yet rugged due to it’s ABS construction. The VideoMic is powered by a standard 9V battery and offers a Low Battery LED status indicator and a switchable high pass filter to reduce unwanted low frequency rumble.The VideoMic attaches to any Camcorder that has the standard camera-shoe fitting and utilizes a stereo mini jack for audio output.Features* Studio recording quality* Condenser microphone* 9V battery powered* Integrated shock mounting* Two step High-Pass Filter - Flat or 80Hz* Three step PAD - 0, -10, -20dB* Rugged reinforced ABS construction* Windshield included* 3.5mm mini-jack output* Integrated cold shoe mount, 1/4 inch and 3/8 inch thread .
Add versatility to your films with the awesome Cam Caddie Scorpion. You can fit any small camera’s on to the Caddie, including Digital still cameras, DSLR camera’s and of course video cameras. The range of shots you can acheive with the Cam Caddie are endless. You can pan, track, swoop, elevate, twist the camera in smoother ways than ever before, you’ll even find yourself inventing new ways! The Cam Caddie is traditionally the Skater Cam dream, but it doesnt stop there. If your in the mountains snowboarding, riding your bike in the
woods or even rock climbing the Cam Caddie will certainly become a valuable asset to any film makers kit.
The Cam Caddie will allow you to float the camera with your hand to eliminate any vibration caused from footsteps or movement. You will be able to get smooth flowing shots that would be impossible to achieve without spending thousands of dollars on bulky & elaborate camera stabilizing devices. Please note, if you plan on filming with a fisheye/wideangle lens - make sure you have image stabiliser turned off on your camera’s settings to avoid any vignet shake on the edge of your frame.
If you’re interested in a Cam Caddie click on the picture, we’ve found the Caddie on B&H video at $59 which is $5 cheaper than on the Cam Caddie website!
CTL + ALT + M = save a screen grab. No wait, it was CTL + SHFT + N. Arghh, I cant remember.
Not even the best video editors out there, can remember all the shortcuts. There are too many! If it’s not hard enough as it is, shortcuts differ depending on your editing software.
If your serious about video editing, then not using shortcuts is like reading from an atlas on your lap, lost on the motorway instead of using your Sat Nav. They’re there to speed things up, save time and hassle and in return your films are well pollished in time for deadlines.
We found this site not long ago and we had to share what they do because well, what they do is pretty damm good!
You can either buy your own keyboard or keyboard stickers to stick on your old keyboard. But best of all, you can also buy silicone sleeves to put over your keyboards or on your laptops! All the stickers, sleeves or keyboards are unique to the editing software you use providing instant access and refference to the shortcuts of your choice.
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Write up coming shortly.
