I was thinking of getting a video camera to make some movies, so i was wondering how many frames per second should it film for it to look smooth, not like a really fast slide show
If you’re getting a video camera rather than a digital still camera that takes videos, then frame rate shouldn’t be an issue. Standard is 24fps (frames per second) I think, or maybe 30fps. You shouldn’t worry.
I have a question that I’ll ask here rather than starting a new thread…
I’ve been having problems lately with my camera. When I point it at bright lights, and particularly when there’s high contrast, it gets these yellow vertical lines forming around those areas on the screen.
The really odd thing is that this used to only happen every now and then and was fixable by closing the LCD screen and using the smaller viewfinder…which I found really odd.
A few weeks ago I was occasionally able to solve the problem by taking the film out, turning off the camera, taking the battery out and putting it back in again, then putting the film back in and starting it up again, and I had to do all of those things for it to work…even odder!
Now nothing seems to work. I was about to buy one of those head cleaner film things but then thought that it didn’t seem to fit for that to be the problem since the problem occurs even without filming anything.
Can anybody help me out? I’ve searched for people with the same problem but with no luck. I would have taken it in to be fixed by now but couldn’t find any places that do it in Brisbane.
Thanks,
Andrew
Edit - Here’s a screenshot of the problem. The colours go crazy even in the less bright spots, but you can see the yellow vertical lines in the brightest ones…
I might get a digital camera that does video just to get a camera and take a couple small vids and it might be slightly cheaper
Most movies off cheap still digital cameras are pretty bad quality. I used to use a digital cam and it was actually really good but it costs somewhere from $600-$1000 (I don’t remember). You can get a canon zr100 or zr200, they are around the $300 range and are pretty good for online uni movies.
One thing you said makes me wonder if there’s something wrong with the battery. Maybe it’s old enough to be losing some output quality? This is a total guess with no basis, just a hunch. Your videos are always really great.
First off, the standard for consumer-level DV cams in North America is 30fps. If you buy any actual DV cam the motion will look smooth. It’s only when you start buying digital still cameras with a video feature tacked on that you’ll get the jerky motion. I believe that entry-level DV cams are around the mid-$300 mark.
As for Andrew’s thing, I doubt that it’s a problem with the heads, as if it was you’d probably be getting digital artifacting instead of the funky yellow thing issue. I’ll also assume that even though you keep on saying film that you’re actually using a DV cam and are talking about the DV tape. Sorry, but it’s a pet peeve of mine.
The battery theory sounds plausible to me, but I’m thinking it also sounds like it could quite possibly also be a problem with the CCD, which would be expensive to get fixed/replaced. Of course while I have lots of experience using various DV cams I can’t quite claim to have an extensive knowledge of their internal more technical workings, so you’d probably get more luck contacting the manufcaturer.
Thanks for the help guys. I didn’t know I should be calling it DV tape instead of film, but now I do.
Battery - Most likely not the problem as the same thing happens with both of my batteries and they’re not really old anyway.
CCD - Scary thought, but it sounds like you may be onto something here.
I just realised this thread is in RSU. I’d assumed it was in JC, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked my question here. Sorry.
Andrew
have you tried a new tape? looks like the dv tape might be wearing out.
If the problem occurs prior to recording, how can the tape possibly be the cause?
Andrew
All of my videos are from a sheap $70 still camera that takes 15 second videos.
But we recently bought a Samsung MiniDV camcorder.
If it were a problem with the tape it would most likely crop up as problems you’d see with digital video- random square blocks of color, flashes/skipping video, skippy/clipped audio, etc. I don’t see these problems of contrast, color, and funky yellow haloing stuff being something that crops up due to bad digital media.
Then again I’m still assuming that this is a digital video camera. If it’s analog then I’m running down the wrong road.
Digital cameras that also do video come in a wide range of video quality. In the past they were all pretty weak, but now there’s a pretty wide range of picture size and frame rate.
Things to look for:
- VGA size, aka 640 x 480 video
- 30 frames per second
- Unlimited record time (limited only by memory card size)
A camera that does all of those may be beyond your budget. But for smoothest motion, stick with 30fps. For highest quality picture, stick with 640x480. Also note, at least one camera on the market can’t zoom while shooting video–mine (Casio EX P-600). Zooming is nice too.
Compare cameras at these two sites:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/hardware_reviews.html
Yeah, this thread belongs in JC…
Re: Video camera Question
andrew_carter <andrew_carter@NoEmail.Message.Poster.at.Unicyclist.com>
wrote:
> I’ve been having problems lately with my camera.
could there possibly an unsuspected settings problem? maybe a white balance
taken against a blue sky? light source set to metal vapor?
I know you make a lot of movies, so i know you know about this stuff, but my
experience is that often problems arise from things like the above – things
we know are right, but got mysteriously changed.
…max
Thanks Max, and I wish that were the problem but I’ve checked all those settings. Funnily enough setting the white balance to the “outdoor” setting did help a little bit but it’s nowhere near solved.
LikeableRodent, yes it is a digital video camera. A Sony DCR TRV-22E to be precise, only a couple of years old now.
Andrew
Assuming (though you don’t say) that it’s a reasonably well specified mini-DV camera, you could exclude the possibility of it being the LCD by recording something through the ‘analogue-in’ connector. Of course that only tells you which expensive bit needs replacing…
Oh! or, if it turns out to be the LCD, you could get one of those bullet cam/lipstick cam lenses and just use the camera as a VCR. Tape the lens to your arm/helmet/the uni and have the camera in a pouch round your waist.
John
I’ve got a few cameras here that do video and a proper Mini DV camera. The DV camera completely blows them away quality wise.
The standard cameras are okay quality until you start moving the camera, or doing things that require the focus to change in the middle of a shot. They’re also nowhere near as good as the DV cam in low light. Oh and they seem to be not so good at recording fast moving objects, even if they can do 640x480 30fps.
Having said that, our DV cam is quite a good 3 ccd one, so I guess it might not have been cheap, and the cameras are all 1 year old or more, but not cheap ones either.
Joe
I know there was a recall of certain CCDs that started to go funny a few years after production. You might want to have a look into that.
Hey, I might now…
When we bought our video camera recently, the guy in the electronics department of the store told us the all digital camera’s needed to be cleaned twice a year, and if they’re not they can develop problems after 2+ years. The main problem is getting tiny dust particles in the lens, and the zoom not working. He said the second most common problem was somthing like what’s happening to you… gradual loss of color.
Of course, you can only get them cleaned with the store you bought it from, by expert technitions, and it costs a lot…
When I worked at Futureshop, long enough for the employee discount on my current camera, Sony HDR-HC1, I found out that buying the extended service plan from futureshop and bestbuy (where they already have nice prices) comes with annual (or more if neccessary) professional cleanings, and the cleanings alone would make the extended service plan worth it.
Yes, we got the extended service plan.
Which is why we ended up with the cheapest camera availible, a Samsung, instead of an expensive Sony with Ziess lenses…