Proposed $1,000 ~ $1,200 setup ~ Your opinion?

[g9m3c]

Hello everyone! I come from the world of DSLR stills and have recently gotten the bug for filmmaking. A friend (who is much more experienced) and I are looking to buy a complete gear setup for $1,000 ~ $1,200. We recently shot a 5 minute film with a T2i and Zoom H2, so I am familiar and aware of the capabilities of those two devices. Here is the list I have compiled so far. Your advice and suggestions are very much welcomed.


Canon T3i w/ 18-55 kit lens ~ $700
Zoom H2n with accessory pack ~ $185
Pelican 1450 case w/foam pack for T3i, H2n and accessories ~ $75
Audio Technica ATR 6550 shotgun mic ~ $50
Sunpak 8001 UT Tripod ~ $25
Supplies to build audio boom ~ $50

Total ~ $1,085 which leaves enough room for inevitable necessities

Our thinking is the T2i produces really nice video for its class and the addition of the multi-angle screen and other small improvements in the T3i should fit our bill pretty well. The H2n, I'm a bit more unsure about. I have watched multiple review videos on it but haven't seen much mention of it here. It's the successor to the H2 which is talked about here a lot as an entry level recorder. Maybe it's not old enough yet to have a large user base? I know my tripod selection is quite cheap, but it actually seems to be the best bang-for-the-buck tripod under $50. Plus, we used its little brother (2001) during our most recent shoot and although we didn't test it too hard, it never failed us. The shotgun mic has been mentioned here a good bit, as well. I have yet to find a better solution for $50. My thinking is use the H2n itself for ambient/field recording and the 6550 connected to the H2n for dialogue/close range audio.


Now, how far off-base am I?

Cheers!

~Grant

 

[g9m3c]

Hah, that's awesome dude!

Get some practice with that Flycam and post some footage.

Will do!



Thanks guys

 

[g9m3c]

So, our original shoot for the 25th of February didn't work out. The band's drummer couldn't make it, so they had to unplug for the night. We did get a nice night of shooting on March 23rd, though. For our first experience in that setting, I was surprised at how well it turned out. We are premiering the video at 6PM tonight on our Facebook page at the request of the band. It will be hosted on Vimeo for obvious reasons though. I'll provide a link to the page here if any of you are interested in seeing what a couple of amateurs are capable of doing with the entry-level equipment mentioned earlier in this thread. I also want to give another thank you to everyone involved. After extensively using this equipment for that shoot, I am still very confident in our decisions and that is largely thanks to all of you.

Alcove, I want your open and honest opinion if you get a chance to view it. I captured and edited all of the audio on my own, so feel free to blast me if need be.


Link to page for video at 6PM: http://www.facebook.com/cloudjockeyproductions

 

[jax_rox]

I would get a recorder with XLRs and also spend an extra $50 on a boom pole to get a proper one. It's not worth the hassle trying to build your own for the sake of $50. Plus, the $100 one will be better than anything you could ever make yourself unless you are an engineer that works for K-Tek.

 

[g9m3c]

I would get a recorder with XLRs and also spend an extra $50 on a boom pole to get a proper one. It's not worth the hassle trying to build your own for the sake of $50. Plus, the $100 one will be better than anything you could ever make yourself unless you are an engineer that works for K-Tek.

Our recorder has XLR inputs with locks. It's a Tascam DR-100mkii. We've already built the boom pole, as well....

 

[jax_rox]

Apologies, I didn't realise how old the thread was. That said, a proper boom pole is still going to be 100x better than a diy one. Each to their own, but you'll realise why once you use a proper one.

That aside,
Checking out the clip, you should've taken an audio feed from the desk as the sound mix is meh, it's all sitting in the middle and it all sounds off mic. The video side is okay, though there are parts which are under exposed. The biggest issue is there is a lot of slightly off focus marks. Everything in the club is really soft as you were obviously shooting wide open and the canon primes give you a really soft image wide open, apart from the fact that the focus is a little all over the place. The interview in the sun, however, the focus is just slightly off. It corrects when it cuts in closer but by that point, it's 6 minutes into the video. The interview also sounds like there's a lot of handling noise, possibly because of the diy boom pole though its hard to say without knowing your setup.
As well, the whole thing is covered in about 3 shots which is okay but starts to lose interest after a few minutes.
Overall, it's quite good for a first attempt.

 

[g9m3c]

Apologies, I didn't realise how old the thread was. That said, a proper boom pole is still going to be 100x better than a diy one. Each to their own, but you'll realise why once you use a proper one.

That aside,
Checking out the clip, you should've taken an audio feed from the desk as the sound mix is meh, it's all sitting in the middle and it all sounds off mic. The video side is okay, though there are parts which are under exposed. The biggest issue is there is a lot of slightly off focus marks. Everything in the club is really soft as you were obviously shooting wide open and the canon primes give you a really soft image wide open, apart from the fact that the focus is a little all over the place. The interview in the sun, however, the focus is just slightly off. It corrects when it cuts in closer but by that point, it's 6 minutes into the video. The interview also sounds like there's a lot of handling noise, possibly because of the diy boom pole though its hard to say without knowing your setup.
As well, the whole thing is covered in about 3 shots which is okay but starts to lose interest after a few minutes.
Overall, it's quite good for a first attempt.

Thanks for checking it out!

An audio feed from the sound board would have been ideal. However, I talked with the sound guy at the bar (Very knowledgeable...has a degree in music production and has mixed for over 400 bands at the same stage) and he brought up a great point that I had not thought about in our pre-shoot planning. The channels he is mixing is for the house speakers and the monitors for the musicians. He has feeds from the mic'ed amplifiers on stage but these may be turned down either very low or very high in his mix to adjust for how the individual amplifiers are sounding. Also, he usually does not mic cymbals in that room because, as you can tell in the video, the brick wall behind the drummer reflects everything he does and thus the cymbals are already too harsh. So, my point is, to record from a feed would be ideal but we would have to have our own board to mix everything for ourselves and would have to set up mics for the things he doesn't already mic. We simply weren't prepared for that. Also, the reason it sounds in the middle is because it is. It was a mono track from a shotgun mic placed at eye level about 40 feet back from the stage that was doubled in post. The noise you hear in the interview shots is actually wind noise that we were unable to completely remove in post.

On the video side, we used a Canon T3i for all of the closeup and moving shots and a Nikon D90 we borrowed last minute for the wide and stationary shots. The underexposed footage was from the Nikon which does not allow manual control when shooting video.... I also am aware of the off focus shots. The 50mm lens was used at f/1.8 the whole night which leaves you with a very small DOF and without an external monitor, using the vari-angle display on a steadicam that you are constantly holding above your head, etc, is very difficult.

We definitely found the limits of our equipment that night. We still have some things to buy and A LOT of things to learn. Again, thanks for the feedback!

 

[jax_rox]

to record from a feed would be ideal but we would have to have our own board to mix everything for ourselves and would have to set up mics for the things he doesn't already mic.

Not necessarily true, the biggest issue is there's just a lack of any distinction between anything, and getting some kind of feed would at least have given you a decent vocal recording to mix in with what you already have (as vocals are generaly pretty important )

The noise you hear in the interview shots is actually wind noise that we were unable to completely remove in post.

Ah yes, I wondered what it was, not sure if you got a softie or not, but the most effective solution is zeppelin + windsock... depends on your budget though

The 50mm lens was used at f/1.8 the whole night which leaves you with a very small DOF and without an external monitor, using the vari-angle display on a steadicam that you are constantly holding above your head, etc, is very difficult.

Yes, I figured it was wide open, hence the soft focus on everything even when things were at the correct critical focus point. This possibly could've been fixed with a different camera angle..? You're on a steadycam, no reason to keep the same shot the whole time?

We definitely found the limits of our equipment that night. We still have some things to buy and A LOT of things to learn. Again, thanks for the feedback!

Always a good learning experience For a first go, it's actually quite good