Hi gang -
As you might know, I'm getting up to professional speed with my new Canon 5D2.
It's biggest problem is lousy sound - scratch track quality only.
Here's a 'quickee' test I did just now.
It's nothing more than a "proof of concept"
We shot it in my kitchen while my wife was frying bacon.
We used the Canon 5D2, the Zoom H4n, a Sennheiser short shotgun and synced the whole mess automatically with Plural Eyes Software.
First - the Zoom, Canon and automatic sync software worked extraordinarily well.
I still haven't read the Zoom manual, so the record levels were a bit low, but the point is that the system works to perfection.
I turned on the recorder about two or three minutes BEFORE I shot the video and just left it running.
It was hard-wired into the shotgun mike with standard XLR cable.
The recorder has two on-board stereo mikes that are fabulous for location ambience. It also has another two isolated XLR tracks. We used one for the test. You could also use radio mikes.
I turned the camera on and off four or five times, allowing about 20-30 seconds in between each on and off.
With the on-camera mike you can clearly hear the frying food in the background. This is not necessarily a good thing.
Since we were only about 4' from the camera, the built-in mike works very well.
Under any other circumstance it sucks. It picks up the slightest camera noise (like zooming or focusing) and has lousy sound to start with.
But the isolated Sennheiser, will be the usual Much Better (especially when I learn how to set the volume on the Zoom correctly).
The main point is that the sync works perfectly.
We are recording digital WAV files at 44kz (48kz is available also, as are MP3 and some other more esoteric options), built into the recorder.
While we did some "clap slates" the fact is that Plural Eyes found this take w/o ANY reference in the middle of the six minutes of continuous recorded sound - totally automatically. That part was magic. It looks like you can now just turn on your recorder and leave it running. Multi-camera shooting will never be the same.
My buddy Charles sez "movies without sync" - but what he meant was sync without slates - wow.
The whole auto-sync process was very fast - maybe 30 or 40 seconds.
While admittedly this wasn't a huge project, nevertheless the software automatically found the correct sound in the middle of six minutes of recorded sound.
The dual system sound works perfectly... and without the need for slates.
I think if I was shooting thirty or forty feet from the subject, I'd use a slate, "Just in case".
Check it out:
--
Victor Milt, DGA
www.VictorMilt.com
As you might know, I'm getting up to professional speed with my new Canon 5D2.
It's biggest problem is lousy sound - scratch track quality only.
Here's a 'quickee' test I did just now.
It's nothing more than a "proof of concept"
We shot it in my kitchen while my wife was frying bacon.
We used the Canon 5D2, the Zoom H4n, a Sennheiser short shotgun and synced the whole mess automatically with Plural Eyes Software.
First - the Zoom, Canon and automatic sync software worked extraordinarily well.
I still haven't read the Zoom manual, so the record levels were a bit low, but the point is that the system works to perfection.
I turned on the recorder about two or three minutes BEFORE I shot the video and just left it running.
It was hard-wired into the shotgun mike with standard XLR cable.
The recorder has two on-board stereo mikes that are fabulous for location ambience. It also has another two isolated XLR tracks. We used one for the test. You could also use radio mikes.
I turned the camera on and off four or five times, allowing about 20-30 seconds in between each on and off.
With the on-camera mike you can clearly hear the frying food in the background. This is not necessarily a good thing.
Since we were only about 4' from the camera, the built-in mike works very well.
Under any other circumstance it sucks. It picks up the slightest camera noise (like zooming or focusing) and has lousy sound to start with.
But the isolated Sennheiser, will be the usual Much Better (especially when I learn how to set the volume on the Zoom correctly).
The main point is that the sync works perfectly.
We are recording digital WAV files at 44kz (48kz is available also, as are MP3 and some other more esoteric options), built into the recorder.
While we did some "clap slates" the fact is that Plural Eyes found this take w/o ANY reference in the middle of the six minutes of continuous recorded sound - totally automatically. That part was magic. It looks like you can now just turn on your recorder and leave it running. Multi-camera shooting will never be the same.
My buddy Charles sez "movies without sync" - but what he meant was sync without slates - wow.
The whole auto-sync process was very fast - maybe 30 or 40 seconds.
While admittedly this wasn't a huge project, nevertheless the software automatically found the correct sound in the middle of six minutes of recorded sound.
The dual system sound works perfectly... and without the need for slates.
I think if I was shooting thirty or forty feet from the subject, I'd use a slate, "Just in case".
Check it out:
--
Victor Milt, DGA
www.VictorMilt.com