In the past two weeks I’ve managed to crack the screen on my little camera – again, solve a persistent wind noise problem on my ersatz shotgun mic, and fail at yet another slide show project.
After such a long production time spent on the DLP Learning project, I wanted to try to complete the next slide show as fast as possible from scratch. The next subject to catch my attention was a new city parks and recreation class about mountain biking for kids. All that remained of the class was one session of instruction before the the group of kids ventured onto a real mountain trail to test their new skills. One class and the outing would be all the material I’d need for a slide show.
Participation in that one class taught me three things. For openers, 1) Riding a mountain bike is considerably more complicated than riding my vintage 1979 street bike – not just the additional gears, but the whole body language involved in negotiating uneven terrain. Of more immediate concern, however, 2) You shouldn’t try to operate a camera while riding a bike over uneven terrain. I nearly lost my balance going over a hillock and smacked the camera against the handlebar in the lunge to recover. The same camera that just come back from repair for a cracked screen last week, now had its screen cracked again, and I had to shoot the rest of the class without a viewfinder.
The third revelation from the outdoor class came when I sat down to review my audio: 3) Wind noise that may not sound so bad in the field on ear buds, sounds a lot worse in production. Nearly all of the class audio was tainted with the scratchy rumble of wind noise. Something had to be done to improve the wind screening.
I knew from reading about audio quality control that fluffy “dead cat” windscreens were considered the most effective defense against wind, so I bought a small patch of fake fur from a fabric shop and improvised. Starting with a new Swiffer duster handle to get the benefit of its full extension, I used a heavy rubber band to secure the cabled mic head to the end of the handle extension, then Velcroed the furry ‘sock’ over that.
It worked beautifully – no more wind noise!
Unfortunately, lavender was the only color of fake fur I could find that didn’t have a scratchy glue base that might rub against the mic head. Consequently, my primary piece of outdoor audio equipment was now a fluffy, lavender eight-inch sock at the end of a corded, purple three-foot-long Swiffer handle.
So much for looking inconspicuous.
As for the other two problems, I’d have to separate my bike riding and equipment operations, and I’d have to devise a way to access and secure both microphone and camera as quickly as possible. The camera was simple enough. I used the same Lowepro REZO 15 camera case that attached to my belt with Velcro and a snap, reattaching that to a wrist sweatband on my left hand. With the camera strap already around my wrist, I could simply pull out the camera in one movement and be ready to shoot left-handed.
The audio equipment was another matter. I had to pack and unpack a three-foot shotgun mic at the end of a six-foot cord for each recording session. This is where the Swiffer handle’s combined folding and telescoping design came in handy. The cord could be wrapped around the collapsed handle which could then be attached to a belt loop with a snap ring added to the end of the handle, and Velcro-strapped to my right thigh. I could strap down and unstrap my audio equipment within seconds.
The setup made me feel like Steve McQueen’s bounty hunter with the sawed-off shotgun strapped to his hip in the old “Wanted: Dead or Alive” TV series . . . except maybe for my color scheme.
Showing posts with label multimedia hardware. Show all posts
Showing posts with label multimedia hardware. Show all posts
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
DLP slide show completed + minimal gear reaffirmed
Image sequencing for the Dual Language Program production went smoothly enough, but for the frustration of having shot hundreds of images and still coming up short on key shots for points made in the audio track. How could I cover three DLP classes and not shoot more images of Hispanic and non-Hispanic students working together? I wound up relying heavily on informational slides. That was a disappointment, but then again, the production was meant to be expository rather than tell a story. What was surprising was how much time it took to write and rewrite the copy for those information slides. I had to keep the flow of written material supplemental to the audio track without being too wordy or redundant.
For the entire four-minute production, I wound up using only 42 slides due to holding the info slides on screen a bit longer to provide reading time. For this production, I shot everything horizontally and matched the info slides in size to give the entire image sequence a consistent flow. I don’t know if there is an optimal file size for use on the Internet, since Soundslides automatically resizes everything, but I standardized on a 6x4.5-inch frame at 200 dpi.
As for the Soundslides process, I wasted a lot of time adjusting the image intervals, then making changes in the sequence, and then having to readjust the subsequent changes in image intervals. I should have nailed down a final sequence before fine-tuning the timing. What helped with recalibrating after each image shuffle was my project spreadsheet. I wound up using the numbered sequence for images in the first column (a pain to have to renumber with every change, but ultimately useful), then listing the time lapse for each transition, then transcribing each audio segment, and finally, noting the duration of each audio segment.
Here’s my final project spreadsheet in Excel.
Even so, it only took a week to finish the first edition of the slide show, from image sequencing to final image timing. I spent another week incorporating suggestions made by several key people who viewed the initial production, and delivered the final edition of my DLP slide show on March 14: “Learning en dos lenguas.”
A few follow-up thoughts on equipment and quality control . . .
During the lengthy process of repairing auto-leveled audio, I lamented over not having a more professional digital recorder. I even went shopping for the next step-up in audio gear, one that would justify an investment in a decent shotgun mic. I came up with three good candidates: the Zoom H-2 retailing for $200, the Edirol R-09 for $300 and the M-Audio MicroTrack II for $350. Any one of these might be worthy of attaching an Audio-Technica AT897 shotgun mic (another $275).
But then I looked at the quality of images produced with my little Fujifilm Finepix F30 and thought of the sharp, full-toned images I see in most of the slide show entries for the NPPA Monthly Multimedia Contest.
It makes no sense trying to optimize my audio quality when I marginalize the quality of my images with a point-and-shoot camera. I decided to stick with the minimalist gear.
My choice in gear may seem like reverse snobbery, but using equipment with such a low profile in the field is liberating. Rather than entering a story project laden with the heavy-duty slr and totebag of accouterments common to all media photographers, I can walk through a crowded room wearing all my equipment for a slide show project, and not even draw a glance. I can certainly work a room full of kindergarteners or fourth graders without disruption. Imagine trying to shoot with a 35mm camera only inches away from the ear of a five-year-old. The point-and-shoot is silent and the child doesn’t even look up. My “listening stick” draws more attention (Swiffer-mounted microphone – see Oct. 5 blog), and even that doesn’t hold much interest for long among kids.
No, the sense my minimalist gear makes is that all of this – equipment, software, early morning hours and even this blog – is for the sole purpose of providing an alternative to my work for the newspaper. It isn’t practice for freelance work because I don’t expect to earn any extra income from it. It isn’t self-development for the prospect of professional advancement – not at my newspaper, not at my age. It is simply for the hands-on challenge of teaching myself something new about a rapidly changing profession.
Okay, maybe there's just a little genuine snobbery in trying to get the most out of the least amount of “professional” gear.
For the entire four-minute production, I wound up using only 42 slides due to holding the info slides on screen a bit longer to provide reading time. For this production, I shot everything horizontally and matched the info slides in size to give the entire image sequence a consistent flow. I don’t know if there is an optimal file size for use on the Internet, since Soundslides automatically resizes everything, but I standardized on a 6x4.5-inch frame at 200 dpi.
As for the Soundslides process, I wasted a lot of time adjusting the image intervals, then making changes in the sequence, and then having to readjust the subsequent changes in image intervals. I should have nailed down a final sequence before fine-tuning the timing. What helped with recalibrating after each image shuffle was my project spreadsheet. I wound up using the numbered sequence for images in the first column (a pain to have to renumber with every change, but ultimately useful), then listing the time lapse for each transition, then transcribing each audio segment, and finally, noting the duration of each audio segment.
Here’s my final project spreadsheet in Excel.
Even so, it only took a week to finish the first edition of the slide show, from image sequencing to final image timing. I spent another week incorporating suggestions made by several key people who viewed the initial production, and delivered the final edition of my DLP slide show on March 14: “Learning en dos lenguas.”
A few follow-up thoughts on equipment and quality control . . .
During the lengthy process of repairing auto-leveled audio, I lamented over not having a more professional digital recorder. I even went shopping for the next step-up in audio gear, one that would justify an investment in a decent shotgun mic. I came up with three good candidates: the Zoom H-2 retailing for $200, the Edirol R-09 for $300 and the M-Audio MicroTrack II for $350. Any one of these might be worthy of attaching an Audio-Technica AT897 shotgun mic (another $275).
But then I looked at the quality of images produced with my little Fujifilm Finepix F30 and thought of the sharp, full-toned images I see in most of the slide show entries for the NPPA Monthly Multimedia Contest.
It makes no sense trying to optimize my audio quality when I marginalize the quality of my images with a point-and-shoot camera. I decided to stick with the minimalist gear.
My choice in gear may seem like reverse snobbery, but using equipment with such a low profile in the field is liberating. Rather than entering a story project laden with the heavy-duty slr and totebag of accouterments common to all media photographers, I can walk through a crowded room wearing all my equipment for a slide show project, and not even draw a glance. I can certainly work a room full of kindergarteners or fourth graders without disruption. Imagine trying to shoot with a 35mm camera only inches away from the ear of a five-year-old. The point-and-shoot is silent and the child doesn’t even look up. My “listening stick” draws more attention (Swiffer-mounted microphone – see Oct. 5 blog), and even that doesn’t hold much interest for long among kids.
No, the sense my minimalist gear makes is that all of this – equipment, software, early morning hours and even this blog – is for the sole purpose of providing an alternative to my work for the newspaper. It isn’t practice for freelance work because I don’t expect to earn any extra income from it. It isn’t self-development for the prospect of professional advancement – not at my newspaper, not at my age. It is simply for the hands-on challenge of teaching myself something new about a rapidly changing profession.
Okay, maybe there's just a little genuine snobbery in trying to get the most out of the least amount of “professional” gear.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Gain a grandson, lose a camera
Monday morning I finished the rough audio edit on the English side of the Dual Language Program classes. I even sent email attachments of two brief MP3 files in Spanish to my daughter for translation at her convenience. Her baby, however, had other plans for her. That Monday evening was the first of three mostly sleepless nights spent waiting at the hospital for her delivery. Of course I took my little camera, strapped securely to my belt. It was during the early morning hours of that first night stretched out across one of those hard, undersized waiting room couches that I rolled over on my side. The best news of the week was that we eventually wound up with a healthy new grandson. The bad news was that the LCD screen on my camera was shattered.
No serious problem, I thought. Most point-and-shoot cameras aren’t worth repairing, and I’ve had the little camera for two years now. Maybe it was time to upgrade the camera, or more likely, replace the broken one with a more affordable used camera of the same make.
Several days of research on the Internet left me better informed about my dilemma, but no closer to a decision on whether to repair or replace.
It seemed the FujiFilm Finepix F30 had become something of a cult camera for its singular ability to render good images in low light. Two years ago I paid a little over $200 for the camera brand new. I could now find only three used F30s on Amazon.com, ranging from $440 for “refurbished” to $550 for “like new.” Ebay auctions for F30s started around $300.
For that kind of money, why not upgrade to the current incarnation of the F30, right? I discovered that the Finepix F50fd that retailed for more than $500 brand new, could now be had for as little as $220 on Amazon – and they offered no less than 30 used.
What?!!
Backtracking through the reviews on the successive generations of the F30 revealed that not only did FujiFilm fail to market a truly unique niche camera, they moved away from their innovative image sensing technology in pursuit of mass consumer point-and-shoot standards. They now trailed the pack, at best. The F30 begat the F31fd, adding a marginally useful “face detection” (fd) feature and a little extra internal memory. The F40fd boosted the 6.2 megapixel sensor to 8.3, but only for an effective ISO of 2,000 (compared to the F30’s ISO of 3200 at full resolution). The only significant improvement was allowing the use of the more popular SD memory card, but gone were the aperture and shutter controls, as well as the sturdy metal casing and the topside control design that worked so well for my left-handed operation. The F50fd continued the sensor expansion to 12 megapixels (now limited to an ISO of 1600) and an LCD screen size to 2.7 inches – current standards among point-and-shooters. The optical zoom range remained at 3x, however, while most other compact cameras now offer 4x zooms. Reviewers agreed that the F50fd was “nice but unexceptional.”
Back to the option of repair: The LCD screen would cost $127 for the part alone, plus $50 labor, but the part was backordered until “at least March.” Parts-only F30s were going on eBay for more than $70, but with no guarantee that the salvaged LCD screen would work at all.
All of which put me back at square one. I’ve been partial to FujiFilm color technology since clear back in the day of film, but their shift to pursue the mainstream consumer market will likely force me to search other camera lines for a suitable alternative.
No serious problem, I thought. Most point-and-shoot cameras aren’t worth repairing, and I’ve had the little camera for two years now. Maybe it was time to upgrade the camera, or more likely, replace the broken one with a more affordable used camera of the same make.
Several days of research on the Internet left me better informed about my dilemma, but no closer to a decision on whether to repair or replace.
It seemed the FujiFilm Finepix F30 had become something of a cult camera for its singular ability to render good images in low light. Two years ago I paid a little over $200 for the camera brand new. I could now find only three used F30s on Amazon.com, ranging from $440 for “refurbished” to $550 for “like new.” Ebay auctions for F30s started around $300.
For that kind of money, why not upgrade to the current incarnation of the F30, right? I discovered that the Finepix F50fd that retailed for more than $500 brand new, could now be had for as little as $220 on Amazon – and they offered no less than 30 used.
What?!!
Backtracking through the reviews on the successive generations of the F30 revealed that not only did FujiFilm fail to market a truly unique niche camera, they moved away from their innovative image sensing technology in pursuit of mass consumer point-and-shoot standards. They now trailed the pack, at best. The F30 begat the F31fd, adding a marginally useful “face detection” (fd) feature and a little extra internal memory. The F40fd boosted the 6.2 megapixel sensor to 8.3, but only for an effective ISO of 2,000 (compared to the F30’s ISO of 3200 at full resolution). The only significant improvement was allowing the use of the more popular SD memory card, but gone were the aperture and shutter controls, as well as the sturdy metal casing and the topside control design that worked so well for my left-handed operation. The F50fd continued the sensor expansion to 12 megapixels (now limited to an ISO of 1600) and an LCD screen size to 2.7 inches – current standards among point-and-shooters. The optical zoom range remained at 3x, however, while most other compact cameras now offer 4x zooms. Reviewers agreed that the F50fd was “nice but unexceptional.”
Back to the option of repair: The LCD screen would cost $127 for the part alone, plus $50 labor, but the part was backordered until “at least March.” Parts-only F30s were going on eBay for more than $70, but with no guarantee that the salvaged LCD screen would work at all.
All of which put me back at square one. I’ve been partial to FujiFilm color technology since clear back in the day of film, but their shift to pursue the mainstream consumer market will likely force me to search other camera lines for a suitable alternative.
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