Camera suggestions for web series

RevGutter

Some friends and I have started a gaming blog and one of the things we do is record us screwing each other over in board games. Looking for some advice on good affordable cameras to use to get some better quality videos.

Currently I'm using a logitec c615 on a laptop, unfortunately the laptop struggles with anything over 15fps, even at 480p, so the results are pretty choppy at times. We want to add extra cameras for a few angles and that just wont be possible. I can drag my desktop down but then we still wont be able to do more than 2 cameras at 720p and from my tests the second camera will eventually start to stutter due to the load on the pc.
I've also used my Nikon Coolpix L820 but the 30min recording limit and lack of settings to adjust video recording makes it impracticable.

Any suggestions for stand alone cameras that are in the $100-$200 range, that can do at least a smooth 720p@30fps with good performance for indoor and somewhat lower lighting?

Donovan Puppyfucker

How much is a GoPro where you are? I know the base model does 720p at 30fps easily, and has expandable storage. You're stuck with a fixed focal length, I believe, but you should be able to make that work easily.

zerzhul

chrishallett83 wrote: »

How much is a GoPro where you are? I know the base model does 720p at 30fps easily, and has expandable storage. You're stuck with a fixed focal length, I believe, but you should be able to make that work easily.

http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-white-edition looks like the base model does 1080p at 30fps these days

RevGutter

The gopro does look ok at first glance I don't know how practical it is though. The fact it has no view finder unless you pop for a 70 dollar add on and it looks like it can't mount to a tri pod without another add on makes me a little unsure. I can deal with lack of zoom since I'm doing mostly wide shots
Anyone know first hand how wide the fov is or how it does indoors? It would be an improvement over webcams but I would hate to drop $200 just to find out it wont work for what I need.

Foomy

RevGutter wrote: »

The gopro does look ok at first glance I don't know how practical it is though. The fact it has no view finder unless you pop for a 70 dollar add on and it looks like it can't mount to a tri pod without another add on makes me a little unsure. I can deal with lack of zoom since I'm doing mostly wide shots
Anyone know first hand how wide the fov is or how it does indoors? It would be an improvement over webcams but I would hate to drop $200 just to find out it wont work for what I need.

The hero3 will do view finder through a phone app, so you don't really need the viewfinder addon if you own an ios or android device already, The tripod mount is only $8, or you could just use one of the adhesive mounts included and stick it to something. It has 2 fov modes, not sure on the exact numbers for it though, but the "medium" setting basically just crops in the picture a bit to remove some of the fisheye effect.

I know the guys over at Tested.com used one for a while to do video podcasts and it looked alright, but no idea if a webcam would be a better solution.

mts

it should be fine. and you really don't need a viewfinder at all. just point the lens at what you want. you don't even need to get a new version, the older ones should be fine and people sell them off to get the new models.

here is a video i made with one

RevGutter

I know they're great for POV shots, the reason I was concerned about a view finder is I'm shooting 4 people sitting at a table and eventually will want at least one more of the same camera to shoot what's on the table so being able to frame the shot right is pretty important. I had originally only seen the had an ios app but if there's one for android that's doable.

@mts being as you have one, any idea about how far back the camera would need to be set to get about a 6 foot wide shot? also how well it looks indoors.

I'm going to look more into the hero to see just how much of a fisheye effect there is. If anyone has any other camera suggestions I'd love to hear them.

mts

that video was shot with the camera about 3-4 feet from me. that is also the 960 version or something like that, so the angle is slightly different

ANTVGM64

Howdy, let me tell you that really, the MOST important thing isn't your camera, it's lighting and framing. I have a crappy, 70 dollar, "HD" camera that I was given from Columbia College Chicago - A shittier version of this and had a lot of success with it.

As someone that's done a lot of web-series stuff with varying success, let me give you a couple of tips:

1. Four People at a Table is bad unless you are ALL sitting together very closely and have a tight idea of what you want to accomplish.

Here's a bad example: Four people, sitting at a table, eating food, looking incredibly amateur due to framing and lighting issues. This was shot with a 2,000 dollar camera

2. Here's an example of how lighting and a steady hand can help you out, too: https://youtube.com/watch?v=uVEqjhkvV-o

Also color-scheme can make relatively poor video quality look great because things are interesting visually. Notice the all the "Reds" in this video: Here's an example of how color-scheme can help your videos look a bit more professional

3. Really you'd be better suited spending money on a decent lighting kid (or you can film near windows), and QUALITY recording equipment. Audio is often times the difference between a really great series (like AT4W) and a pleasant mediocre one (HVGN) is aesthetics. My rule of thumb is don't upgrade your camera to something fancy until you *really* need it. For your purposes check out any camera that shoots "1080" HD, and maybe have a manual focus in case you want to get fancy.

4. If you'd like to get into specifics for what you're trying to accomplish, inbox me, or post here, and I can give some pointers.

RevGutter

If you have some specific tips that'd be awesome. I'd rather post here since I've been having trouble finding info this thread my be useful for others.

Here's out latest video: (NSFW language and hopefully not considered a plug. We're no where near ready to be public)
http://youtu.be/iQfsXqCwDiw

Obviously lighting and composition is something we need to work on. We had some trouble with the external mic but it's not much better than the internal on the web cam anyway.
I know it doesn't look the best spread out like we are but I don't really know a better way that would still give us room to play. I also do want to add another camera or two. Having two people on one camera and two on another would help with that, like i said though using webcams is troublesome for this since we cant get a good framerate and resolution with more than one hooked up to the computer. Hence looking for a better camera option.

So I'm open to any tips you have on improving the lighting, composition and audio while we use the camera have. I really know nothing about this subject so specifics on say a mic would be most useful.

Also looked further into the hero. Seems the hero 3 white is just a hero 1 in an update case. From what I've read of the older sensor it uses I have a feeling I will be let down by the quality vs price for my uses.

ANTVGM64

I think you may want to do a little "reality TV magic" with this one. I'd start with an introduction, an explanation of what you want to show off, and then move to a different setup and go from there. Right now your lighting is kind of...dim, and everything is yellow. Are you editing on FCP or something like Windows Movie Maker? If you're on FCP absolutely take a gander at white-balance options. As far as lighting goes, I'd nab every single plug-in-able lamp you have in that house and place them below the frame and outside it. You could also have a light on camera in that dark room off the the right, and it'd add some interesting framing.

Also a thought: Do you all have smart-phones? for something like this some POV shots would be awesome, and allow for some quality close ups of the gameplay, maybe you can mount them or prop them up in front of the players, so you can get better close ups of the game being played, because as it stands right now I have no idea what's going on, game-wise.

Do a google search for "Board James" and see what that guy does - You don't need to be crazy over the top like he is, but that's probably the best way I've seen board games be played.

Depending on your budget, you could also get a super-cheap HD Flip cam and suspend it from the ceiling with some doin'.

RevGutter

I've seen board james before, discovered it looking for new episodes of avgn a while back. beer and board games, and tabletop are in the same category as what we are trying too... just with more rage.
The yellow i just don't know. I've tried playing with the white balance on the camera, tried adjusting in edit (magix movie maker at the moment) and I just can't get it looking natural. Maybe it is just the lighting itself? All we have is the ceiling light right above us. Wonder how much a difference even using a different bulb in that would make.

Using our phones for POV shots is a great idea i hadn't considered. My concern with that is cutting to shots from cameras of different qualities. Worth a try to see though.

We've gotten the same feedback of not being able to follow the game on our first video too and it's something we're trying to work on. I absolutely want to be able to get a shot of the table, just a matter of figuring out how. For the moment we're sticking with games that don't necessarily have a board to view for that reason. A better intro could help with being able to follow along in those cases.

Into wise we're still working on that (along with a bunch of other ways to improve) and I have a few good ideas. Where I'm at now is after shooting for an hour or so, then editing it down and quality wise it still looking like ass in my opinion gets me really discouraged. I can spend a bunch of time doing a separate into and run down, work in pictures of the game and pieces (which is the plan) just to have it still look and sound terrible. Feels like polishing a turd, you know what i mean?
I think once i get the technical aspect of recording down and to a better over all quality I will feel I'm in a better place to start improving the content.

I've considered flip type cameras. Lack of expandable storage is a killer but I know there were other brands that do the same. Seems that whole category of cameras has pretty much vanished though and I'd rather not buy second hand.

How bout the audio... any tips on getting it cleaner and more clear? I know I gotta get the others to project their voice more.

ANTVGM64

When you white-balance what do you do? You ideally want to zoom in on a white piece of paper that you hold near where your subjects are, hit the white balance button, focus, then pull out.

RevGutter

Since it's a webcam I just use the the slider for white balance in the capture software. Pretty much just shift it around til I get a middle ground that doen't look too grey or too orange. I try to use the white wall as a base but I'm just not getting there.

RevGutter

Wanted to follow up with the results of the last shoot using what I've learned. Lighting really was the key, I bout some natural daylight bulbs, used some cheap clamp lights and made a diffuser using a sheet of vellum. Holy crap what a difference.
I did end up getting a cannon hf r400 and still got pretty poor results, so lighting really is what I was missing

hsu

On the microphone side, you need a mic made by an audio company, like Samson (samsontech.com) or Blue (bluemic.com).

If it connects to the camera, great, if not, sync the audio to the video during the editing process. If it does connect to the camera, your camera will need audio level controls for things to sound right. Otherwise, it'll sound better to capture audio separately.

Basically, a good video camera has an external mic input and the ability to control audio levels whilst recording. The 30 minute record limit, because you're using a still camera in movie mode? Not an issue, at all. A quick break to hit the record button again is no big deal. But the ability to record good audio in one take? That saves a ton of editing time.

Finally, you need to be more willing to do retakes. Retake, retake, retake, until the whole scene is smooth. If that means separate scenes for each actor, editing it all together in post, because one actor screws up their lines more often than the others, so be it.

ANTVGM64

Lemme know when you got it edited Rev, then we can get into the wild world of google analytics and tagging.

RevGutter

One of the reasons I went with the new camcorder I got is the external mic jack which is rare in that price range. the internal has a bunch of settings so gonna see how it works. I've already dropped over $500 on this project so I'm not ready to splerge on a good external yet. Unless there's any suggestions on a good budget one. I assume I'd want a directional mic?

I don't do the editing and this last one isn't scheduled til next Friday. We just did munchkin and I'm going to try scanning some cards to overlay which should help with being able to follow what's going on.

Tagging and seo I'm pretty good with, ill take any advice though. Nothing is really set up that way yet cause we actually don't want to be found. Website needs tons of work and we're focused on generating as much content as we can first. don't want to start driving traffic to the site until we have something to keep people coming back.

romanqwerty

I'm not sure how much of an improvement getting one good mic is going to be. I think 4 lapel mics and a cheap mixer is a better option.