{"id":617,"date":"2017-02-12T07:58:00","date_gmt":"2017-02-12T12:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/?p=617"},"modified":"2023-11-09T15:18:30","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T20:18:30","slug":"videostudio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/syner-g.no-ip.biz\/mymusic\/videostudio\/","title":{"rendered":"Video Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

February 12, 2017<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today with the help of my good Floridian friend Ed, I made the decision to make some kind of a small video studio in the basement.  Now, my basement is already my entertainment room, holds a toilet\/shower on one side, my music and recording studio, my home gym and home entertainment (TV stereo surround sound, etc\u2026) room.  So to stick a home video studio in there means I am covering up something or getting in the way of something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of the video studio since it is an afterthought, it has to be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 – Portable, meaning I should be able to set it up and put it away as needed so that I can access other parts of my basement normally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 – Big enough for my needs.  Let’s assume for the moment that I shall be shooting in the HD standard of 16:9, currently my max available width is 95″ and that means that I can shoot no taller than a height of 53.5″.  Now that may sound like a lot, but that’s just under 4.5 feet, and that means that at best, I will be able to get myself framed in to the photo from my head (with a little breathing room) to my mid- knees, however, that’s with me sitting down<\/strong> so this is just<\/em> barely enough for my needs.  Ideally, I would love to have a height of 65″, but to do that I would need a width of 116″ and that is 8″ shorter than the maximum width of my entire backdrop.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of that, I don’t even have room for this scenario, even if I moved everything around.  So\u2026 while I do have the room for a home video studio, it’s all very tight in terms of my video framing and I must do this all while sitting because there is not enough room for me to stand and get a framing from just slightly above my head to let’s say, mid-knee\u2026 forget about getting a full body shoot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just for the sake of the math, if I used the entire 108″ in width, I could conceivably go as much as 60″ tall, and I would be clipping the edges.  Sadly, as mentioned, my basement space doesn’t permit me to go that wide, so I am maxed out at that 53″ height by 95″ width.  So, depending on my zoom, I can go from a head shot to as far back as framing me from head to mid-knee\u2026 but just barely, and if I did that, a single person would take up about 1\/3rd of the width in that kind of a layout.  It would be great to have a 12.5 foot wide by 8 foot tall by 25 foot long room just made to do this, however, this will never happen, because my basement simply doesn’t have the free space.  Wow, I wish the standard was still  the old 4:3 standard\u2026 I’d have a lot more height to work with (just over 71″!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyways, enough with the math.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what have I ordered and what do I have to work with?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Well, for a start, I already own this nice backdrop and the stands and cross bar.  I’ve used this setup to take the pictures of my accordions in the pictures area of this blog.  It looks nice and all.  Let me show it to you:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the final two pictures, you can see a bit of the light stand and the umbrella.  I took the pictures with the cell phone camera, so they are far from being of any standard, but good enough to show the setup and make the point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The part that I just ordered is the 3-point constant lighting setup:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This set was found on Amazon.com by my friend Ed and is ridiculously affordable, so much so that when I saw it, I placed the order almost immediately.  They should arrive in about a week for me here in Canada.  I am quite excited and look forward for the kit to arrive.  I think it will permit me to make some good accordion videos\u2026 not just the ones of me playing, but the coming “Roland FR-8X Mild to Wild” series of videos!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camera Settings?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I plan to try to use my Nikon D4 dSLR camera as the main video camera, since it has a good quality of video that I need, and depending on other factors, I definitely want to use something else (either my Samsung Note 4 or Sony camcorder), as the 2nd angle.  Creating this 2nd view at another angle is what is commonly referred to as the “B-Roll” (edit<\/strong>: as of February 25, I now own a Canon Vixia HF R70<\/a>, what I think is the perfect “B-Roll” camera).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve not had a chance to receive my video lights yet (they’re stranded in Nevada somewhere thanks to a snow storm), so I cannot really know how bright the lights are in real life, but I can try a half educated guess.  I’ll want to keep ISO fairly low, somewhere under ISO 1600.  Focal length between 50-85mm.  Aperture somewhere in the range of F\/2.8- F\/4 for good sharpness.  Smaller apertures will give a greater depth of field, of course. Shutter speed somewhere between 150th-1200th depending on both no flicker and proper exposure desired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More to come as I start this new phase of my story!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Addendum:  February 19, 2017<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Today I did some testing and the results were quite interesting!  First off, the camera settings using my single umbrella and the 150 watt bulb were:  ISO 1250, Aperture of F\/2.8 and shutter speed of 1\/100th.  There was zero flickering and if anything it all looked quite good.  Though the D4 can easily handle these settings, I think a camcorder would be struggling, so more light is needed besides this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also found out that the on camera mic of my D4 is great for voice, not so good for music and neither is the shotgun mic!  I also tested digital output from the Roland BK-7m and it was a lot better, however there were 2 issues:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1 – I did not like the balance as it came out (though this can be adjusted, the ultimate solution is to record directly to the DAW).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 – The BK does not start to record until the rhythm is started, so any long intros you play before the rhythm starts are not captured!  This may be a setting that I can change, but don’t care enough since reason #1 kind of overrides this reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that the coming video lights are going to be brighter and so ISO will be lower and\/or a smaller aperture will be used, so the shots will be more in focus as I move back and forth.  I really do need that F\/5.6 for reasonable depth of field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I made a short test video that shows the results of the settings above and of the analog and digital captures of the music and switch back and forth in the video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out my YouTube video on this topic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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