camcorders and flying...
 

hello,

I'm looking at getting a nice camcorder for christmas, the idea is to use it to record some of my flying.

What sort of problems can i expect? what effect does the prop have when recording?

I think most of the problems that I can expect to hit would be in the PC storage stage and converting the files. How much space on the PC will these files take up? (say 30mins of footage)

I probably only have max 30GB of free space on my pc and dont know if this is enough for an uncompressed video file during the editing stage. After reading a few reviews on editing they recommend 60GBs but this was for professional editing for small time producers. When I would just want to add cheesy music and delete frames to shorten the video.

I have played around a bit with camcorders in my time. I found transfering digital tape to the PC to edit can be a real faf. The new sonys that record directly to a DVD disc make life much simpler. I have not edited a full project from DVD yet, but I`m sure it will be much easier.

Justin

You'll get a fair amount of shakiness, even with an image stabiliser so will want to record double what you need and edit the most shaky bits out out.

I used to find problems with the camera autofocusing on the dead flies on the windscreen - use the landscape setting if it has one to avoid this problem. You might also want play with the colour balance a bit.

I don't think the prop caused any real problems

i wanted to do that too. for my X-C trips, but... i was planning to use a good quality web cam and a laptop. fitting is a problem, i tried trialing with my Digital camera... and the engine just shakes it to point to the wrong direction. so... where would you mount it??? rather than ... having a pax to hold it.

i planned to secure an imaging device to the top of the headset, so hopefully, it will record what you look.

any ideas?

nc

FWIW, every time a camera or video recorder comes anywhere near an aeroplane which I am flying, all sorts of disasters occur, which are neatly recorded for the subsequent board of inquiry! As a consequence, I have banned their presence from the cockpit. As a result, all my sorties are now perfectly flown and incident free. Oh, and they all record with minute detail, always in focus with no camera shake or wobble; indeed, the finished product always seems to be professionally finished, so you needn't have any worries on that score.... :rolleyes:

5 mins is about 1Gb for DV format video. You need to allow for:

- The original footage that you capture
- Some working space for transitions, stills and music
- Output of the edited video

Then there will also be a converted file if you want to output to DVD or Video CD etc, but this will be much smaller - about 2 hours on a 5Gb DVD.

So you should be OK for a 30 minute video assuming 60 mins original footage (12Gb), 30 mins final version (6Gb), DVD file (3Gb) and 2Gb for working space, music etc - total 23Gb.

Normal advice is to use a separate drive for your video footage as there may be performance problems due to contention if you use the system drive - but this will vary depending on how fast the PC is.

Filming problems to look out for are focusing on, or reflections from, the window and camera shake.

Can't really add on the advice given above, although I can offer this....shot on a mid-range DV Cam and knocked together using Sony Vegas;
www.cyborg2000.fsnet.co.uk/Tutor.wmv

(Recommend right click>save as)

ASI

wbryce,

I shoot quite a lot of video while flying, then wait until this sort of time of year to edit it all together.

I use an ordinary consumer-lever Sony DV camcorder (a now-outdated PCR-100) but the anti-shake is surprisingly effective and the picture quality is good.

You can find a good range of camera mounts at B. Hague & Co which should cater for most requirements.

Once you've shot your footage you need lots of disk space for editing and either lots of processer power or lots of time for mpeg encoding if you intend to create DVDs. The most recent DVD I did involved cutting down about six hours of footage which took up nearly 100Gb on the computer. The cheapest way to get that sort of space is probably an external Firewire disk. 250Gb drives aren't that expensive any more.

You can actually use quite slow computers to capture and edit. Until recently I did all my stuff on a 350MHz Pentium II. As long as your disks are reasonably fast then you should be OK for capture, but it took me 28 hours to turn 40 minutes of edited output into an mpeg2 file ready for DVD authoring, admittedly at quite a high quality setting. A couple of months ago I finally upgraded to a 3.4GHz machine with lots of disk, lots of memory and a couple of monitors. That does make things an awful lot faster, but it is certainly possible to get by with more-or-less any machine you're likely to have bought in the past two or three years, albeit perhaps with an an extra disk or two added.

There are lots of relatively cheap (<£100) video editing packages around, most of which are fine for what you want to do. Have a browse around a computer store and have a look at what's available.

The advice about having a 2nd hard drive to download your video is good. I use Pinnacle Studio 8 as an editing tool and the transfer of video to the pc via a firewire card is easy.

The amount of video that you download to the pc , will depend on the quality of your original shots. If you are just shooting willy nilly without any forethought or planning, then you may find; depending on how fussy you are, that you only have a small amonut of video worth downloading and editing. In my first efforts with a holiday video, I was lucky to get 10 mins out of 3 hrs, but thats down to crap camerawork.

The editing packages are so good these days that you will find that you want to shoot good quality video in the first place and this to my mind is the key.

If you are wanting to add music etc then again this will take up more hard disc space. For best results, always edit the video around the music, not the other way around. The picture editing is very easy with a good package, it's the sound that is more difficult.


Hope this helps

I have done loads of videoing as a PAX on digi cameras = My Nikon and a fujifilm. As long as you dont point it too much out front (slow mo prop!) you can make some pretty decent video; especially aeros! It takes a couple of goes to work out what angles give the best picture and to get to grips with holding it steady.

wbryce

I recenty videoed an a 5 day ferry flight.

The key thing for the sound for me is to get a Camera with a remote mic jack, then get a little tie-pin mic that works with it.

Place the mic in the ear cup of a good ANR headset (mine was a bose) just let it dangle near your ear.

Then the camera picks up all the RT and conversations via the intercom, rather than engine noise.

On our flight it also recorded the music we played as we flew.

That makes the video editing very easy, as your comentary or music are already there..

You can see clips at:

http://www.cirrus147.com/GT_FerryTop.htm

Hope this helps

Ian

I've flown quite a bit with a camcorder lodged in the corner of the windscreen with a piece of rag, pointing out of the front. Gets nice results for mountains, passes, approaches etc without any danger of being distracted - just leave it running for 3Hrs and then edit the 'good' bits on the computer later.

One thing I've noticed is that when you step through the frames later each alternate frame is clear, blurred, clear and so on. Took a while to realise this was the prop sweeping through the field of view!

One of the best uses for a camcorder is to choose individual frames for Internet stills. No matter how hard you try, you never seem to quite get the right shot with a still camera. Here's one I did earlier:

http://www.viewing.com/arizona/canyo...le/marb010.jpg

C'mon David - spill the beans - where is that??

I use a Sony HC30E but in bouncy weather it still is a problem. Smooth riding though gives exellent footage. For the video editing afterwards I use VegasVideo 5.0

thanks for all the advice!

I shall look forward to getting my camcorder and having a good play about with it! ;)

Clean the windows before you takeoff.