The Canon 305 is now the Industry workhorse but according to DV Talent Trainer and Shooting Series Producer, Steve Sklair, new users should be careful as mucking up on the camera is all too easy. He shares some tips on how NOT to use the camera.
1. To record using the Canon’s internal mic instead of external. Picture a sunny day in Kent. I was working with an AP who was recording sound using a small mixer. They were organising their equipment and I decided to get some extra shots of the contributor doing DIY. Switched to Internal mic, hey….the onboard mic isn’t that bad!! And some sound is better than no sound!
AP hooks up the SQN mixer, I DON’T switch to external and we film a whole day, interviews and actuality on external mic, only to discover the mistake at 4 in the afternoon. F**k.
Note – AP wasn't monitoring the return feed from the camera, so 2 lessons learnt in one day.
2. Getting the focus wrong. High Def filming takes no prisoners when it comes to focus, and I have shot stuff that’s just not perfect on the focus front. One time I did the old zoom in, focus up, zoom out a bit for the frame I wanted, and it came out just a bit soft. This is because the back focus on the fixed lens was not perfect; camera must have had a knock sometime. The solution is to use the magnification facility, but beware... one time I forgot to switch it off and had the most weirdly framed shots you can imagine! Another time I was using a Wide Angle and didn’t change the menu to wide angle adapter (in “Camera Set”) and again the footage was soft. F**k!
3. Ok, this one you won’t believe. I got a battery warning signal and forgot to stop recording before I swapped the battery. It corrupted the Flash card. F**k. We sent it to a Flash Card doctor, but only got some of the material back, and it cost a lot. Tip number 2: if you are backing up each night the day’s filming, it’s best to initialise the card, having just checked the backups. You don’t get that “Did I switch off the gas” moment next day, if you leave the initialising till just before filming.
4. I was filming in a factory. I forgot to do a white balance and the picture was too red. F**k. Did a proper white balance then, but it took ages in the edit because half the material (obviously I edited different white balance shots together) was the wrong white balance. It would have been better to keep filming on the wrong balance and then I would have had to only colour correct once in the edit and paste that “attribute” over the cut sequence. BUT if the colour is WAY out of line, best to do a proper white balance and RESHOOT the bad material, if you can!
5. I had been filming outside on a cloudy day. I came in to do an interview. Interior light was not brilliant and was surprised to find I needed to add quite a lot of gain to get a good exposure. C’est la vie... except that I had left the ND filter on from the outside filming. So the interview was pretty grainy. F**k. Thing is that the ND indicator on the LCD does NOT flash when you are in the wrong ND filter position if you are shooting in manual exposure.
6. I managed to shoot a whole job on the wrong format. It was for a Factual Entertainment show. For TV. I forgot to check the FRAME RATE menu before I started filming so all the footage was PROGRESSIVE, and not INTERLACED (which is normal for TV shows). My editor was not pleased as all the material had to be converted to fit in with the rest of the rushes.
7. Now this one is not totally my fault. I was on a 3 day shoot. 1st day I was filming on my own, using a gun mic. On Day 2, I was working with a Sound Recordist, and they forgot to change the audio source setting from MIC to LINE. F**k and double F**k. Of course it was their fault, but I had a whole day’s worth of distorted, untransmittable sound. It’s best to double check audio is ok if working with a sound person, and it’s always good to spot check your filming a few times during the day, anyway (video AND audio!)
8. I got back to the edit after a morning’s shoot to discover a nice little smudge on every shot. It looked fine on both the LCD and the viewfinder, but on that widescreen monster in the edit, there was the little smudge that was visible on most shots. Last time I ever forget to check the lens before filming (AND spot check it during the day’s shooting, lenses can easily pick up dust while filming).
9. This one is interesting: I was working on a 2 camera shoot and we set up the clock to be the same time (at least roughly) on both cameras, and the Timecode was set to FREE RUN. That’s great, you can tell exactly the time when you shot something, and the cameras only have a few frames to offset in the edit. I look at the Timecode going round to check I am filming. Trouble is I wasn’t actually recording on a couple of key shots. F**k. That terrible sinking feeling when you go to stop recording, and the red light pops up (which means you hadn’t been recording before!!). Yes get anal, check that red record indicator on the LCD!
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By Steve Sklair
