recommend a video camera that can clearly record small things moving very quickly

September 4, 2007 10:33 AM

Video enthusiasts and professionals I need suggestions for a camera that will be used primarily to record fencing matches. (this question asked on behalf of my father)

My youngest sister has become a very accomplished foil fencer and competes all over the country. Over the weekend I went to visit her and our parents (she's 11 years my junior) and my father asked if I knew of any portable camcorders in the $350 - $700 that would be especially good for recording her bouts. I said no but I knew where I could ask. For those familiar with video but not fencing: it is very, very fast and hard to follow unless you know what you're looking at; it's played indoors under decent lighting conditions; and bouts occur on a long, narrow strip between two people (dressed all in white with a black grill over their faces) who stay on their own side of the strip. Moderate zoom would probably get used but from time to time but the action is so fast that an amature videographer would probably find they got the best results by tracking/panning rather than messing with focal lengths. But I'm just guessing.

I suspect much of the footage will go directly to DVD. I don't know what if any post processing they have in mind but I'm assuming they'd prefer high def source. I don't know if cameras record interlaced or progressive frames, I don't know which would be preferable for their purposes. I don't know if devices record with the h264 codec or the nearly uncompressed DV or some similar mpeg format and I don't know what would be most useful for them.

To Sum Up:
All I know is that they want a camera that will allow them to record their daughter's fencing matches for later enjoyment so the top priority is a camera that costs between $350 and $700 and which can clearly record small things moving very quickly. I welcome any technical information you might have, any similar experiences, and any explanations (of optics, digital video versus film, pre-processing compression, pet peeves or whatever) you can offer in support of your recommendation.

Thank you.

posted by Grod to sports, hobbies, & recreation (10 comments total)

The Panasonic HDC-SD1 AVCHD is brand new. It lists for $1200 but seems to selling in mid $700 range, CircuitCity has it for $715. It's a 3CCD HD camera. That's pretty amazing for that price.
posted by doctor_negative at 10:46 AM on September 4, 2007

If you want to get faster than 30fps, your options are very limited. Some consumer-level digicams go to 60fps, (the Canon Powershot S3, specifically) but the resolution is limited in that mode.

Casio has a prototype that'll go to 300fps, though I'm sure it'd eat memory like candy. And in both cases, getting the video from the SD card onto DVD is likely to be an exercise in frustration, especially for the "blinking 12:00" crowd.

High frame rate combined with high resolution is an expensive proposition. There are industrial applications for this sort of image acquisition, but $700 isn't even within an order of magnitude.

I think you're going to have to settle for 30fps and just get a wide aperture so the "shutter speed" can be nice and fast, which will hopefully keep the foil from blurring too badly. There are probably online fencing forums where you might find folks who've already tackled this question.
posted by Myself at 11:24 AM on September 4, 2007

You might run this question by the fencing.net forums as well.
posted by Manjusri at 11:27 AM on September 4, 2007

I think what might be really needed is good optical stabilization. I use Panasonic DV cameras a lot, and have always been impressed with their Optical Image Stabilization system. This will be especially needed if you aren't using a tripod, or aren't very close to the action and have to use some zoom. Plus they come with Leica glass lenses, which is always excellent.
posted by sanka at 12:06 PM on September 4, 2007

High frame rate combined with high resolution is an expensive proposition.

This is essentially the meat of the problem. Any professional camera even remotely approaching consumer pricing will force you to choose between high resolution or a higher frame rate.

The Panasonic HD camera du jour - the HVX200 - does appear to shoot at 60i (frames per second, i for interlaced) with 1080 resolution, but it costs over five grand, without accessories. Accessories are a big deal, as mentioned above. You need to make sure you have a good battery, extras of whatever media you are recording on, and a solid tripod - Manfrotto is a very good choice.

This question is a little out of my field, since a lot of professional cinematographers use digital cameras that intentionally shoot at a slower frame rate, to create that "film-like" feeling of movement - hence the popularity of cameras that shoot at 24fps, as opposed to straight up video, which shoots at 29.97.. looks "realer" but less cinematic. The question of whether or not this five frame per second difference translates into anything significant in terms of the speed of movement in fencing is a question that i might imagine might require some trial and error. But that is itself irrelevant, since your cheaper cameras actually shoot at a higher framerate, and therefore seem more appropriate for your situation.

The principle you are invoking here is one that i posted about a while back, in terms of a specialty camera that shoots 1000fps and then is sped up or slowed down in post. My intuition is that economically, this is out of your league, as well as shooting in film, which wouldn't necessarily produce any tangible benefit.

I believe your best bet, if you have a credit card with a high limit, is that there are professional camera stores that will allow you to rent equipment for a day as long as you authorize the full amount of the equipment you are borrowing on a credit card. (Depending on where you live, I can recommend some.) It's up to you not to fuck the equipment up, but if you have your shit together, you could rent a very nice camera for a couple of hundred bucks a day and test it out. (I actually don't know how much an HD camera costs to rent; i do know that the DVX-100, Panasonic's little non-HD brother, goes for a measly $50/day these days. So I'm extrapolating.)

If you felt more ambitious, I would strongly recommend a two-camera set-up that would involve a fixed wide shot for both fencers, and someone operating a medium or close-up shot of your sisters hand movements, probably something waist-up, not too much closer - if in fact the movements are fast and the camera operator is inexperienced. The wide shot perpendicular to the strip, and the medium shot at an angle toward your sister, with the other fencers back facing the camera, but not necessarily in the shot. Both cameras, obviously, on the same side of the strip.

Some other things to keep in mind: A lot of people miss this, but if your end result is going to be distributed via standard DVD, there is no point in shooting in HD, since your footage will be compressed.

In proper lighting conditions, I cannot overstate how good beautiful the Panasonic lineup shoots. Colors, movement, its great. A lot of people also love the Canon lineup - specifically the XL1 and XL2. All of these shoot to mini-DV.

I suppose I'm giving you some background on what's out there but I could totally be missing out on some cheap camera that is the shit for what you're trying to do. I could throw you some numbers of educated salespeople here in my area that might be able to help you more than I, and you can call them but you have to be specific about what you're looking for, because I've found that camera people love leaning toward being unhelpful. Email's in my profile. Whatever you do, experiment, and do not obsess over the technical detail of the camera you end up using - or liking. Because the ultimate test will be whether you get your message across in a way people can understand, not the specs printed on the box your camera comes in. Many technical limitations can be overcome by creativity and pre-planning.
posted by phaedon at 1:21 PM on September 4, 2007

If you want the footage to be professional looking, you need a pro-sumer camera that has both manual focus, manual zoom and manual iris control. You also need someone that can operate the camera well. IMO, the only way to could achieve this in your price range is a camera that's really used, and a real bargain.

If you're just looking to put a camera on a tripod, lock-down a wide shot, and record the entire match at one focal length -- any DV camera should do. If it has 3 CCDs (the optic sensors) that's better then a camera with 1 CCD. The quality of DV footage is almost moot, as your final compression of the footage will be centered around the DVD.

But from what I gather -- if the details are what you're after -- you really need to find a camera operator that can capture the details. Even with a high-end, high-resolution, high-frame-rate camera, I think you're still looking at a really high-resolution wide shot... that all becomes moot when you master to DVD.
posted by donguanella at 2:06 PM on September 4, 2007

phaedon, some useful information, thanks. I like the recommendation of rentals and will pass it on to them. Your suggestions are too complex for their needs, at least right now. I think all he really wants is to record his daughter fencing, not create an underground film or video training. There's no intention to distribute and if it weren't that fencing is a sport with small blades moving really fast, if it were soccer or tennis that my sister played, my father probably would've bought whatever cost $500 at best buy.

Tangential, you mention distribution intent. There isn't any intent to distribute save to family, at least not so far as I know, however I wonder if there isn't some advantage to shooting in HD anyway. Half my job consists of production art type tasks and pre press work of the Photoshop variety. A part of my job is image prep for web. Sometimes the same image ends up in a two page spread full bleed at 11x17 inches and also as an 800px wide jpg on the web. I would prefer always to work with the many megapixel source even when the final undergoes extreme degradation. I might need the high res later, I might not, it's nice to have it. It seems natural to me, therefore, to always have the source material in the highest resolution possible, do all the editing and production type tasks at that resolution, and only scale, sharpen, and compress at the end. Is it different in film?

To all:
The best quality camera in that price range that can handle this type of shooting. The rest was incidental.
posted by Grod at 2:34 PM on September 4, 2007

Some more tips:

You would do well to treat "should I shoot in HD even though I'm expecting to output in DVD" issue as having no one, definite answer. The video workflow is not similar to going to press, in the sense that, while I may end up being corrected on this point, many consumer level cameras in your price category that call themselves "HD" don't actually shoot true HD, but rather HDV, which is recorded on an mpeg2 compression stream, which in turn, when downconverted to standard definition, may create artifacts in individual frames of your end result. And that may be particularly relevant in your situation where you are shooting fast action. All said and done, if it is a given that you will be going with DVD output, there are bigger issues at stake in terms of what your camera is actually capturing as opposed to the quality of how it is recording. In this sense, I would argue that if you had to choose, I'd go with a nice standard def 3CCD camera, as opposed to a 1CCD camera that claims to capture in HD. This idea that screen quality for a "home video" hinges on the HD/SD distinction is almost totally created for promotional purposes.

Think of it this way: the .tiff downconverting to .jpg analogy doesn't apply, because in graphics, almost everyone start with the same program: Photoshop. In the film world, the starting point is the camera. And every camera is almost completely different from the next. That's why people haven't abandoned standard definition once HD appeared. There's just so much more that goes into it - especially given the fact that so many people don't even have HD televisions.

To be honest, I've seen fencing before, and of course, fencing has been televised for a number of years now, so I am tempted to conclude that you might be making a bigger issue of the technical problems that might arise from the speed of movement than actually exists. At the risk of repeating myself, I suggest again: get a cheaper fluid-head tripod, stick with a fixed wide shot, make sure there is a nice contrasting background that will allow the people in the foreground to stand out, and you should be good to go with whatever camera you choose. All I can offer is explanations, but I imagine that at this point you want a recommendation of a good camera in that range, so I hope someone helps you with that...
posted by phaedon at 3:20 PM on September 4, 2007

You can't shoot more that 25 (PAL) or 30 (NTSC) FPS on any consumer camera. The Panasonic HVX200 does shoot variable framerates, but it's not in your price range, and it only supports that on expensive P2 cards which can make thing fairly difficult if you're not well set up for video work.

If you get a camera that shoot Interlaced video (most will) you can shoot 60i (in NTSC) land, which is capturing 60 half-horizontal-res frames a second basically.

Make sure you get a camera that supports manual shutter speed. By setting a high shutter speed (1/500th or more) you will capture images with fairly high clarity and little motion blur.

You can then slow that footage down to 50% using a non-interpolated method (duplicated field in Avid, other names in other programs) and will get a fairly decent 50% slow motion video.

The most important part of that is the shutter speed option. A high shutter speed freezes the action well, allowing for clarity in fast moving action (think of the land scene in Saving Private Ryan).
posted by sycophant at 4:23 PM on September 4, 2007

Futher - if you're going to Standard Def DVD, it's a lot easier to start in SD. Editing in HD is more processor intensive, down converting to SD for DVD will just add more time to the process.

HD is good, but if you don't need it, you may as well just go with SD for the time being.

As for format - I really really strongly urge you to stay the hell away from anything that doesn't record on a nice simple tape. DV is easy to use, offers reasonably good compression and quality for it's size and cost, and is pretty much universal. Anything else means jumping though hoops. Digitial still cameras that do movies shoot at non-video resolutions (like 640x480) and in weird formats. DVD cameras make it a pain in the ass to edit in anything but whatever comes with them, and DVD compression is far to lossy to use for origination. Same goes for hard drive cameras.

Anything that can't play 25Mbit/s DV411 video down a FireWire/iLink/IEEE1394 cable is going to be a lot harder to work with in any application that didn't come packaged with it.
posted by sycophant at 4:44 PM on September 4, 2007