On Tue, 11 Jun 2002 21:28:57 -0400, John Garrison wrote:

>I just got a sony vx2000 camera and have a couple of questions. First of
>all this camera seems to have the same nasty habit that my trv-820 has,
>cutting off for no apparent reason. I've heard that they do this is when
>a tape is in to protect the heads, but shouldn't it only do it when I'm
>not using it? The trv-820 has cut off on me in the middle of uploading
>footage to iMovie and the vx2000 just cut off on me twice today. Once
>while setting the white balance and one while setting the ND filter.
>Surely this isn't a bug in two different camrea models, is there a way
>to tell it to only go into sleep mode when I'm not doing something?!

You do not want to defeat this feature - the camera gives
you about 5 minutes in standby mode with tape in contact
with the heads. More, and you risk damage. Remove the tape
while setting up, or switch to Memory Stick mode... If the
camera is switching off while tape is moving, this is a
defect, unless it is due to low battery power or other
fault condition.

>Secondly what is a good resource for learning how to setup the camera
>properly. I've noticed that unless lighting is perfect I get a kinda
>crappy shot. I'd like to find some resource on using the exposure
>settings, white balance settings, zebra stripes, etc. to get a higher
>quality shot. I've tried turning the exposure down to get rid of zebra
>stripes but sometimes to get rid of some zebra stripes I have to make
>the rest of the picture too dark. Do I just ignore those bright spots
>and try to keep them out of my footage?

Ignore the small bright areas - the VX2000 in particular
(and DV in general) handle them well. Check out my
recommendations for exposure and WB settings for the NTSC
VX2000 at: www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/sony_dcr-vx2000.htm.
These are based on a couple of years of experience with
two VX2000s. Basically, trust the excellent auto controls
of this camera, biased with the custom controls for
particular needs. I prefer setting the two VFs to "normal"
(referenced to a good TV) for judging exposure (and WB,
with a little experience with the quirks of these finders).
I have never found the zebras useful for exposure, but
others do... The contrast of the VX2000 picture is lower
than that of any other "handycam" camcorder I know of,
giving better than usual shadow and highlight rendering,
making exposure easier - but you still need to be aware of
the basics of photo exposure, and how to compose quickly
to minimize exposure problems...

>I'm going to be shooting a paintball documentary soon, which is alot
>sooner after getting the camera than I'd hoped, but scheduling made it
>that way. I'd really like to have some idea how to get a great looking
>picture out of the camera by that time.
>I am willing of course to pay for a book if there is one out there that
>really goes in depth about this sort of stuff, I thought I was getting
>something like this when I paid $25 for the getting starting with the
>vx2000 video, but it wasn't anything but a very basic introduction.
>Any advice on how to reduce graininess would be appreciated too. The
>lower light shots seem to be the grainiest so I'm hoping maybe some
>exposure setting or something will help to clear it up.

The VX2000 has the very best low light picture quality of
any of the "handycam"-type camcorders. You can shoot good
images in absurdly low light levels with it - but you cannot
do the impossible: shoot good color in essentially no light.
Easiest/best: switch out all the ND filtering; stay in
normal program mode (it will reduce shutter speed to the
minimum first, then will open aperture to maximum, then
will increase gain to maximum, in that order. All to +12db
(or even +15db) will produce nice picture quality, with even
+18 not bad with some subject types. To minimize the
appearance of graininess (which is relatively minimal with
this camera compared with most others, even at worst),
avoid shooting smooth-tone areas, and keep most of the
subjects near the same distance from the camera to avoid
seeing out-of-focus (smooth) areas in the picture. If
necessary, reduce shutter speed to 1/30th or 1/15th,
though this will reduce picture sharpness a bit (at 1/15th,
+15db gain, lens wide-open, NDs out, this camera will give
you surprisingly good images in VERY low light!).