Camera Operating Skills

Yesterday I had a XDCAM tutorial in the studio with Pete, so that we could book it out from the loan store and to use it to film our music video exercise as one of our projects for University. 

During this tutorial I learnt how to use and handle an XDCAM, although this camera tutorial is similar to the HM100 camera and JVC 750 camera tutorials there are also many differences as they are obviously different cameras. They work in different ways with different settings and record on different formats. The XDCAM records onto XDCAM disks which then has to be exported using an XDCAM Professional Disc Drive Unit onto Avid whereas HM100's and JVC 750's use SD cards and imports using a SD card reader. 

An advantage of using the XDCAM is that the XDCAM disc is bigger than the SD card so it would be easier to keep hold of and look after, as the SD cards are pretty small and it is easy to misplace them. Although XDCAMs have excellent quality, it is a struggle to use as handheld on your shoulder because it is fairly front heavy. Also carrying to various locations is a struggle as you would have to carry the camera and the tripod wherever you are shooting but Digital Single Lens Reflex cameras (DSLRs) are lighter and easier to film with, the only problem is that you might not get the same quality.