Lumix LX3 camera used for production
In November last year I flew to America in order to do a production for Aish Center NY. It was an amazing experience. I love Rabbi Harris from Aish Center NY and his family, they are very warm and fun to be around. I wanted to bring Aish’s video to a new level and promised Rabbi Harris a visually stunning video. I used to work with the Panasonic DVX100 that I’m still thankful for all these wonderful years it has served me. But time goes ahead and so too technology.
Production Shot 1
My plan was to shoot everything on a DSLR from Canon. To my disappointment Canons announced 7D camera was not yet available when I was in the states. So, what should I do? I had with me my DVX100 but how could I keep my promisse to deliver a visually stunning video?
I called my friend David Blumenfeld (Website) and he gave me the tip to try out the point and shoot photo camera Panasonic Lumix LX3. A $450 cam. I knew he shot incredible pics with it for Newsweek and WallStreet Journal. But Video?
I went ahead and did my first trials with this camera and the quality just knocked me off. From this footage I created NY’s People:
I shot all the b-roll material (what is not interviews) with the point and shoot cam and all interviews with my DVX100 because of its sound capabilities. I have to say, sound on the LX3 sucks. But if you record sound separately its an amazing work around.
Production Shot 2
Production Shot 3
In post production I would convert the footage into Apple Pro Res LT because the footage is hard to edit (needs a lot of rendering in order to play in realtime). A friend of mine asked me how I did the jump cuts in the interviews. I just resized the image in Final Cut and zoomed a bit in. But had to be careful not to do it too much because otherwise I would get artifacts in the image.
In the end everybody liked the movies a lot and we got a lot of compliments. I’m especially glad that it worked out because it was a bit of a risk since I had no experience with High Definition and this particular camera. But one thing I observed in life the best things happen if they are improvised.
Shmuel
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