Camcorders

[bee-nuts]

I would like to record some visits to my hives with a camcorder.  I was wondering if anybody could give me any recommendations or tips?

Thanks for any Help.

[charles]

Have someone else hold the camera for you.
Sound quality is important. Try to avoid too much breeze.
Have your cameraperson avoid standing directly in front of the entrance.
Go in with a plan. If you are going to edit out the slow bits, fine. But it's really effective to get in there and do your thing quickly and capture the whole process.
I saw some German education videos of beekeeping with English narration. You might dub in your narration later if you want really high quality sound. If that's not practical, then make sure you go in with a plan.

Act natural. Bees know when you're screwing around with them. Let your cameraperson take responsibility for capturing the footage. You don't need to keep asking, "did you see that? did you get that? how did that look? is my hair pretty?"

Avoid conversing with the camera operator. Identify and describe what you are looking at and doing. That way you won't have one really loud voice and one somewhat distant voice carrying on a conversation.

If you are going to move in closer or farther away, stop recording first. Shaky filming makes people queasy.

If they start stinging the crap out of you, film the runaway. That's just funny right there.

[bee-nuts]

Thanks for info Charles.  You mention some things I had not thought about. 

How about the camcorder itself?  I need to purchase one and am not sure what type I should buy.  Are there any that keep focus when zoomed in on something small like a bee?  I looked at several and they all get blurry when zooming in on something close.  If I am trying to look at eggs, zooming in on a queen, or a bee collecting pollen, etcetera, I want clear picture.  Can anybody recommend a model or product specs to be looking for when using a digital camcorder for applications such as described above.  I also should add that I have not ran a camcorder since the VHS days so maybe I don't need to zoom in as close as I think to get a close picture for viewing on a PC monitor.  I Just don't want to waste money on something that don't work.  I hope I made some sense, lol.

[nella]

My daughter has a cell phone that takes pretty good video and pictures, then she downloads them into the computer. I don't know what brand it is but she got it from at&t store. It might be a Samsung.

[hankdog1]

Well asking about the camera to use kinda depends on what you want to spend.  You can get a small pocket HD camera pretty cheap.  If you want to get really good quality close ups stay away from digital zooms.  Optical zooms are much better when getting in close.  Cannon makes some of the best on the market right now.  I know thier digital SLR still camera the Rebal is a still right now.

[Grandma_DOG]

I would like to record some visits to my hives with a camcorder.  I was wondering if anybody could give me any recommendations or tips?

Thanks for any Help.

I've got a Cannon PowerShot SD1100 camera. It does fine videos at 640x480 with good sound. I've shot videos with it around the world when I'm in the field. With a 2GB card, I can get about 50 minutes of video.

It captures the video in a *.avi file using motion jpg codec for high quality.

I've made several beekeeping videos with it and posted on YouTube under 'OutOfaBlueSky'.  Mostly Top Bar Hive stuff.

Only draw back is the video is 640x480 which is good but not HD. And the mic doesn't handle wind well.

[buzzbee]

Try to keep the sun to your back,even with modern cameras it is still a big plus.Get to know trhe macro features and use them to look in close at the frames. It's amazing what you'll see that the human eye does not detect so easily.
This same info goes for still cameras. Oh,and get twice as much recordingm media than you think you will need!!

[bee-nuts]

Thanks a ton all of you.  Just the info I'm looking for.  I got some study'n to do now.  Thanks again.

[johnnybigfish]

Yeh, beenuts, you got some good info here, thats for sure!
I only have a couple things to add....A tripod is great! Ive found that using a tripod keeps Hi-def vids higher def....It will eliminate hand shake.I have a small inexpensive, 128.00 dollar cam( the pocket type mentioned) and it does what its supposed to but when holding it in the hand, handshake makes the high def part hard to really appreciate.
And, my camcorder uses small reels( the real camcorder)....But, now, with techinology, theres camcorderes that put your stuff on a chip or disc, with GREAT resolution and definition!...and, very little shake!
But,...you get what you pay for...With camcorders, you could end up buying one every 3 months because of all the advancements in what they have to offer. I'd love to buy another Canon...But....I still have mine that I got a few years ago...And, it doesnt compare to whats out there now!
anyways, good luck, and have a blast!
your friend,
john

[beemaster]

I really think two features I like are:

1) having 3 CCD (charge Coupling Devices) mine are 3/8th inch - these increase the light and color sensitivity of the camera and you surely see the difference in low light situation - both in colors and in brightness.

2) I really like the auto macro mode (although I haven't used it much - sadly I forget which button clicks turn it on during spontanious filming. But when it is on, you can be back about 3 feet away and zoom in to about 2 inches as if you have a macro lens on the camera and you are truly 2 inches away.

The biggest thing I have learned is MEDIA STORAGE TYPE - there are three:

1) Mini DV Tapes - which I have and I'm not sure if I think it is the best choice in hindsite. The biggest downfall is when transfering the video to the PC, you have to play it as recorded - 1 minute of tape takes 1 minute to transfer.

2) Mini DVDs - nice storage media, it does create a load of DVDs after a while but they are relatively inexpensive and store in a much smaller container than the tapes. They play in a regular DVD player which is a great feature.

3) Hard Disk Storage - which has a great advantage and disadvantage. You burn the video right on to a hard disk built in to the camera and transfering is a computer file, which transmits very fast to the computer. The down fall, when you run out of storage, you need to transfer the media to a computer and then it is empty again so it is reusable and no tapes or disks are needed for collection or take up space.

The other advantage of the hard disk type is that battery life is usually better since it has less moving parts like tape or dvd drives, but a down fall is if your PC crashes the file you moved to it, it is gone.

All media types have good and bad. The Mini DV tapes work MUCH like a VCR machine. The DVD minis (I don't think) are reusable as the tapes are and the harddrive (at least now) have fairly limited storage capacity - this surely will change as all memory storage does.

I hope this has helped.

[Brian D. Bray]

Don't hold the camcorder and the smoker with the same hand.
Don't hold the camcorder and the hive tool in the same hand at the same time.
Don't hold the camcorder and a frame of honey in the same hand.
The best view angle of frames of bees you're holding is from camcorder clothespinned to your nose.