Re: Do I really need a capture card for editing hdv? Help!

We are getting pretty far away from the original subject but I will answer what I can. For the distances you are talking about in wildlife shooting, a camera mounted microphone won’t do you much good no matter how directional it is, other than picking up some ambience type noise in the surrounding area. You will really need something located away from you and closer to the animals you are filming. A pretty good wired boom mic is the Sennheiser MKH 416 or the Sanken CS1 or CS3e. The prices for the Sankens are pretty reasonable. For wireless, look for something in UHF to give you decent range. At least out in the wilderness you wont have a lot of issues with frequency conflicts. Zaxcom makes an excellent system for around $3500 for transmitter and receiver. If you are looking for something a little more reasonable in price you could try some of the Azden UHF systems, but you give up some sound quality and performance. On the other hand, if you are putting a wireless microphone out somewhere that an animal may step on it or eat, you would much rather lose a $300 Azden transmitter than a $1700 Zaxcomm.

For a sound recorder we mostly use the audio recorded onboard the camera since we don’t have the additional people to lug around a field recorder. I have never tried the Sony PCM-D1 so I really can’t say, but I have read great things about it. I have used the Tascam HD-P2 and it is pretty decent.

Since we mostly use Macs in our studio, for field notebook computers we use 15” Mac Book Pros with 200GB hard drives. That allows us to download from our P2 cards (we are using Panasonic HVX-200s and HPX-500s), review the video and do some rough editing in the field. Saving a copy to a USB or firewire hard drive is the perfect idea for backup.

For rain covers, you will definitely need one. Ikegama make some great ones and Kata rain covers are pretty good as well for a lower price. For a waterproof housing for the HC7, I recommend a Sony SPK-HCC which I use for our HC3s. I believe they work for the HC7 as well. They are not designed for underwater work below about 5 meters, but for surf use and shallow water they work fine. The Ewa-Marine housings you mentioned are good as well although they limit your handling of the camera controls somewhat.

To get some experience you might talk to some of the companies in your area to let you accompany a shoot. They may be willing if you pay your own way and agree to share your video. We are based quite a bit further away in the Philippines so most of our shooting is in Philippines, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. We do travel videos primarily but we also do some nature shoots as well. You would be welcome to tag along with us on a shoot but you would have to travel too far to get here.

Steve