Many of us have used the Canon Gxx or XAxx series cameras on here. In general they function the same or similar. Please ask your specific questions and I am sure several of us can answer them.
Which cards do you prefer to use? Which hard drives do you prefer to use to store your content on? For the b-roll stuff like vehicles driving by you walking by or in a creek and such are you using an action cam or your main cam? When do prefer To use filters. How do I know when I Want to adjust my shutter and the av whatever that is?
So, when I ran my XA20 here is what I did. SD cards ... a couple 64Gb Class 10 cards was what I ran. I have had good luck over the years with SanDisk Extremes so that is pretty much all I buy. Hard Drives ... My PC's run on SSD drives for the OS and editing programs. But I store media on an internal 7200 RPM 2TB drive. I also use multiple external USB hard drives for back up copies of all media that I rotate and keep locked away in my gun safe. Final edits are kept on hard drives as well as cloud storage. Everyone has their own method to be honest. The basic principle of keeping multiple copies of everything though should be followed. B-roll ... a combination of cameras. I use GoPros for some things, my mirrorless for others, sometimes when I had my XA20 I would use it or even DSLR's. Heck even a current iPhone can be used in the right situation. Let the situation tell you what to use. Often the best camera to use is the one you happen to have with you at the time. Filters ... I assume you mean something like ND filters. I never used ND filters on my XA20 when I had it. Now, DSLR's and my mirrorless that is a different story. Due to the ability to really open up apertures on lenses and the larger sensors, you can get very creative with a shallow DOF using ND filters on these cameras. Not that you cannot do that on an XA or G series video camera, you can, but the effects will not be as significant. My advice on adjusting shutter and etc on your G series camera would be to run it in TV mode the majority of the time. By doing so, you define and lock in the shutters speed and let the camera define aperture, gain, etc based on the lighting. In general you want to set your shutter speed to two times the frame rate, or as close as possible. So if you are running 30 fps then your shutter speed should be 1/60. If you are running 60 fps then your shutter speed should be in theory 1/120, but if I recall on the G series you need to go to 1/125. Then in low light you can drive the shutter speed down to match the frame rate to allow more light onto each frame. You can go slower but then things become clouded in motion blur. You can also elect to run the camera in other mods including full manual, but it will be tough to continually keep up with the ever changing lighting conditions on a hunt by doing so. It can be done though, especially if you are the full time camera man for another hunter. It all depends on your situation and your experience level.
This is the kind of post I was hoping for. Thank you. What kind of extra batteries do you prefer? I need a couple Spares
You have to watch the batteries. Obviously, official Canon batteries will work probably best but you will pay more. One off brand that seems to be pretty good is Wasabi. I had them for my Canons and have a couple for my Sony cameras now. They are solid for the price. You can often buy a package deal with two batteries and a wall or USB charger. I would advise buying through Amazon so that you can read reviews and returns are pretty easy if there is an issue. When I had my Canon XA20, I bought some of the larger extended life batteries and had good luck with them.
Thank you very much. I need to learn about the tv and av settings. I've done a couple 1/2000 sequences while unloading feed and cows walking in a rain hoping for good slow motion effects onced I learn to edit.
Slow mo is more based on frame rate rather than shutter speed. At 1/2000 you are only cranking up the shutter speed. Frame rate is what has to increase to get good slow mo. The standard frame rate used for most TV work is 30 frames per second (technically it is 29.97 fps) and for film it is 24 fps. The highest frame rate in 1080 HD that most of our more affordable cameras will shoot is 60 fps. Meaning on a 30 fps broadcast timeline the final edit only uses every other frame. So to get butter smooth slow mo you technically can only slow the 60 fps footage down to 50%, allowing every frame to be used. However, you can get some good enough even slower stuff at 25%, basically every frame is used two times in a row. Beyond that though the footage starts getting a bit jerky. Increasing the shutter speed to 1/240 or 1/250 will help some in this situation. But it becomes very limited and the footage will look worse the slower it goes. Now that Canon G40 has a slow mo mode that uses internal interpolation to produce slow mo. The result is usable in a 30 fps timeline with some limitations. I never used my slow mo on my XA20 as I liked to control the final product more. On my Sony I can shoot 1080 in 120 fps which can make for some awesome slow mo. The next leap in camera technology is making 4k in 60 fps or even 120 fps available in affordable cameras. This is where incredible slow mo will be produced. My general advise with your camera is to shoot in 1080 at 60 fps and edit in a 30 fps timeline and a shutter speed of 1/125 in TV mode. This will give you the most flexibility in most situations.
