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Filed under: Cameras •Production •

It’s Not The Camera…

Speedskater and part-time videographer Julia Smith writes, regarding the image you see here:

“This setup with cameraman yields this kind of work:

US Champs 2009 Short Track Men 500m A Final (normal version)
US Champs 2009 Short Track Men 500m A Final (HD version)

I keep telling Tony he has camera chops.”

No kidding.

“Tony” is Tony Chung:

I skate with Northern California Speedskating Association.  Active skater and fan. I am Zclyh3 on YouTube.

My website is ShorttrackHD.com.

The camera is a Sony HDR-HC7, with a Sony ECM-HST1 attached microphone (90 or 120 degrees) attached to a Sony VCT-D680RM tripod.  Additional accessories include a Sony VCL-HG0737C wide lense 0.7x in case I need wider shots.  I have a Sony HDR-HC9 as a backup camcorder that I recently got at a great deal, although I should be using the HC9 to record rather than the HC7.  But I typically use the HC9 to transfer to my laptop while I record with the HC7.  Laptop seems to connect better with the HC9.

A bit of snuffling around on the ‘net indicates that the HDR-HC7 is a fairly user-unfriendly HDV consumer camcorder, while the VCT-D680RM is a flimsy, friction-head tripod. Neither one is what you’d normally think of if your goal is live coverage of fast-moving speedskating.

And yet: look how smoothly Tony tracks the action, and how quickly and comprehensively he covers the falls and then rapidly returns to the remaining skaters.

Can you do as well with your multi-thousand-dollar rig? I’m not sure I can.

Julia adds:

Elite coaches and skaters, we’re talking international competition here, are all over Tony for his footage, because it’s hard to get video for study. He covers races better than the professionals with his dinky consumer level camcorder. (I had to cover for him during some races, when he was participating in a few of the events. I went green about the gills when I first used that tripod head.)

Taking a contrarian view, the low mass of the camera and head make it simpler to snap from one part of the action to another (even as it makes smooth motion more difficult), and the fiddly little zoom lever facilitates quick zooms (even as it makes fine control nearly impossible).

But even if that is the case, I’m not sure I’d want to be pitted against Mr. Chung in a battle of speedskating videographers. He’s good.

To heck with the gear: knowing your subject, skill, reflexes, practice, and just plain talent are what really count.

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Completely agree that talent overcomes the lack of appropriate equipment but I do believe as well that the equipment exists for a demand and sometimes even some sort of necessity. Short track ice skating is quite predictable as a sport. The camera movement has a pattern and as long as you are focused you would be able to respond to an occasional change into this pattern. Not trying to put down the work Tony does, he is great, but I still defend that appropriate gear sometimes makes possible the impossible when alongside great talent.
What separates great professionals from amateurs is great equipment being used by outstanding talent creating and setting higher levels on whats possible. Having said that I believe Tony would create even greater images with great equipment.

Posted by Pedro  on  03/23  at  06:31 PM

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“To heck with the gear”

I might modify that and state it’s not always what gear you have; it’s knowing how to use the gear you have. (Like the time me and my Subaru wagon out-drove a co-worker and her RX7…*) Seems like Tony has used his particular camera/tripod arrangement enough to be at one with it.

- Chris

(*Although I was even faster once I became “at one” with the Subaru’s successor, an Acura Integra…)

Posted by Chris Meyer  on  03/23  at  09:35 PM

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Very solid work. I actually kept watching.

I just don’t understand Chris’ inference that a Honda is an upgrade from a Subaru

-gl <- WRX owner

Posted by gloch  on  03/25  at  11:56 PM

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If all you have is cheap equipment, if you have the tenacity you will make it work.

Nasty equipment doesn’t stop great work from being produced. It only makes it a bit more difficult. Too often we get caught up in the equipment that is used to produce video when what we should be interested in is whether the stuff that we make is helping the people that employ us to create it.

Posted by Simon Wyndham  on  05/05  at  04:17 PM

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