MY CAPS LOCK IS ON Producing independent film in Seattle, Los Angeles and beyond.

Canon Vixia HF11

Hey all! So for Christmas I splurged and bought myself a new camera with which I hoped to shoot more videos. Here follows a bit of drama about this camera and my ownership thereof. So here's the specs: Full HD, 1920x1080. AVCHD codec (just like the HVX-200). A revolutionary (for this price-point) 24mbps recording mode, which means more data in less space. And the big ta-da is the fact that this camera records to a solid-state memory card. Two, in fact. A built-in 32GB and a slot for any SDHC card you care to throw at it. Let me tell you the 32GB is a LOT. About 200 minutes at full rez, 1080/30i. Camera is tiny, like digital camera tiny. Images are crisp as you might expect from an HD camera, but it's also just a lowly one-chipper. Only with an insane amount of structured lights and a solid pair of sticks could you even hope of shooting anything longer than 10 minutes on this. Luckily, that's not my goal.

Anyway, I used the camera for a shoot a few weekends ago, the results of which can be located below. But first, here's my main issue: sound. I have a decent shotgun mic - the Azden SGM-1X. Now, this camera is a consumer model. It doesn't have XLR inputs or anything that fancy. You can't ride the levels or attach multiple mics or headphones. It has a mini 1/8" external mic plug located in the back, just above the battery. I have a few XLR-to-mini adapter cables, which, it should be noted, have worked perfectly in the past. So I get the mic plugged in to the camera, set up the shot and begin recording. Immediately upon hitting record I pick up some sort of electrical interference. I call cut, make sure all cell phones are off and resume shooting. The noise comes back. It's intermittent, like three rapid clicks, pause, a couple more clicks, pause, three more, pause... and so on. Seems to be fairly random. I call cut again, take out the mic and listen... no clicks. I review the footage and sure enough you can hear the clips in the source. What's causing this?

Well, we needed to shoot while we had daylight and to match people's schedules. I decide it's something I can cut around in post if I really cared. It was quiet enough that it would probably get lost anyway. Then we shoot the next scene. While the camera is rolling I look down at it to make sure my headphones are fully in and the external mic is connected properly and here another click. It was then that I noticed the clicks corresponded to the Access light. Everytime the camera was recording to memory that light came on, and each time it came on it caused a click in the audio which was transferred to the footage. Great.

After discussing options with some of my more technically inclined friends I tried all available options. Ferrite cores, different cables, recording while plugged in to the wall as opposed to battery... nothing helped. Then I contacted Canon. They were pretty speedy with a response. Unfortunately their ideas included turning on a TV so I wouldn't notice the sound so much to switching off an option that wasn't even available (the "wind screen" which is only available when you use the onboard mic and conveniently is automatically shut off when you connect an external mic). Great. So they told me to send it in. Which I did, today.

Who knows what will happen to my poor camera that I had for just a scant period of time. But until then, watch this little short I shot with a bunch of friends over a weekend. Fun times. Next short should be out in a few weeks.

Stray Doug from Dom Zook on Vimeo.