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My interest in camcorders is videotaping balls. Balls typically have brighter lighting than most other social dances, so ordinary camcorders rated at 7 lux minimum useable illumination will probably get useable pictures, but better results would be obtained with a 1 lux camera. Currently, the Panasonic PV-GS320 miniDV camcorder is a 1 lux camcorder that is available. I have not used it. The 1 lux camcorder I use is bigger, heavier, and no longer avialable.
The EV scale used in video has to be referred to an ISO film speed setting on the light meter to measure lux with a light meter. Typically this is ISO 100. With this, EV 2 is 10 lux, and EV 3 is 20 lux. Most balls I measured in Vienna were near EV 3. To see how to convert EV to lux see a later paragraph in this document. I have found that a camera rated at 1 lux needs 10 lux, or EV2, to see step 16 near the dark end of a Kodak Q-13 gray scale, and 36 lux, or EV 3.9 was needed to make the camera's internal circuitry reduce the sensitivity because the scene was too bright.
If you are content to stand still and take pictures, a camcorder is all you need. The image stabilization built into the camera is enough when you are standing still, if you have a steady hand. There is an advantage to taking pictures while walking through the interior of a building. The mind integrates the constantly changing view to give a three dimensional impression of the interior of the building. If you want to video while walking or while climbing stairs, you will need a camera balancing apparatus. The most well known of these for camcorder use is the Steadicam JR. I have one that I had used with an older, larger camera. There is a newer model designed for the newer smaller cameras, the Steadicam Merlin. I have not tried it, but it is probably very good. Other brands are "Glidecam" and "Handyman 1000" but I have no experience with them. The Steadicam JR is designed for cameras from 2 to 4 pounds weight (0.9 kg to 1.8 kg). The small MiniDV camcorders might not work with it, but the larger Digital 8 model that I bought years ago worked fine. The combination of Steadicam and this particular camera weighs 5.5 pounds, and when shooting pictures must be carried in one hand, not two hands. It is more than most women can comfortably manage for any length of time. In the camera bag with accessories the weight is 9.5 lbs.
The Steadicam needs a little practice to get used to before you use it for valuable work.
The information in this article is not to be construed as any kind of warranty, guarantee, or promise regarding the equipment mentioned. It is the result merely of an amateur trying to be helpful by relating his experiences to others who may be interested.
Now, how to convert EV to lux. Lux is the illumanence, or incident light density on a scene. A spotmeter reads light as EV. Lux = (0.43958/reflectance) times 2 raised to the power (EV). A gray card has reflectance of 0.18. So lux = 2.442 times 2 raised to the power (EV) for EV readings taken off a gray card with a spotmeter. A white sheet of paper might (or might not) have a reflectance of 0.9. In this case lux = 0.4884 times 2 raised to the power (EV) for EV readings taken off a white card with a spotmeter. An ordinary ambient light meter will probably give EV readings corresponding to spotmeter readings off a gray card, when the lightmeter is set for ISO 100. Examples: EV 4 with a spotmeter would be 39.0 lux off a gray card, 7.81 lux off a white paper.
What are you going to do with your video? If you want to edit it and produce a program of some sort, will it be seen on the internet or on DVD? If on the internet, ordinary PC video editing programs will be satisfactory. If on DVD, you must be very careful to preserve video quality during the editing process. However, some video editing software which claims to produce DVD's, does not produce DVD quality video. Check around before you buy.
Digital consumer cameras record in a data format called DV, whether the physical format is Digital-8 or Mini-DV. Now it gets confusing. Many "informative" web pages refer to ANY digital video data format as DV format, where they mean DV to stand loosely for "digital video". There is only one digital data format that is known only by the name DV. Most PC editing programs read data in DV format and convert it to AVI format before they write it to the computer disk. AVI is an inferior format, and cannot produce video quality that you expect on a DVD. But AVI is a digital video format, so some sites refer to it as a DV format. This is confusing. Be sure that you use video editing software that captures the video from the camera onto disk in DV, not AVI format, and edits the video in DV format.
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