Video, Cameras, Film

Last Updated: September 17, 1998

We shot 12 rolls of prints (24 exp), 4 rolls of slides (36 exp), and 5 1/2 hours of video tape. I've taken the good prints and put them in the web page. However, some of the best shots were slides, and I recorded a lot more on video.

Video

My family gave us a video camera as a wedding present, with the expectation that we'd take it to China, which we did. Alas, I discovered in China that shooting good video is extremely difficult (well, it seemed that way to me). To make things more difficult, my video camera (a Sony) would eat about 4 seconds of recording when you would stop and restart the camera. Thus, I would always unintentionally violate one of the following tips.

Anyway, here are my tips. What I really need to do is take a course, or read a book on the subject. Someday.

Don't pan or zoom too quickly. This is harder than it sounds: when you're recording, the pan/zoom never looks too fast.
When panning back and forth, pause before changing directions.
When panning, pause for a few seconds before shutting off the camera.
Take a tripod if at all possible (we forgot ours). The stability it provides (especially when zoom'ed) is worth the hassle of carrying it.

We only got one good action shot (of me climbing the 12 meter ladder up the Xi'an wall), and of course we missed several others:

Of a pagoda in Xi'an with a para-glider gliding past in the background.
Of a drum ceremony in Xi'an. We caught the tail end of the ceremony as the participants were walking away.
Of dinner entertainment in Beijing.

Cameras

We took two cameras: A point-and-shoot which we loaded with print film, and a Pentax K-1000 with three lenses (28mm, 50mm, 100-300 zoom) which we loaded with slide film. It'd been a while since I had shot the Pentax, and I had forgotten how nice it is to use the Pentax compared to the point-and-shoot. I hadn't forgotten the reason that I don't use my Pentax very much: It's heavy - especially with the three lenses. We didn't take the zoom lens with us very often (it is too heavy), although I wish I had taken it to the Summer Palace where you have a spectacular view of the palace over the lake..

And I wish we had taken a third camera. You really need two point-and-shoot's: one with fast film for low light situations, the other with slow film for bright light situations. The lenses worked fine. The 28mm lens is more useful in the city; at Huang Shan, I got my best pictures with the 50mm lens.

Film

We took 20 rolls of print film and 5 rolls of slide film. We used 12 rolls of print film and 4 rolls of slide film. However, if you're going to Beijing, you're best off not bringing as much film. A non-Kodak film industry emerged in China before Kodak got in the market. And their prices are cheaper than Kodak normally is. To compete, Kodak had to lower their prices. Thus, you can get Kodak film for less in China than you can in North America. I didn't buy any, but I'm told that the quality of film in Beijing is good, but that the quality of film in southern China is not as good.

What to take

If I go again (or go somewhere else), the big question will be what cameras to take. I felt very tourist-y (and look it in the pictures) with all those cameras. I'd probably ditch the video camera, although possibly I'd bring it on the trip and only take it with me when I expected action shots. Most of the video I shot was not action shots. However, I found myself video taping things that I never would have shot pictures of; I have yet to decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, there were a few things that I didn't take pictures of because I was video taping them, which was definitely a mistake.

I would try to take three cameras: My Pentax (despite the weight) and two point-and-shoots (one with fast film, the other with slow film).

And of course, always do your best to avoid getting your film x-ray'ed. At the airports in Toronto and in China, security was willing to hand check our film (we kept it in a clear plastic bag and removed it from the film containers before going through security). The only rolls that got x-ray'ed were a few that we forgot about in a backpack.

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