Taking VIDEO of your pachiko machine

[SChaos]

Right after I bought my pachinko machine I pulled out and shot video with my camcorder. I can get beautiful footage of the LCD screen but I got lame results when I tried to film the entire machine.

I tried with and without the camcorder light and day and night but still seemed to get very grainy low quality footage.

Any suggestions here?

I thought I might have to film outdoors in order to get good footage and I have a pretty nice DV Camcorder...

Any suggestions from you experts?

[websherpa]

My first guess is that you may have to use some sort of manual exposure setting as the bright lights are probably causing the camera to stop down such that any non-lighted area is getting underexposed? Does that sound likely? Grainyness in video usually means not enough light, so perhaps you need also to hike the room light?

[Tulsa]

I don't know. My vids come out looking like crap too. I just thought it was my camera.

[JamesM]

Tulsa, I'm sure your cam makes better videos then my phone

[MrGneiss]

JamesM, I'm sure your phone makes better videos then my elbow

(No, I don't know what that means, but when the voices say type, I type!)

[SChaos]

You know I read that one great post about us all drifting off topic....

That's a fact Jack...

Course I have a good time reading the post for the pure entertainment value...

[JamesM]

It's the old cam in the elbow trick

[MrGneiss]

[Tony Junior]

Use two small fill lights set at about 45 degrees on either side of the pachi.

A good inexpensive source for these lamps is in the automotive section at Wal-Mart. They are aluminum, about 12 inches in diameter and clamp on. Use just plain ol' light bulbs, maybe 40 or 60 watt, nothing brighter.

The inside of these reflectors are bright, shiny. You may want to dull that by spraying with a clear, matt finish paint. While I have never tried it, you may use hair spray, but I have never tried that and can't vouch for the safety.

Place the lamps no closer than 6 feet away on either side of the machine and forget the built-in lamp on the camera. You may find that you'll have to difuse the light by placing a white, opaque paper or cloth several inches in front of the lamps.

[jwegger]

Your camera may be having trouble focusing on what you are trying to shoot. If you are close to the machine shooting the video there is less for it to get confused with, a wider shot of the whole machine and it may be trying to focus on the reflections off the front glass and thus causing you problems. Tony suggestion to use the auto lights will help some. I agree you will probably need to defuse the light.

[Firewire]

I have to agree, it sounds like an exposure problem. If the camera is set for Auto then I would have to guess lighting is your issue for the grain.

Does playback look back if you play the movie directly on your tv?

If not then maybe the program in your computer your using is reducing the quality.

[JamesM]

Here's a tip:
Go to a well stocked pet store,
and buy two sunlight spectrum light sticks ment for reptile lighting.
Their even, low cost outdoor-like light is well suited for indoor filming.

[SChaos]

Thanks guys...

I actually suceeded in getting good not great footage.

I pulled out my hallogen lamp and a floor lamp and placed them at a 45 degree angle about 4 foot away from the machine.

I used no camcorder light on auto (tried both) and actually got really nice quality video. The actual footage however is very large in size, approx 600 megs for a HQ 2 minute video. For email purposes I reduced the master to a 5 meg version that still looks pretty descent.

Again if anyone would like to see my 3 meg pic slideshow or my 5 meg video of my Lord of the Rings pachinko just send me a private message and let me know.

Thanks to everyone who provided helpfull info as I finally solved my filming problems.

[Tony Junior]

Dee-lighted to hear you got good results, Chaos!

[TilionMtl]

I know it's an old post, but more info is always good. I would suggest the day light instead of halogen, neon or thunsten light. With artificial light like neon, you will get a greenish video, with halogen, it will be redish. the best light is day light. So place toward a window, place yourself between the window and your machine. You may have to set your camera/camcorder to manual, if you have these setting, lower the speed and F-Stop of your camera/camcorder, instead of setting a highter iso. Usually if a camcorder or camera feel that not enough light is coming throw, it will usually boost the gain, or set the ISO to 400 or 800, instead of slowing down the speed, or lowering the F-Stop. Try to see if you have a gain, or automatic gain control, and disable it. Since the lcd is a source of light, and there's also lights on the machine, if the camera is set to automatic, it will try to compensate and lower the light that enter your camera. it's like taking a picture of someone in front of the window. The camera compensate because what it see have too much light, so it lower the input, but your subject become too dark.. Since the glass of the machine is not flat, you will probably have some specular spot and reflection of other object on the glass. You can buy a polarizer filter to put in front of your lens, and while look at the object you want to film or take a picture of it, turn the polarizer filter clockwhise, and at some point, the reflecting spot and object will disapear. You will be able to take a nice picture/video this way. If you have any further question, feel free to ask.

[Eddie]

Yeah taking vids of Pachinkos can be really hard. Especially when your using a digital still camera with video capability such as what I use.

It took forever to get the vid of the Coin op Pachinko as it has light bulbs mounted on the case just above the cell. I could never get the camera to focus or not wash out the top of the cell. I finally removed one of the bulbs but still the cell was to bright and I couldnt get rid of shadows using only the one spotlight that I have.
You need more than ONE light source to get rid of the shadows.
I also shot in the daytime to use the Sunlight with the spot light. The final result was the best I could get, only the machine cell looks way too white and not the soft warm color that it really is.
One of my still photos captures the true coloring.
With still photos or video lighting is the most critical element and I found that to avoid shadows and glare etc Open the glass door when taking pics of the cell.
For focusing on very small parts of the machine in the back or face I
set the camera far away from the machine and use the zoom lens.
I can do that with the still pics but my cam wont allow me to zoom with the video which makes things really tough when trying to get sharp close ups of parts.
This use of the zoom lens seems to work for my cam but I dont think it's the proper technique to take pics of up close really tight spots.