Video Production: Take a Hike

The background image on my computer is a still I grabbed from a home video--or maybe it's an away video. It shows my wife knee-deep in a mountain brook up at 9,000 feet above sea level, presenting a dry fly to a three-pound trout that doesn't yet know it's an entree. The water chuckles around her boots, and a thousand rim-lit aspens behind her pulse with autumn gold. When the city casts a shadow on my soul, I escape it through this window to a greener, fairer place--a window that I captured with my camcorder.

If you're like most Getting Starters, you too had vacations in mind (along with family events) when you considered buying a camcorder. And if you're one of us disgruntled urbanites, vacations often mean forays into that unspoiled country where a person can "regruntle."

Now if you've already hauled your video gear through the boonies and returned to screen the tale, you know that:

• As you hiked, your lightweight equipment somehow morphed into 15-pigiron sash weights, and
• Sights whose real-world beauty left you gasping produced mere yawns back home when clamped within the borders of a TV frame.

We're here today to tackle both of these problems. We'll see how to reduce equipment weight and complexity and how to maximize video's visual strengths and minimize its weaknesses. So let's take a low-tech look at back-country hardware and shooting strategies.

Of course you want a small and lightweight camera, whether 8mm or VHS-C format, Hi8 or S-VHS-C for better picture quality, or DV if you want the best and your wallet agrees. And to optimize your rig for boondock shooting, look for three features too:

• Lens focal length. To minimize handheld image shake and to capture panoramic views, choose a camera whose zoom is biased toward wide angle. In the 8mm format, for example, one zoom might range from 6 to 72mm while a rival covers 4 to 48. Since the lower the number the broader the view, go with the 4mm wide angle.
• Filter thread. Some compact camcorders lack provision for screwing a filter onto the front of the lens. Bad camera, bad! At least one filter is a back country essential.
• Battery capacity. The tradeoff between weight and power is also a big consideration, so look for a camcorder with a long-lived juice supply. Nickel-metal hydride or lithium-ion batteries are desirable for this reason.

As it happens, each of these camera features has broader implications, so let's look at them just a bit more closely.

No matter how smooth your personal moves may be, you can use some help in steadying the camera. Camcorders with image stabilization (electronic or optical) work very well, and camera-support systems are just as effective and much cheaper.

If you use a hiking staff, buy one equipped with a camera tripod bolt (often concealed in a screw-on palm knob) that turns the stick into a monopod. I've seen these hybrid staffs for sale in national-park supply stores, and Bogen makes a model specifically for backpacking videographers.

Alternatively, try a micropod: a tripod so small it'll fit in a pocket. To use it, attach your camera and brace the rig against a rock or tree trunk or whatever's handy. I've done this for years with an ingenious German model that I'll probably will to my as-yet virtual grandchildren.