Recording school play - my unorthodox solution

[NAC]

So I recorded a school play last month, and used the tools I had: a Panasonic LX100 shot wide in 4k, which I could crop and zoom in editing, and then either a Canon 70d with a 50-150 2.8 lens, or a Sony small chip camcorder. I recorded audio into a Tascam 4 channel recorder.

Setting exposure was the biggest challenge, but on the LX100 zebras and a histogram made it not too bad. On the Canon DSLR and the camcorder, I had no such assistance and I sometimes misjudged couldn't use footage. (Afterwards I installed Magic Lantern on the 70d, which would have been a big help.) Lighting wasn't consistent even within a single scene, so when I changed exposure during the scene - all cameras displayed noticeable "steps" as the ISO or aperture changed. Also, none of the cameras did well in the dark scenes - the LX100 was best, with the camcorder being clearly the worst. Overall, I was happy with the LX100 performance, and disappointed with the other two.

So I'm on a quest for better equipment for next year. I'll definitely use the LX100 as the wide shot. I considered lots of options as a tight camera, including a professional level camcorder so I can use the iris to smoothly adjust exposure. But any professional camcorder will be pretty pricey. So I like this idea the best:
A Panasonic G7
A generic speedbooster (Mitakon Zhongyi) - change the focal length by .72 and give an extra stop of light
A 85mm 1.5 cine lens. Yes a prime!

The total cost will be under $1000 as long as I wait until the G7 is on sale.

My focal length will be about: 85 * .72 * 2.1 = 130mm equivalent. Since I mostly shot the LX100 at 56mm equivalent, having the tight camera starting at 130mm is just about perfect I think. From my position, 130mm is just about 12 people standing side by side. I found that in the really wide scenes I wanted to be at maybe 100mm (with cropping, the LX100 covers that), but on a scene with a smaller group I wanted to be considerably tighter. 240mm is about as tight as I'd want to get to have full height of a person - and about 6 people wide. So if I want to crop to 1:1 pixel I'd be at 260mm.

Most exciting: On my LX100, at 2.8 aperture I went as high as iso 1250. With this combination, the lens is about a 1.1, so I should I should be able to run the G7 at iso 200 the entire time. I think that will be stellar.

Any thoughts on this setup? I'm sure I can do better if I spend more, but I think this is my best choice for spending $1000.

 

[EOM]

I'm actually curious what you did about audio. Did you have output from the cameras going into the Tascam or did you have external mics setup around the perimeter of the stage? Get a direct feed from the soundboard?

 

[NAC]

Audio is going to be the bigger challenge. In a way, I know I can get the video quality decent or even good with just some more learning and hardware. Not sure if I'll ever get the audio quality to be good.

I used 4 channels on the Tascam: 2 from a feed from their mics, and 2 from the mics on the unit. And in editing I actually often used the mics on the cameras because the levels were better. Some actors had wireless, others didn't, and the levels on the soundboard were all over the place. And my levels weren't high enough for one performance. I found that I needed to mix the audio from the room with the mics on the stage - not just for the band, but for a slight echo which sounded better. I used audacity to work with the sound from the tascam units: first to normalize and then compress the sound.

But in summary - I have a lot to learn about audio.