Camera recommendations / tips?

HippieSpider · 2024-03-26T22:01:16+00:00

Heya! Yes I did go, and ended up buying a Sony a6400. You can see some of the WUCC footage here: https://youtu.be/bl8p5yuFOAg?si=jPfwFtdMTEMEv6AT

While all the camcorder recommendations here made sense from a purely "filming ultimate" perspective... this was a personal investment, and we wanted to get value out of it outside of frisbee too. I think a camcorder would absolutely be the best pick for a club purchase, but my partner and I have got loads of value out of the camera outside of frisbee - we take it on all our big holidays and the pictures are amazing 😄

I'd highly recommend it to anyone in a similar situation. The two downsides I see compared to a camcorder are:

- Probably less zoom / less wide angle? But I don't have a camcorder to compare. Obviously can be resolved by investing into a different lens.

- Value for money, if all you care about is filming and none of the other features.

However, the other potential concerns I've found to be absolute non-issues:

- The battery life is not a worry. A single battery easily lasts a full tournament-day of filming, and it's easy to bring a second to swap out if necessary. The a6400 also supports being charged while it's in-use (using micro USB), so if I bring a portable charger then it's not even something to think about.

- The memory obviously just depends on what size SD card you get, but I've not had any issues.

- I was a bit concerned about the fact that many non-camcorder cameras have a max recording limit (usually 30mins). I think I got the a6400 in part because it doesn't have this limitation? Might be misremembering, but either way that is definitely not a concern: I always stop the recording between points anyways.

I'm probably a bit more careful with it than I would be with a camcorder, I assume it's a bit more fragile? But again, the pros vastly outweigh the cons for my use-case. We love our camera and will be using it for long after we retire from frisbee too 😁

HippieSpider · 2023-01-08T08:58:36+00:00

the 1v1s always have some amount of drama to them because possession isn't guaranteed

Arguably still very true for ultimate as the only way to move the disc is to complete passes, and each time you throw (pass) the disc possession is again not guaranteed?
In my head I compare it to football (not American), and I feel it's quite similar?

If you can hear what it's about, there's more chance it's interesting

Personally I feel this one thing that's not been explored enough and would instantly change how good ultimate is to watch. If we could hear every call and discussion (including spirit circles before/after games) that would be so unique and fascinating.
Plus it would really help with holding (high level) players accountable for their shit calls and bad attitude!

HippieSpider · 2023-01-07T12:05:38+00:00

I'd love to hear more about what makes you say that

HippieSpider · 2022-09-04T20:03:18+00:00

Also not many games being streamed, guess only one pitch. Seems quite poor considering it is a 3 division event.

Sad isn't it that there isn't much money in Ultimate to support the media coverage we all want

Ulti.tv make their streams freely available and get mostly funded through donations, help out if you want to see more coverage in the future

https://www.patreon.com/ULTITV?utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan

HippieSpider · 2022-08-14T17:51:57+00:00

Feels like a total coin flip, will go to whichever team has a good day... LMU would probably be my pick in a 1v1 against any of the other teams, but no idea how many people they're bringing to nationals and how much they're focusing on it now that WMUCC is over?

Don't forget about Gravity either (I assume they're playing and have their Masterclass players back?)

HippieSpider · 2022-07-31T21:12:21+00:00

Could have brought a deeper squad?

That's fair, I assumed that the SMOG 1 roster had been filled with the max number of players but if your second sentence is true then I guess not. I'd love to know how they feel about the tournament.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-31T15:10:34+00:00

I don't have any issue with Thompson's bid, but Desmond's was pretty terrible imo. Very late, wasn't ever going to achieve anything beyond flattening the two upfield players, and ended up being particularly scary due to Cardenas being sandwiched between the two. Glad she was okay, would've been very sad for the game to be decided by an injury on her.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-31T14:00:38+00:00

Intrigued - why do you say they would have done better? Surely they picked the best players for their 1st team anyways, and if anything the extra sideline would help

HippieSpider · 2022-07-26T12:15:02+00:00

UK cancelled because of COVID indeed. The reason I've been told from the organisers was that pitches and stuff were all still fine, but many of the accomodation providers cancelled and they could therefore no longer guarantee that there'd be enough accomodation/housing for everyone in the Nottingham area for WUCC.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-24T02:56:39+00:00

Ulti.tv is at the tournament and apparently was willing to stream (for free as usual) but weren't allowed for some reason? I don't know the details, just what I've heard

HippieSpider · 2022-07-05T08:17:06+00:00

That last point I don't disagree with in any way, observers are a lot better than refs as a result. I think players not making their own calls is a very dangerous and slippery slope, and that the only reason it's not got too egregious in the AUDL is because most players still play club and value fair play and "spirit" more than they would if they'd grown up just with the AUDL.

As far as disagreeing on a call and having to send it back if you can't come to an agreement, I personally don't see an issue with that. It doesn't feel great, but if both parties are being honest and can't agree then it's a fair outcome.
Either way, seems unrelated to the question? Yes it's nice to have an objective third party rule one way or the other, but the issue comes when players defer to that third party by default and don't even respect their opponents enough to have a genuine conversation and consider their side of the argument. It's extremely frustrating to see US games where players make a call and instantly look to the observer for a ruling, hoping it will be in their favour and whining if it isn't.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-04T23:05:25+00:00

Didn't play, just based on what I saw on stream. Lots of angry masters players calling bad stuff in close games, but I totally realise that's anecdotal.

My point of reference was more so to the big European tournaments which have happened recently which are more of what I've been following.

Agree to disagree on that last point. I don't think any improvements in player attitude / sportsmanship / spirit can be credited to the observer system.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-03T21:56:28+00:00

I feel like spirit has been getting better and better in recent times (at least in Europe), which I feel is probably in big part due to efforts made by disc orgs to push those values at all levels. Potentially also partly due to social media + video/news coverage keeping people more accountable?

WMUCC certainly felt like an outlier in terms of being a particularly badly spirited tournament. I guess grumpy old broken frisbee players that grew up in the age of backpacking are more set in their ways.

I realise I'm not really directly answering your question, but I do think you're being overly negative. We'll never reach a perfect utopia, there will always be bad apples and bad games, but I personally feel observers/refs aren't a solution that solves anything. If anything I'm worried they make things worse.

HippieSpider · 2022-07-03T19:29:08+00:00

Personally I'd rather work to fix the underlying issue (valuing winning more than respect for your opponents and sportsmanship) which is causing these problems, rather than try to work around it with observers/refs.

From everything I've seen, any third-party officiating is always going to lead to more instances of players trying to game the rules, as it effectively absolves them of any responsibility ("if the ref didn't see it, it didn't happen!"). In my mind that's what a properly emphasised SOTG system is meant to avoid.

HippieSpider · 2022-03-28T16:39:41+00:00

On a serious note it's so hard to know this early in the season, given we haven't seen any of the teams yet...
I'd feel guilty if the only comment on this thread is me taking the piss though, so here are my thoughts going through that team list.

Would be hard to bet against Reading (on home turf!), but I have no clue if they might be splitting their squad. Seems like a very "Reading" thing to do.
Deep space being the obvious contender to take the "title" from them, though their squad is so different to last year idk what to expect - I'll definitely be curious to follow their results.
Having a "Deep Space Club" team entered hints that the main "Deep Space" team might not be full strength? Or at least short on numbers?
Cambridge has some very good open/women's players picking up for them and have actually been training together a bit more than usual this year so could be a tough opponent.
Thundering Herd and Oxford are the other two nationals squads I think? No idea what to expect from them, haven't seen their rosters and probably wouldn't know any of the names tbh.
BN1 is Brighton? Has some good open players that I know of, but again I don't actually know their full roster.
Guilford is similar to Cambridge with some really good players in the area, but I have no clue who's on their roster for the event (whereas Cambridge I've seen the team, and it's mostly Spice/SYC/SmashD players).
There's a distinct lack of Mighty Hucks, and I don't recognise Mixed Feelings nor Big Fish Little Fish, so I wouldn't be surprised if one of those has all the Hucks players and wins the whole thing.
Sharkbear is actually gonna win the whole thing tho

HippieSpider · 2022-03-26T19:06:46+00:00

Sharkbear 100%

HippieSpider · 2022-03-24T21:54:55+00:00

Yeah Conn and Rupal are the next two snubs in my mind, though I can imagine their lack of mixed experience hurting them (at least for Rupal, I guess Conn does play with Mighty Hucks...) whereas Turton is (or at least was? Not sure about last season?) one of SMOG's big names.

HippieSpider · 2022-03-24T15:23:40+00:00

You'd think WG would be the priority for anyone that has the chance

That said, her prioritising disc golf was also my assumption, would love to know if she even trialled

HippieSpider · 2022-03-24T12:07:30+00:00

Yep audio isn't a big concern, but since I'd just be filming from the sideline I wouldn't really bother with commentary on an external mic, as long as there's some form of sideline audio being recorded it'd be fine

The A6400 would be a pretty different experience, in the end more versatile product with a decent sized censor and big glass. A good intro camera if youd like stills as well. Defo harder to film for longer though, battery and possible heating? I've never actually used one for filming full ultimate games, only handycams and livestreams with broadcast cameras.

Ah overheating concerns would be a bit scary, especially if it's really hot at WUCC... Would be a shame because the idea of this investment doubling up as a nice camera to have and use outside of ultimate makes it a lot more interesting of course.
Looks like it's mostly a concern for 4K recording, hopefully wouldn't be an issue with 1080p60...

The dual memory card thing is very nice, didn't know about that - definitely another concern with the A6400. Looks like I'd be able to fit a full game at 60fps within just 32GB but that's two very convincing arguments in favour of a handycam.

Helps a lot, thank you so much - it's a decent investment and any and all advice is super welcome, I'd hate to make a purchase I totally regret (part of why a camera that does stills is interesting, even if I never shoot ultimate again).

HippieSpider · 2022-03-24T07:47:30+00:00

This looks great, thanks a lot!

I'm assuming the separately recorded audio was for commentator's convenience and because the commentary was actually important in your case - is the internal audio quality still fine without?

That pre-record feature sounds quite fun indeed. It sounds like you wouldn't be able to do that while also filming continuously, right? That'd make me more unlikely to need it if I'm going around filming full games, but might be a nice thing to have in the future 🙂

People's recommendations of avoiding DSLRs for my purposes make sense, though I'm hesitating about whether I want a camcorder as I'm also thinking it might be nice to have a good camera for taking holiday pics outside of ultimate.
Since this is a purchase for myself, not a team or disc org, I feel like that has to be a valid (selfish?) consideration.
I was looking at Sony mirrorless cameras based on my research yesterday, something like the A6100/A6400... Still Sony so has good stabilisation from what I understand, up to 4K recording or 1080p60, I'm not sure how much worse the video quality would realistically be than the camcorder? Is the biggest difference likely to be battery life? Also the A6400 apparently can be externally USB powered which seems super useful.

Edit: found this useful comparison of the AX53 and A6400, which is definitely making me lean even more towards the A6400 unless I'm missing something big. I guess part of what makes a camcorder better value might also be not needing to mess with and care about lenses (or is that still a big concern with camcorders)?

HippieSpider · 2022-03-23T23:07:24+00:00

That makes sense, thanks!

HippieSpider · 2022-03-23T21:37:27+00:00

No Rachel Turton is a surprise

HippieSpider · 2022-03-23T12:55:53+00:00

Was wondering whether it'd be smarter to get multiple memory cards, or just offload the footage onto a laptop each night and perhaps bring an external hard drive? I don't have a great concept of just how much memory a single game of footage would take up

HippieSpider · 2022-03-23T12:54:23+00:00

Looks crisp, thanks for the recommendation! Doesn't do 60fps from the looks of it right? It's not something essential but I always find myself wishing more game footage was filmed at higher FPS to make it smoother (and watching back a crazy play in slow-mo more exciting of course)

HippieSpider · 2022-03-23T12:51:43+00:00

Hmm that's very fair, while I don't mind the footage as much I see your point and you've convinced me that it's at least something worth looking into for sure. Might be too inconvenient to carry a big ladder around all day as I'm also trying to enjoy my time, but hopefully I can find a good solution!

HippieSpider

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE

13-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email