Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

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Paul Foxton

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Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostTue Oct 23, 2018 10:13 am

Hi,

I hope someone can give me some advice, I certainly need it!

I want stream with three cameras from my painting studio, in indoor natural light.

I’m looking at the BM micro studio camera and it looks perfect. But I’ve seen a lot of reviews where people raise questions about its low light performance.

I don’t know if my situation qualifies as low light. I have read that the camera’s native ISO is 800, so I should get the best results at that ISO.

I’ve tested shooting with my canon DSLR (EOS 760D with a 50mm 1:1.8 prime lens) at 800 ISO. I set the shutter speed to 120, so that I had at least double the frame rate, should I want to stream at 60fps. With these settings, I need the aperture set to 3.5 to get a good exposure.

With the same ISO and the aperture set to 5.6, I need a shutter speed of 50 on this camera to get a good exposure.

Does this sound like a good lighting situation for the micro studio camera?

My concern is that the MFT sensor won’t perform as well as the one in my DSLR and I may need to get more light in the camera and have to increase the ISO, which will mean also a wider aperture. I think?

Forgive me if I’m making any big mistakes in my thinking here - I’m a complete noob at this and only learned about the exposure triangle last week!

Here’s an example of a stream I did recently on facebook. I know the quality is awful (apologies in advance for offending the professionals here). One of the cameras is my macbook air and the other two don’t output full HD. I also had the settings in OBS wrong.

https://www.facebook.com/paul.foxton.10 ... 498182023/

Basically I want to take what I’m doing here and make it really high quality. So I really need to upgrade! But it at least shows a typical situation for what I want to stream. I need to stay with just natural light from the window in order to light the subject and the painting correctly.

I’d really appreciate anyone’s thoughts on whether the micro studio camera will be a good fit here, or whether I should go for something with a bigger sensor, given the lighting conditions.

Currently I’m considering 3 cameras plus the ATM tv studio switcher + some kind of monitoring. The output from the switcher will go into my BM ultra studio mini and into a laptop running OBS from there.

Thanks!
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Denny Smith

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Re: Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostWed Oct 24, 2018 6:16 am

First, why stream at 60P? For live streaming in a art studio situation, you are not dealing with fast motion, that would require the faster shutter speeds, so 29.97 (30)p should work fine. Also the Micro Studio Camera is Not a native ISO 800 Camera, more like 200 at 0 gain setting, and can be pushed to 400 (+6dB gain) with good results.

The Micro Cinema camera is a native ISO 800, but not what I would call a good choice for live streaming with is reduced color saturation output, which is HDMI only.
Cheers
Denny Smith
SHA Productions
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Paul Foxton

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Re: Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostWed Oct 24, 2018 9:03 am

Thanks so much Denny. I hadn't thought about the amount of motion deciding the frame rate required - this is the kind of basic knowledge I'm picking up as I go, which is why your reply is so helpful. Having looked into it, it makes complete sense.

Thanks also for clarifying on the camera. For obvious reasons, I suppose, the quality (particularly the saturation) of the colour is a priority for me.

I guess the only way to find out for sure is to get one and try it! I've decided to get the switch and one micro studio camera to start with and then expand the kit from there if they work out well.

Thanks again!
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Denny Smith

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Re: Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostThu Oct 25, 2018 4:32 am

That is a good start. The Micro Studio will give you some very nice color saturation on the image. You just need to get the proper exposure on it. If you underexpose it will look muddy, and if overexposed, it will look washed out. Get a good monitor to judge this is a good way to go, a monitor thstmcan display Waveform monitor scopes is very nice also. I use the SmallHD Focus and 501 monitor’s, along with a BM SmartView HD monitor.
Cheers
Denny Smith
SHA Productions
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Paul Foxton

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  • Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2018 3:00 pm
  • Real Name: Paul Foxton

Re: Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostThu Dec 06, 2018 3:38 pm

Denny, I just wanted to pop back in and thank you again for all your help with this. I now have 2 BMMSCs and a GH5, a selection of lenses, all going into the ATEM switch.

It all works really well and quality of the streams, even on facebook at 720p, is excellent.

Having Control of the micro studio cameras from the laptop is great because I'm doing everything at once on my own. Now I've (finally) worked out how to set the aperture on the cameras, the lighting is working out fine and the level of control over the colour via the ATEM is fantastic.

You steered me right, and I'm very appreciative.

(The only thing I need to figure out now is how to muffle the fan noise from the ATEM. Seems there's always something!)
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Denny Smith

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  • Location: USA, Northern Calif.

Re: Will the BM Micro Studio Camera work in this situation?

PostFri Dec 07, 2018 8:15 pm

Good, glad you got it sorted OK.
Cheers
Denny Smith
SHA Productions

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