Panasonic G7 Video Help for Work!

johnpatrickbishop wrote:

If practical, fix the focus (should be feasible for interview situation). Don't worry about shutter angle for static subjects. More DOF will help relieve focus issues.

Hindesite... I did my first test run today. I did one take where I just manually focused using focus peaking and about f5 and just left it there. The interviewee was just sitting in a chair, but moving around a bit. It was OK but not the sharpest as the interviewee moved around. I also did another take where I used the face detection, and at its best it was very in focus, but it did hunt a bunch even with little movements from the interviewee.

That is expected behaviour for the G7, I don't worry about it for a lot of the subjects I video, even if the result is that some footage is lost. In your case, you can't afford that so use a smaller aperture if possible - f8 or even f11, if you have enough light.

(1.2.3...)

Otherwise I use S-AF, and reset the focus periodically or after significant movement or scene change.

Should I be dialing in more like f8 or using a different type of focus mode in the camera? Any thoughts?

I will also confess that shutter angle has not been something I've been thinking about... Not even sure what it is! Off to google.

Don't worry about it. There's a lot of hype about 180 degree shutter, which applies in some situations but isn't universally what you want. You'll probably have low shutter speeds anyway due to light constraints indoors.