VIDEO Q & A - ITEMS OF INTEREST TO THE FOOTBALL COACH/VIDEOGRAPHER/VIDEO EDITOR
E-MAIL YOUR QUESTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS TO ME, COACH HUGH WYATT (coachwyatt@aol.com). GLAD TO BE OF HELP IF I CAN...
BUT, PLEASE... IDENTIFY YOURSELF
I am constantly amazed at the people I've never even met or corresponded with who e-mail me with a question right off the wall and don't identify themselves - don't even bother to sign their name.
Maybe that's the influence of the Web and its culture of anonymity, but it used to be that everyone knew that it is common courtesy to identify yourself when you call someone on the phone or to sign your name when you write.
I sometimes get mail from guys who have seem to have no last names. They've never written me before, yet they'll sign their e-mail "Tim," (or "Rob" or "Fred") - in a world in which people long ago adopted the convention of using surnames so the rest of us could tell one Tim from another.
Anyhow, call it a hangup, but I could care less - I learned long ago as a coach to hang up on anonymous callers and throw away unsigned mail, and I'm not going to change now. I don't engage in anonymous discussions on the Internet, and I won't take the time to reply to people who won't let me know who they are.
So please, please, please... If you've written to me with a question and you haven't received an answer... go back and read what you wrote. Did you identify yourself? Did you sign your name?
SO PLEASE... IDENTIFY YOURSELF - I DO NOT ANSWER UNSIGNED LETTERS
(MOST RECENT QUESTIONS AT THE TOP)
Q. Hi Coach, I have been put in charge of purchasing a new video camera for our football team. We will be using the new video camera with our Macintosh to make coaching and scouting tapes from our games. We have been using a Sony Hi8 camera with OK results, you can see the plays and the players numbers. After reading your thoughts on video production on your website I have a couple of questions for you. Does it make any sense to look at the miniDV cameras? The dilemma I have is, I know that going to a DV camera or a 3 chip camera in theory will improve the quality of our videotaping but is it worth the price and would we notice the difference between Hi8 and MiniDV enough to make us glad we spent the extra money? If we go the way of miniDV do you have any recommendations on a video camera? I have looked on the web at the Canon Optura 20, the Sony DCRTRV80 and the Panasonic PV-GS70. I have done so much research on the subject I don't know anything anymore. Thanks for your time Dan Loomis, Assistant Football Coach Chippewa Falls High School Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
Coach- You would notice a big difference for sure, not only in your original tape but in your copies.
Also, since it sounds as if you plan to be doing non-linear editing (in other words, using your computer to do the editing), you will already have the video in digital format on the tape, and it will just be a matter of importing it into your computer. On the other hand, if you shoot in Hi-8, you will have to "digitize" the video before you can import it into your computer.
I honestly don't know that much about Canon, except that they seem to have a cross-promotion going with Apple, which leads me to believe that for a Mac user like me, I probably wouldn't have any problems using Canon. (You can have some issues with certain cameras not being compatible with certain editing programs.) I do know that Panasonic was late getting into the Mini-DV game, as was JVC, so I don't know a thing about them.
I am a big Sony fan. I have had one - a TRV7 - since 1997 and only now am I beginning to run into problems with the zoom motor. I have given it a lot of use. They don't make it any more, and I don't know what its spiritual descendant is, although I would guess it would be the TRV 70/TRV 80.
My kick-ass camera is a TRV900. They don't make it any more, either, which is a damn shame because it has everything a high-end amateur or low-end professional needs. I've had it for 2 years and it is one great camera. Its present reincarnation seems to be the VX2000.
The current TRV 70 and TRV 80 appear to be nearly identical except that the 80 seems to have a larger LCD screen plus the Bluetooth wireless feature, which you may or may not want to pay another $200 for. The 80 lists for $1499 but you can do a lot better than that.
Tip- If there is a specialty electronics store in Eau Claire, seriously consider buying from them, because even if you have to pay a little more than you would at a Best Buy it is worth it in return for expert advice and assistance. I have yet to run into a salesperson at Best Buy or Circuit City who knows as much as I do about cameras, and I am not an expert.
Q. Coach - I am looking to buy an external hard drive. I remember you recommending it be a particular speed. What was that speed? I am looking at a 5400 RPM HD for $150 and 120 Gigs at CompUSA.
You need 7200 rpm to handle video without dropping frames. And you need a FireWire connection for the speed of data transfer.
I just bought a 120 gig hard drive made by LaCie for $269. I am very pleased with it. It is smaller than the ones I've been buying (I've got five), and much quieter, too. LaCie sells a 60 gig hard drive for $190.
I bought this latest one in Oregon (no sales tax) but I have bought others at a mail order house (macwarehouse.com)
Q. Coach, if you had to pick just one camera angle to prepare your defense for an up-coming opponent, what would you choose behind the offense or behind the defense. I can see some virtues with each and wondered what your opinion was. FYI its sometimes hard to get up high at mid-field in some games so I wanted to instruct our scout videographer as to a sound back-up camera angle.
That's an interesting question.
I think, if you could get high enough to see over your own defensive players, it might be useful to look at the offense as it comes at you, since that's what your kids would see.
But overall, I would take the unobstructed view from behind, because the height of your camera isn't such a crucial factor, and you can pick up such things as line splits and backfield action that might be hidden from you if you shot from behind your defense and had to shoot through your own defenders.
Ideally, like the pros and major colleges, you would have two looks at each play, (play #1 from the side and from the end, play #2 from the side and from the end, etc.)
Q. I've been making some highlight films on my iMac, and as I get more experience, each one turns out a bit snappier. The parents have been loving them as I found a place that sells blank DVDs for about a buck a piece, so I can give them out to anyone who wants them. My question is, how do you handle your films on the iMac so you don't run out of disc space (I have 60 gB)? Do you burn your films onto a re-writeable DVD that you can re-access if needed at a later date? Would that be easier than copying them back onto a digital tape?
I have solved the video storage problem by buying more hard drive capacity. It is important to me to keep it in this digital, easily-accessed format because I often find myself having to move play clips around from project to project.
I use digital tape as my backup, although DVD would be even better.
You need a FireWire drive that spins at least 7200 rpm - fast enough to handle transfer of video without loss of frames.
It connects to your computer via FireWire. Its icon shows up on your desktop and you can save to it or, having already saved files to it, you can open files from it, just as you would have with a floppy drive or a Zip drive. You can daisy-chain several of them together, and it is a simple matter of drag and drop to move or copy files between them.
They are about the size of a large book.
I have had good success with a brand called LaCie. I happened to sit next to their CEO on a plane one time and found out he's a former U of Washington football captain.
I buy them through macwarehouse.com (1-800-255-6227).
The price of an 80GB hard drive (their item # DR15604) is now down to $219.95.
A 60 GB costs $199.95, and 120GB costs $269.95
Q. Any comments on my highlights tape? It's a first effort.
A. Your tape is a good start. It is amazing what you damn amateurs are able to do now!!!
Since you asked for some comments for next year's tape:
1. Good camera work. If you don't have that, no amount of editing will cure it. Retain your camera person. He/she is good. If he/she asks for more money, come up with it.
2. It's usually best to disable the camra's date-and-time feature when recording. Once it's recorded onto your tape, you can't get rid of it. You can add that same info to your tape with graphics if you really need it. (See #3)
3. It's a good idea to use more graphics (titles) to help tell your story. There are various ways to do this. One is as simple as printing the title in question ("GAME #1" for example) on a sheet of paper and then shooting it with your camera.
4. ALL first-timers tend to get carried away with using a great assortment of wipes. (Wipes are those often-tricky-looking effects that are used to bring about the transitions from scene to scene - or, in this case, from one play to the next) I sure did. When I went from straight cuts to being able to make sophisticated wipes, I went wild, showing everybody what I was capable of doing. And then I started paying more attention to what the pros do, and with them it's mostly cuts, fades and dissolves. They don't want to distract the viewer with "eye candy."
5. If you will show a little bit of the offensive formation before the snap, it will help you later if you should ever want to make clips of individual plays for study purposes.
But as I say, for your first time out of the box, it ticks me off (just joking) to see you doing the sort of thing that I needed years of learning, and thousands of dollars worth of equipment, to do.
Since you are willing to spend the time - and obviously you are - you are going to be able to produce something that you would have wound up paying a professional good money to do, and you will be providing your kids with something priceless.
Q. I have some old football tapes that I would like to copy to a CD or DVD. My question is, can I do this without putting the video on my hard drive first then transferring it to a disk? I dont want to waste valuable HD space by placing the video on there if I dont have to.
Not that there isn't a way you can do that without going through your computer; I'm just not aware of one.
However... I believe you said you have FireWire.
Extra storage capacity is relatively inexpensive (in computer terms) - for a couple hundred bucks or so you can buy an 80 gig external hard drive which hooks up to your computer via the FireWire connection and will show up on your computer as just another hard drive. Just make sure that it spins at 7200 rpm, fast enough to handle video. There will be an extra connection on the external hard drive that you can connect your camera to. (You can buy a smaller capacity hard drive for less, but if you're going to be doing much work, you'll be surprised at how fast you gobble up memory.)
Q. I have seen on the DW youth coaches board a discussion of Pinnacle software. Is this a Windows only product, if you know????
Coach, I don't know anything about it, and I assume it is part of the long line of cats and dogs that Windows people are stuck with. The one thing I do know is that if you're going via FireWire, I'm not aware of anything this side of Adobe Premiere ($599) which is worth a damn. (Other than iMovie, that is, and it comes free with Mac products.)
But hold on, you Mac guys! Mac has announced that it will release, later this month, a "Lite" version of Final Cut Pro, its great program which sells for $999 and is considered to be about as good as editing software gets. Pros - real pros - use it. The new version, called Final Cut Pro Express, will sell for $300, and will have about anything that any amateur videomaker would need. I consider this to be pretty exciting news.
(I have since heard from a coach who worked with Pinnacle and reported that it was easy to work with. Again, I can't comment intelligently on Windows-based applications.)
Q. What I'd really like is a way to plug the analog camcorder straight into the Sony digital camcorder and let the Sony record to MiniDV. This would at least eliminate one step.
You can do this, if your digital camera has video/audio input, which yours should. I do this all the time. This isn't necessarily going to solve your "clip" problem, though, because what iMovie recognizes in making separate clips is the breaks where you've turned your digital camera on and off, and if you import the analog video into the digital camera in one continuous recording session, iMovie will probably recognize it as one long clip!
Q, I bought the Sony camcorder and I like it a lot. We have used it to film games and make highlight tapes, etc. No problem. I am simply using iMovie to move clips around and to insert titles, etc.
My question is about analog tapes. We have some old analog game tapes, and I have some tape of my daughter's wedding, also analog. I want to convert these to digital.
Yes, I am aware that I can buy an analog to digital converter. Sony used to make one; Formac has one, and there is the Dazzle DV Bridge available. However, the Sony camera will allow you to record back to a MiniDV tape cartridge from a VCR which is playing VHS tape (analog). Then you can import the video into iMovie for titling, etc.
The problem that I found is that the import of the analog tape into iMovie comes in as one huge clip. There is no break at all where the usual camera stops and starts would have been were you dealing with the original footage. In other words, since I dubbed the analog tape from the analog camcorder to VHS tape, all the stops are lost (I guess) and I get one continuous "clip".
This makes "editing" in iMovie all but impossible. Yes I can add titles to the front and back, but how do you separate scenes??? I see that I could just stop the input process and force a break in the action, but, is there a better way???
The importation of analog-to-digital as one big clip is a bit of a pain in the ass, but you can break it down into smaller clips fairly quickly like this: work in the timeline mode - go to the timeline (click on the clockface at lower left), and then, moving the cursor along, when you get to the end of a clip, go to FILE > SPLIT CLIP AT PLAYHEAD, or just do it the keystroke way (CONTROL + T). It's a bit tedious, but it's doable.
Q. Have you ever used any of that video software that allows you to enter a season's games and then it creates a database and allows you to call up anything you want tin and way you want - you know, such as give me all 3rd down and less than 4 from the plus 20, etc.???
These systems are usually very expensive ($8,000-$10,000), but the people who make PlayMakerPro diagraming and playbook software also produce such a program for $495.00. (It's actually $895. It's very good. HW)
I have had a few talks with Bruce Williams, president of BW software (www.bw-software.com) about his TD (Truly Digital) Video program, and I have had a look at the test version. It is rather easy to use and I can see a lot of uses for it. It looks pretty good. At the price, it is very good. Actually, at twice the price (look for it to go up soon) it will still be very good... once it's written for Mac OSX.
I have held back on buying it - and recommending it (I won't recommend something I wouldn't buy myself) - until I can get my hands on the OSX version, because at the present time it is available only for "native" OS 9. If you don't have a Mac, that will be Greek to you, but if you do, and you now run OSX (if you don't you should - it's a killer), you know that when you start a program that hasn't been updated to run on OSX, the OSX system recognizes that fact, and launches - within OSX - a special version of OS 9 called "Classic," designed for just such cases. But "Classic" is not exactly the old OS 9, or so the technical experts tell me, and evidently some programs written to run with the original, or "native" OS 9, don't run as they should with "Classic." That, Bruce tells me, is the case at the moment with TD Video. It can only run on OS 9 - native version - which means that in order to run it, you have to reboot - shut down everything you've been running on OSX and restart your computer in OS 9. And then, when you're done with OS 9, you have to reboot (restart) once more to get back to OSX. Among other negatives - such as the fact that so long as my computer is running OS 9 I can't use it for anything else - OSX is so doggone stable that I may have had the same stuff running for weeks without any shut-down, and now I have to shut everything down and restart, just to run one program.
Here's what Bruce wrote me when I asked him about timing:
TD Video is now working under OS X, I just have to figure out how to install it, along with the software for the copy protection key.(The copy protection key is the way Bruce is able to let you try out TD Video on a limited basis - 10 plays only - for free, while holding back on the program's full features and benefits until you're ready to buy. In Bruce's words, "The copy protection key for TD Video is a small USB device that plugs into the USB connector at the top of a keyboard, or any other USB port on a Mac. Its easy to unplug from one machine and plug into another. It plugs into the back of a laptop. Also, the key does not stop you from entering data for plays, or viewing video in any project. The key stops you from creating new plays when you already have 10 or more plays. You also can't record video with more than 10 plays. So, you can put a project on a firewire drive, give it to a coach without the key, and he can take that home, watch video and enter scouting data.)
So far, I have found Classic mode doesn't allow access to firewire devices. It also doesn't allow access to your modem. Getting a modern version of AOL's software is the reason that is driving my family and friends to use OS X. So we're replacing a lot of legacy stuff to get icons in our immediate messages.
I'm sometimes surprised how devoted some Mac users are to OS X. The transition to OS X means replacing a lot of legacy software and hardware. After January 1, new Macs will not ship with a bootable OS 9 on them, so I'm motivated to get it done by then.
Q. I bought the Sony Camcorder and it is a very good product. In an attempt to use iMovie on my Mac to edit game film (titles, etc.), is it possible to load the entire game onto the computer's hard drive? How much space will this eat up?
It depends on the capacity of your hard drive. Video "eats up" storage at a rate of 1 gigabyte for each five minutes of video. Since I have found an average HS game (12 minute quarters, allowing for a reasonable "run-up" to each play, as the team comes out of the huddle) to use about 40-45 minutes of tape, that would require you to have 8-10 gigabytes free on your hard drive.
If you lack hard drive space on your computer, it is possible to buy an external hard drive. It connects to your computer through FireWire, and its icon appears on your desktop as just another drive, same as your computer's internal hard drive icon (you Mac people will understand what I'm saying). When you click on its icon, you open a window showing a list of its contents, and when you click on anything on the list, it opens, just as if it were on your internal hard drive.
These external drives all come with two FireWire ports, so that you can connect your camera to the external hard drive which is, in turn, connected to your computer. Or, (if you ever get to this point) you can daisy-chain several of the drives together.
To import and export video without any loss of data, the drive must be fast - look for a speed of 7200 rpm. These drives have really come down in price. Two years ago, I paid nearly $400 for an 80-gig hard drive; now, MacWarehouse advertises an 80-gig hard drive (I have had good results with a make called LaCie) for $219.95.
Q. Hi Coach, In part due to your input I bought a Sony TVR-27 before the season. It is super. My question is whether you think I would get better images if I switched to a wide angle lens. I currently film and replay in 16:9 mode because I have a Pioneer HD 520 rear projection TV. I also copy tape for the other coaches who view on regular (and smaller) TV's. Any thoughts?
Glad the camera has worked out well for you.
I don't know what the lens would do for you, but it wouldn't get you "better images" than what you are now getting. For one thing, image quality is related very closely to lighting, and you probably are playing mostly day games, which means you are shooting with the best lightning there is. (Unless, of course, you are shooting directly into the sun.)
The letterbox (16x9) format is great for movies and big-screen projection, and I'm sure that it is great for your purposes. but the reality is - and will remain for a long time - that we are living in a 4 x 3 world, the proportions dictated by 99 per cent of TV screens.
So if you shoot in 16 x 9 and make a VHS tape for someone, they're going to get a compressed image with black strips top and bottom. No way around it.
If you are a Mac user and edit your tapes with iMovie 2, there is a fairly simple way to shoot in normal 4 x 3 format and then produce a version of it in 16 x 9. You shoot as normal, "import" the footage into your computer, then, using a "plug-in" available from GeeThree Video (www.geethree.com), you apply the "letterbox" effect to the video you shot. That lets you make a tape for your projector, and use your original footage for making "dubs" ("duplicate copies," in the lingo of the trade).
I have that particular plug-in, but I haven't had the need to use it yet, so I can't tell you how good it is.
I hope I have helped.
Q. Besides what is on your website, do you have any specific recommendations concerning digital cameras and computers for video use at clinics and for crating tapes and/or cds? Was impressed with your set up at the Providence clinic. Am now an assistant coach with a high school that ran the single wing last year and we are being asked to speak at a lot of clinics on various aspects of the offense and are interested in putting together a video playbook for our incoming players. Any help would be appreciated.
Nice to hear from you. Please bear in mind that I do come with a few biases, chief of which is that I am an Apple (Mac) guy.
I think you can get it all done with a digital video camera, a Mac, and iMovie2, which comes bundled with most Mac computers now being sold. There are more expensive video editing programs you can buy, and I have a couple of them, but iMovie is sufficient for most of my needs as well as for the straightforward, meat-and-potatoes production you're talking about.
It offers all the features you'd need for a "video playbook" including very basic titling, the ability to create still frames of any length, and slow-motion.
You will also need some sort of graphics program to prepare still photos for importing as stills into your video, for drawing plays and diagrams that you can also import into your video, to superimpose information or graphics over a video still, or for creating simple animation. I recommend Adobe Photoshop. I use version 7.0, but you don't need all that - Photoshop is available in a far less expensive "Lite" version - I think it's called "LE" for Limited Edition - and it's got all you need and then some.
In combination with Apple's "QuickTime Pro) - $29.95, from www.apple.com - there are some pretty amazing things you can do with iMovie2.
Best of all, it is very easy to learn. You can be up and running in no time.
Get yourself a laptop with enough of a hard drive that you can actually store the clips you produce as QuickTime movies, and you can take the show on the road. You can play those clips from your computer onto any monitor. (The large hard drive is necessary because full-size video, without jerkiness, requires approximately 1 gigabyte per five minutes of video.)
If you are operating with a Windows platform, I couldn't make a software recommendation.
I don't mean to sound like an Apple shill, but I completely trust their hardware and software. Most pros (I consider myself a borderline pro) do, too.
Q. Are there any negatives I have to consider in going to Digital Video???
There is one. Mini-DV tapes are much more expensive than VHS. Depending on where you're able to buy them, expect to pay $8-12 for a one-hour tape. You can easily get a full game on a one-hour tape.(By the way, don't fall for the hype on the package that tells you you can get 90 minutes of shooting on a 60-minute tape. To get that you have to shoot in Extended Play, and your resulting tape will suffer. It has to, because you get 33 per cent less image per foot of tape. (Ever try analyzing a game on VHS tape that a guy copied on Extended - six-hour - Play?)
You can, of course, use the tapes over and over if you wish.
There is also the minor hassle of having to make VHS tapes for others to use, but unless you were going to give away your original, you would also have to do that if you were shooting in VHS, and this way your copies will be a lot better than second-generation VHS copies would be.
If you are switching over from VHS, there are no other negatives. If you are switching from 8mm or Hi-8, then Sony's Digital-8 may have some appeal to you, since it will also play your old tapes, and the equipment, being mostly home-movie-oriented, is generally cheaper - in both senses of the word - than Mini-DV.
Q. Can "digital" videos be watched on normal VCRs? Is there any problem with transferring or copying digital video from machine to machine, and how is this done?
All digital video cameras have "video/audio outputs", and they should come with a connector cable that will plug right into the composite inputs (those yellow, red and white hubs or sockets) of your VCR or, if you have one, straight into your monitor. From there, using your remote, you can pause, single-frame advance, and show plays in slow-motion, using your camera as your "playback" device.
You make VHS copies in the same way.
Incidentally, I have found that a digital camera when used as your playback machine offers you incredibly sharp playback for film analysis or for showing to kids. You won't find many VHS decks with the solid pause, the frame-by-frame advance or the smooth slow motion of a digital camera. Add to that its portability - with its small size, you can take it anywhere and plug it in - and it is hard to beat. As for durability - I have had a Sony TRV-7 since 1998. I have used it not only for shooting games, camps, etc., but I used it for two entire football seasons as the "tape deck" to show game tapes to my teams. It is still going strong.
Q. I am about to purchase a digital camcorder and would like your input as what I might look for both in brand names and features.
I am talking here about Mini-DV, which is the closest most of us will get to a broadcast-quality format. Expect to pay from $800 on up into the thousands for a Mini-DV camera you will be happy with.
You can get some killer cameras (you will find, by the way, that most people in the business do not use the term "camcorder," perhaps because it sounds sort of touristy and unprofessional) from Sony and Canon over over $3000, but I think the absolute best serious (3 CCD's) camera you can buy at a reasonable price (around $2000 if you shop around) without jumping to the professional level is the Sony TRV 900. (I believe it's now called TRV 950.) Remember, I said really good. It has to be good because Sony hasn't changed the basic model in several years. I use it for most shoots, but I also have another, less expensive Sony that I've had for over four years and it is quite good.
Down from that, you can find pretty good ones for around $1000. The Sony TRV50 would be the next one down, and below that the TRV27. Unless you are a professional, you might as well stay in this area.
I'm a big Sony fan. I hear good things about Canon cameras, but I don't know much about Panasonic and JVC. Canon makes a model called the ZR50MC for around $800, but it has only a 2-1/2 inch monitor (fold-out screen). Canon's least expensive 3 CCD model is the GL-2, a very good camera that lists for $2999 but can probably be found for less.
A big thing to consider is whether you will have "issues", as the techies like to say, between your computer and your camera. I have heard of people having such problems. I do know that there are no problems in compatibility between Sony and Canon cameras and Macs.
As for features.... By all means, you will want --- FireWire - all Mini-DV cameras will have a FireWire connection; wireless remote (look at it to make sure it has frame-by-frame advance and slow motion) because in ordeer to make the cameras small, they've had to make the buttons small, and playing back on one of these can be a nuisance if you have to keep fingering those tiny buttons; LCD monitor (the fold-out screen) - make sure it's color, and the bigger the better-my 900's is 3-1/2 inches and my other Sony's is 4 inches - much smaller than that, in my opinion, and it's just a glorified viewfinder, and not much help in on-the-spot analyzing; an external microphone jack; a headphone jack; image stabilization, or "steady shot" as Sony calls it, which enables you to shoot without a tripod if you hold the camera reasonably steady; and video inputs (they will allow you to transfer conventional analog VHS tape into digital signals, which is the only way you'll be able to get old stuff into the computer)
Most of the cameras you will find in the $800 + range will have these things. By the way, I personally would stay away from Digital-8, which seems to be exclusive to Sony,
There are other things that will interest you, depending on the level of your professionalism, such as manual overrides - the abillity to bypass automatic settings - for focus, exposure, white balance and shutter speed.
Forget "digital zoom" - they will try to wow you with big numbers there, but think of digital zoom as a weak extension that starts where the real zoom (optical zoom) ends. From there, the picture degrades noticeably. (You shouldn't be doing too much zooming in tight, anyhow, because the same ting that magifies a distant image also magnifies camera shake, which is a good way to make viewers sick.)
Forget titling. Forget goodies like posterization or mosaic or sepia or black & white, which if you really care about them are things you can do to images later, in "post-production," after you've shot them. Don't turn those things down if they're included at no cost, but I find them worthless, designed mostly to hook the first-timers.
Buy an extra battery. They're now available, at least for Sony, in five-hour sizes. Battery life is one of the greatest advances I've seen since I started shooting video. Recharge the battery nightly - Unlike the old-style batteries, you don't have to run these all the way down before recharging. The camera's AC adapter also serves as your battery charger when you're not using it to power up the camera. Use the small battery that comes with the camera as your backup.