Camera check and maintenance - Video camera courses

Camera check & maintenance

Summary sheet

There is no maintenance as such with cameras. Even tape - or disc camcorders which use moving parts in the media compartment, are usually maintenance free. However, do the following when you want to get the most out of your camera or haven’t used it for a long time. Do it before an important shoot, holidays or testing a 2nd Hand camera. First a bit of general advice:
1) Do not overuse head cleaning tapes as the can be abrasive to the video heads.
2) Use quality Tapes – I recommend camera manufacturer tapes.
• Try to use the same brand only
• Discard damaged tapes
3) Have at least 2 batteries. Battery test. Run batteries fully flat before recharge. You have to know how long batteries last for proper shoot planning. If batteries behave odd or don’t last very long, repeat a discharging and charging procedure a few times. Even though modern batteries supposedly don’t develop a memory, I did resurrect some batteries with this procedure.

Camera check:
• Tape cameras. 1) Fast forward and rewind a whole tape. 2) Play back a pre-recorded at the beginning and at the end of the tape. 3) Do a test recording by constantly panning and zooming the camera in and out. Here you look for distortion and pixilation in playback of the recording. If it does show up you may have an issue with the video head drum or tape path. A remedy can be a cleaning tape, if unsuccessful, see a repairer. 4) Do this recording test in SP (Standard Play) and LP (Long Play)! A tape-path or video head issue is much more obvious in LP.

• Lens check
o Test the iris by checking scenes on a bright sunny day outdoors and indoors under low light conditions.
o Check the optical zoom for smooth zooming from wide angle to full zoom in. Do this in both directions and observe the auto focus tracking.
o Sensor check, DSLR Cameras: Try to take a photo of a blue sky and look out for little dark spots in the picture on playback. Do this by zooming in on different sections of the picture. Any dark spots indicate dust and dirt on the sensor.

• Disc cameras Do the test recording and playback procedure as described above for tape cameras. If you do have any issues with the recordings, you may clean the laser lens. If unsuccessful, see a repairer. Repairs can be expensive as in most cases the whole disc drive needs to be replaced. This drives are a lot dearer compared to computer disc drives!
• HDD and Flash Memory cameras Test record and playback. There is nothing else to do.
• Fire-wire port.
This is an important issue. Particular when buying a 2nd Hand camera. Make sure the camera is recognised by the computer. If not, there are in the most cases only two things which can go wrong. When you are lucky, it is the socket itself with broken pins or much worse the computer on the main circuit board. These circuit boards are none serviceable items and need to be replaced, which is extremely expensive.

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Thomas is an experienced technician and lecturer with over 25 years of electronic experience and a passion for amateur filming. He designed camera courses for the beginner to intermediate camera person who wants to increase their technical knowledge in order to get more out of their camera. Visit Thomas on his blog for free videos and find out how he can help you with your camera challenges. www.estudy.net.au/blog

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