Fast or good?

Sometimes time is tight, and circumstances mean you're trying to get something under pressure. Compromises are made, and often the final result can be poor, or even middling. Well, today I did something new during a lunch break. I was camera guy, audio guy and interviewer all in one. I got one of them right. The rest? Not so good. Not terrible mind you, but definitely in the 'could try harder' bracket. Of course, the mistakes made mean that I now have the benefit of experience, so perhaps things will go better next time!I've wanted to add video interviews to the blog for a while, for a number of reasons. One is experience in doing them, another is meeting and interacting with people that are working and influencing the photographic world around me. Knowing that I was going to see some of the launch of the NAIP (National Association of Irish Photographers) today, I rang John Smails to see if he was willing to do a quick interview about it. He was up for it, and so my first interview was booked.I was happy with the interview, but there were technical issues. Focus slipped in between setup and recording, and the balance in the audio between our voices wasn't good. As the 5DII has no headphone socket, there was no way to know until later. I now know what to do differently though. The final video is small so focus is not a major issue, and I normalised vocal levels independently of each other. The result of that is that John's voice has more noise that I would like, but it's still acceptable (just) for a blog post.Lessons learned: double check focus before rolling (you'd think as a still photographer, I'd notice). Keep a consistent distance with both myself and the interviewee from the mic. Based on the recording, boost record levels higher than the 5DII meters are indicating.