Sometimes you come up with a name for a new product or a new publication that is so fitting, so proper that you just have to use it. And then you discover that everyone else and their dog love that name too, and have already claimed it.
I found four others during a quick-and-dirty Google search. So what can you do but add a twist, a type treatment or an additional word and you roll on with it.
All that may have occurred when Danish moviemaker Lars Frid-Nielsen came up with a way to control up to four Panasonic Lumix cameras with a Macintosh or Windows computer over Wi-Fi and named his product RoboCam Field Recorder. How he got to that name hardly matters, though, in the scheme of things.
What is important is that this reasonably-priced software allows one moviemaker to effectively do the work of a crew of two, three or four camera operators. Even better is that RoboCam Field Recorder works with a range of current and recent Panasonic Lumix hybrid Micro Four Thirds cameras with more to come soon. Like the GX8, perhaps?
Cameras currently supported by RoboCam Field Recorder:
- Lumix DMC-GH4
- Lumix DMC-FZ1000
- Lumix DMC-LX100
- Lumix DMC-G6
- Lumix DMC-GX7
- Lumix DMC-GF6
- Lumix DMC-GF7
- Lumix DMC-GM1
- Lumix DMC-GM5
- Lumix DMC-TZ60
As with any system relying on Wi-Fi, it pays to have the fastest, most powerful you can obtain. Controlling more than two Lumix cameras may take a toll on lower-end Wi-Fi networks. Lars Frid-Nielsen is sharing some useful tips for maximizing your RoboCam at his YouTube.com channel aptly named RoboCamRocks.
I haven’t tried RoboCam Field Recorder out yet but it looks like a very likely solution for a nagging problem, of how one person might record interviews on location with two or more cameras running simultaneously. [bctt tweet=”Not THAT RoboCam! THIS RoboCam! Control Panasonic Lumix cameras with RoboCam on Mac & Windows.”]
Introduction to RoboCam Field Recorder
(cover photo credit: snap from the video)