Our church wants to install a video camera to record services and sermons, nothing fancy - here's what I'm thinking:
- Mount a remote-control pan/tilt head on the wall or railing of the balcony
- During the service, attach a video camera that has remote-control zoom/start/stop control
- Have software that lets the operator hit buttons that say "pan/tilt/zoom so the camera is pointing at the pulpit" or "pan/tilt/zoom so the camera shows the entire altar area".
The challenge, of course, is that we don't have $5000 to spend on one of the fancy commercial systems (nor do we need something that sophisticated).
We have a Canon VIXIA HF-R52 that you can control remotely (zoom/start/stop), and I'm considering the Panasonic CTR-1 Remote Pan Tilt Cradle, what I can't tell is whether the controls for either let you say "go to zoom level 8.3, pan 20 degrees from center and 30 degrees down from horizontal" (which is what I would need, in order to give the operator a button for "pan/tilt/zoom to the altar".
BTW, I don't want the system that follows motion, or requires everyone to carry a special tag that the PT head detects and follows.
Is there a low-cost solution that gives me what I need?
I saw this question: Remote pan/tilt/zoom cameras that aren't expensive which is similar, but didn't go far enough. As far as I can tell, the low-end pan/tilt heads let you say "pan to the left" but they don't let you say "pan to 30 degrees left" which is what I am looking for.