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sumrandumguy
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Joined: Aug 04, 2007
Posts: 152
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 Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 2:58pm Post subject: What Type Of Video Camera? |
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When i have the dosh i am going to buy a video camera. What are the good brands? im sure there are video camera brands that have a bad reputation and i would like to know these before i go ahead and spend money on a camera. Im after a good quality long lasting camera with picture quality as close to movies without spending $15,000.
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Dazzle
Mangled
Joined: Feb 11, 2002
Posts: 12,976
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 4:02pm Post subject: |
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A video camera to do what.....
consumer and 'pro'sumer cameras have specific limitations depending on the type, which dictates which way to go.
If you are going to go $15K, Red might be an option, etc etc.
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sumrandumguy
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 4:55pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Dazzle"] A video camera to do what.....
Make good quality movies, a start to sports cinematography
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yakuza
Wrecked
Joined: Apr 28, 2006
Posts: 5,982
Location: palmy north
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 5:01pm Post subject: |
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Whats your budget
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Dazzle
Mangled
Joined: Feb 11, 2002
Posts: 12,976
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 5:15pm Post subject: |
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You will have to be more specific.
Can you name an example of what you want to make?
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mudguard
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Joined: Jul 08, 2003
Posts: 3,051
Location: Auckland's North Shore
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 6:38pm Post subject: |
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Stay away from mini dvd if you actually want to do anything other than just watch them.
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Conners
Seeing Double
Joined: Jul 09, 2003
Posts: 4,083
Location: bjcfilms editing suite, Welly
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 7:22pm Post subject: |
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As Dazzle says, it's hard to offer advice without a bit more direction. But, if you're starting out, and want to make stuff similar to what you've seen posted on here by regular vorbii, then I'd say you can't go wrong with a low end consumer handycam.
By low end I mean non-HD, and something you would be able to pick up for under $1000 new.
There are basically four formats as follows, all have their plusses and minuses:
1) MiniDV. Uses a tape (digital). Pretty much the oldest technology currently available. Generally pretty reliable and cheap.
Bonuses:
When your tape runs out you can whack another one in.
Bummers:
Need to stream you footage back to PC via a firewire card. This is done in realtime.
2) DVD based. Uses a DVD as the recording medium.
Bonuses:
Can throw the DVD's into a DVD player and watch.
Bummers:
The discs are expensive. I doubt that they like too much vibration when recording (thinking of an external camera feeding in for helmet cam duties here). Think of how easy it is to skip the track on a discman, you're trying to record to one on the fly.
The footage can be in an elohesrad format when you get it off the disc, painful for editing. Usually come with some incredibly parcpy software for extracting the footage from the disc.
3) Hard Drive (HDD).
Same as a DVD cam, but with an inbuilt hard drive for storage.
Bonuses:
Fast data transfer to your PC.
Often have vast numbers of GB's/hours available for storage.
Bummers:
Once your camera is full, you need to download the footage.
Moving parts. I'm not a fan of a spinning hard drive in any device that I'm running around the place with (and yes, this extends to ipods).
4) Flash based.
Use internal flash memory to record to. Some even have flash slots fir adding more capacity.
Bonuses:
Fast data transfer.
Light weight.
No moving parts, so great batter life.
Bummers:
So small and light that you will lose it!
I started out with a second hand Sony MiniDV camera that I brought off a mate for $250. I liked the idea of making a few mtb vids, but didn't want to commit big dollars to it. All the videos I've uploaded to Vorb have been made on this beast,(clicky clicky) so as you can see quality isn't a problem. These even look pretty damn good when you burn them to DVD and play on your telly.
I've recently upgraded to another consumer camera, this time its a Canon FS-11 (thanks Hanafins and Vorb!). It's flash based, has 16 GB internal memory, and another SDHC slot which I've currently got another 16GB card in. This gives me about 6 hours of full quality (standard def) video. I love the flash based cameras, definitely think they are the way ahead.
Oh - one other thing to consider is hard drive space on your PC. Raw avi files from a MiniDV camera run at around 12GB/hour. The other formats generally compress to MPEG2, which is somewhere around 2.5GB/hr.
Will stop there for now, could go on but as we said earlier we need a bit more info.
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sumrandumguy
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 7:39pm Post subject: |
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im wanting to make vids similar to nwd, how about it, seasons etc etc. obviously far off those standards but hopefully you get my drift. action sports films. not just 3 minute clips. i dont have a price range at the moment because i dont know what a good quality camera costs. from what i've seen maybe about 3k to 6k.
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Dazzle
Mangled
Joined: Feb 11, 2002
Posts: 12,976
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| Posted: Tue 23/Sep/08 7:45pm Post subject: |
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Some of that stuff would have been shot on high end 3 chip standard def mini-dv. Some of them on super16mm.
And you are not going to make nwd straight out of the gate. Entry level to get you started won't cost you much these days. A standard pc, a bit of a hard disk space, something like Premiere Pro and a cheap single chip standard def mini-dv camera will be a start to learn the tools and the trade.
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Conners
Seeing Double
Joined: Jul 09, 2003
Posts: 4,083
Location: bjcfilms editing suite, Welly
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| Posted: Wed 24/Sep/08 1:49pm Post subject: |
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It's a bit like riding, I could go out and buy myself a DH bike for $15k, but it wouldn't mean I'd be able to win the nationals.
I'd highly recommend going for an entry level camera just to get started. It won't be your limiting factor initially. You would be reallly surprised at what you can get out of something simple. Look at Chris Arnisons Vorb Comp winning "Wanaka Montage", that is a work of art in my opinion, and not shot on anything overly expensive.
Also remember that camera quality and length of clip aren't related either... It just takes much much much longer to edit a longer clip together, and until you have a lot of amazing footage to string together, it will become boring to watch.
For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure How About It? was shot on a Canon XL2 (Clicky clicky).
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danose
Mangled
Joined: May 27, 2004
Posts: 10,986
Location: Nose City
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| Posted: Wed 24/Sep/08 1:57pm Post subject: |
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| Dazzle wrote: | | A standard pc, a bit of a hard disk space, something like Premiere Pro and a cheap single chip standard def mini-dv camera will be a start to learn the tools and the trade. |
trouble is mini-DV sucks for the time it takes to stream content off, plus the resolution reall does look awful on a big tv
my advice would be an entry level hidef - probably a flash based one (not really any cheaper than the hdd ones, but more rugged). Panasonic's HDC-SD9 ticked the boxes for me (only $1000 plus $200 for a 16gb highspeed sdhc hard) - but dealing with AVCHD files means I've had to buy a faster pc 
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cauld
God Botherer Botherer
Joined: Jan 30, 2006
Posts: 2,041
Location: Wellywood
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| Posted: Wed 24/Sep/08 2:03pm Post subject: |
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I quite like the JVC HD-6 3CCD HDD camera...
I currently own two Canon XM2 3CCD Semi pro cameras and they are nice cameras for high quality film work (similar to what the Dystomedia guys used for their vid), but not HD.
I'm really liking the look of the Canon EOS 5D Mk II.http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2086
Having an HD camera with a full range of NICE lenses is gonna be pretty cool.
Anyone want to buy a Canon XM2?
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radical_edward
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Joined: Mar 10, 2004
Posts: 3,894
Location: Bodymore, Murderland
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| Posted: Wed 24/Sep/08 2:42pm Post subject: |
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Yep, the 3 chippers are a nice way to get started on the serious end. As the pros go HD, buy their gear!
A camera with manual control over zoom and focus is going to give you a better look than a compact camcorder. Compact camcorders do have their place though, as a camcorder with s-video in will be able to record using a high quality bullet cam.
A lot can be done in post, but you need to get yourself a high spec editing PC if you want to post process any large amount of footage, even at standard rez.
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Dazzle
Mangled
Joined: Feb 11, 2002
Posts: 12,976
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| Posted: Thu 25/Sep/08 3:27pm Post subject: |
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http://www.jbhifi.co.nz/photo/digital-cameras/video/
I am not saying buy from that store - but you can get a single chip standard def camera for a few hundred dollars.
Shooting and editing a few hundred hours on that, and you will have a much better idea what you want and how much you want to spend on something better.
Or, if money is no object, go hard!
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cauld
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Location: Wellywood
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