A little help needed choosing a camera

Capture hardware, software and techniques

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mrmarvellous
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A little help needed choosing a camera

Post by mrmarvellous »

Hi there,

It has been some time since I have made any films and now I come to make another I find I want to update my equipment.

I a looking for a camera (preferably high-def) that costs around the thousand pound mark. I was looking at the HD Everio but I was wondering what peoples experiences of filming and editing with a HDD camera. I would really have liked something that recodes to tape.

What do people think? Have you any other suggestions?

Just in case you are interested and would like to see the last thing we did, have a look at www.ifilm.com/video/269839 the camera work is terrible I'm afraid but on the whole it is something I am proud of.
Ornsack
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Post by Ornsack »

Welcome to the forum =)

I personally wouldn't like the idea of recording to a hard drive camera. You'd probably have to take a laptop with you and keep exporting the footage on a long shoot

Sony do a good range of HD cameras that record to tape or hard drive depending on the model that are between £700 and £1000. From my experience with Sony cameras (I have two Sonys, a Canon and a JVC) they're the best cameras for filming in all locations, shooting really well in the dark and easier to avoid over-exposure in the light so I would definitely consider their low end HD range

Oh, and your link didn't work sadly :(
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loFABl-1Zcw]THE SALESMAN - YouTube[/url]
mrmarvellous
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Post by mrmarvellous »

Thanks for the welcome :)

I missed out a number from the end. Try http://www.ifilm.com/video/2698392

I'd not thought about the Sony cameras actually. I was interested in teh JVC because of the lens and the Hi def, I will have to check out the prices on the Sony cameras.

I was wondering what peoples thoughts were of Panasonic and Cannon as brands and whether they have anything suitable. This is actually quite new to me since the change from Mini-dv to Hi Def as before all I was worried about was whether the camera was 3ccd and had a true widescreen mode. Is this something I still should be thinking about?

[EDIT]

Just a note, the JVC has a 60gb HDD which will hold around 5 hours of top quality (full 1800P) video. That's not bad for a day of shooting. I've only used 4 hours of tape before but I still worry that I will need more at some point.
mrmarvellous
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Post by mrmarvellous »

So, I've been looking around and the Sony HDR HC7E looks like quite a good camera. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I am still unsure to be honest. Is the higher quality of the JVC and it's exceptional lens worth the reduced recording time?
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