what do yall think of this camera?

[robosays21]

http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Pa ... Review.htm

what do yall think?

has anyone used this?

im thinkin about gettin it i wanna upgrade

[DEDFX]

A 3 chipper for under 500$? wow, I hope next year when I have the money I'll get an XL2.

The website says its pretty good so it must be, I've never used it and it might be okay, but for under 500$ there could be something not so great about it.

[Lawriejaffa]

Yeah well its a 3chip with 1/6th size chips... not so amazing really. Robo, if you are making indy film, you need at least a 1/3rd inch 3 chip camera.

Keep saving up your money and get an ex-demo (or reliable 2nd hand) Canon XL1 or Xl1s, or DVX100A (most likely) or Sony PD150 or 170 if your really lucky.

While DEDFX, for the price of an XL2, your better of saving up a tiny bit more and getting the HDV JVC HD100. And sure for under $500 theres OBVIOUSLY something not so great about it - if ur wanting to shoot actual professional looking content.

[DEDFX]

I'm never paying over 4 grand for a camera, unless I turn into a professional DP.

Sony HDR-HC3 This is rated the best on some websites, is that any good?

This is making me not know what camera to get, lol I really need help.

[Lawriejaffa]

*shrugs* no point in buying a 600$ camera, if you can hire a professional one for up to $30 - 60 a day. Thats what i did, hired stuff (normally from organisations that were charitable and media related) till i could afford to buy a professional or a 2nd hand professional camera (that you can get for 2 grand and less)

Theres really no point in saving up juuust enuf to get a really fancy version of someones holiday cam...

lol i mean even an XL2 in the USA is $ 2,899.95 at B&H, while if your careful on Ebay, (be discerning) you can get XL1s for apprx $1000+

The point is, you won't really learn a professional camera, unless your learning from one you've hired, or one you've purchased.

I doubt you can learn anything that will be useful to stick in your memory from an automated consumer cam thats great for middle aged ladies (or their husbands) on vacation, and is useless otherwise.

[DEDFX]

.........what!?

[Gyro]

He's saying just rent stuff instead of purchasing it. You're not going to be filming everyday of your life, you're just going to be shooting every once in a while. Therefore, if you spend the money on renting per day, it'll be both, probably cheaper, and a lot more professional than a $500 camera. Get a DVX100b, or a Xl2.

[chrisgreen]

I really really want an xl2. I've been let at the Xl1 my college has and its a great camera, until then i've had to put up with cr** home-movie style cameras. If you can't auto-focus or change the iris then i'm not gonna use it anymore. Thinking about filming using a camera which doesn't have white balance makes me shudder.

[-Joe-]

Im not sure how well the GS180 performs, but I have a GS300 and it kicks the cr** out of my dads sony miniDV one chip camera. Im pretty sure the picture quality of the gs180 is really close to that of the gs300. The colors are much more vivid and accurate. The resolution is much better as well! I bought my cam for $400 off newegg.com It has manual focus, iris, shutter speed, and white balance. It also has true 16:9 recording, very nice for the price!

[Lawriejaffa]

Yup you can't go wrong with an XL2, its probably the best standard def camera, but the PAL version is way overpriced compared to the NTSC version. If i was a yank id get the XL2 over the DVX100b (it rocks and its cine gamma settings are gorgeous) But the XL2 gives you native 16:9 and you need all the pixals you can get hehe (without have to crop the DVX's.)

ChrisGreen? You in the UK? XL2's cost about 33% more here in the UK than they do in the USA. You can get an ex-demo JVC HD100 for just a few hundred more than the XL2, and its (quite obviously) a better camera (offering 720progressive HDV high definition) amongst other things.

We've still to shoot a film with our new camera, but we got the AG-HVX200 from panasonic (basically the HD version of the dvx100) Thats imo a great and amazing camera, but the JVC comes quite close (and the HDV while obviously inferior to DVC Pro in terms of quality, is reasonably close - arguably, and is definately far more cheaper to run.