Base on a few recommendations, my wife decided to we should get the Canon HV30, We did buy it through B&H photo. Though Costco has it for the same price we've bought a ton of SLR equip from BH. She can't believe you "nerds" know this much about camcorders and of course wants to thank all the responders. Actually, Marks post made her decide we will wait to pick up the Canon HA X1 for the really important events :(. But I won't be in need of one till probably when my Daughter is baptised. Anyway, if anyone is looking fro a camcorder, the HV30 is one excellent piece! Thanks again to all that replied! Tuan
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 23, 2008 7:13 PM To: Soaring@airage.com Subject: [RCSE] Re: Video camera Recommendation? Are you wanting to shoot everything in high-def? Or just some of it? Note that wide screen 16 by 9 and high def are not always the same thing. You can do very impressive wide screen digital video in standard definition and yet not be actually "high def", and it will cost you lots less. Lots. Not everything you see on your wide screen TV at home is actually HD either, but don't get me started, there is a LOT of misinformation out there on that issue... The hot prosumer cameras right now are the Sony EX1, the Panasonic HVX200, and the latest version of the Cannon. All three of these feature a small form factor, while they won't fit in your pocket, they are not huge as the cameras TV news crews or film makers normally use. Yet they are popular with the indie film maker crowd. Each camera has certain strengths and weaknesses, so your choice will be influenced by your particular style and needs. For example the Panasonic shoots on mini-Dv tape and also to digital memory cards, called P2 cards, not unlike the memory card in a high-end RC transmitter or still camera. But it only records high def or standard to the cards, and standard def only to the tape. You can transfer your footage for editing and burning to DVD's by slipping the P2 cards into a laptop's card slot, or by using a firewire cable to any kind of computer. Down side is that P2 cards are pricey and in the field its like changing out short film magazine loads: happens at the most inconvenient times. Upside is that the Panasonic has a gorgeous picture for the price, and can simulate slow motion live inside the camera, in a way similar to cameras costing over $30k. I have used this camera a couple times to shoot HD commercials and I like it except for the P2 memory cards. The Cannon has great electo-optical motion stabilization using actual optics, the best in the biz. Handy when hand-holding telephoto shots for long periods You can use most any Cannon lens you own with it. The Sony EX1 is really really new, but is getting rave reviews as the replacement for several of their most popular prosumer models. It may have the best low light performance of the three, using a new technology image sensor. If you like long record times and recording in HD, consider a Focus Enhancements Firestore external hard drive: it clips to any of these cameras and connects to their firewire port, can record up to six hours as well as do time lapse shots of clouds and stuff. Connect it to your computer with that same firewire cable, and edit right from the drive unit. Spiffy when used with a laptop. Two things I have a bad opinion of: the recording format known as AVCHD, and camcorders that record to a mini DVD. I don't trust the former, and the latter is hard to edit with and really over-compresses the images into bad quality, and the media is overpriced, runs too short, and is hard to locate when you run out. I have yet to make up my mind about hard-drive-based camcorders, one reason is what do you do when you want to shoot more but haven't had a chance to offload your footage to a computer first? but I like the external Firestore drives. JVC makes an HD camcorder that records highdef to cheap Dv tape, it's a variation of AVCHD though. You can check wikipedia for more about AVCHDversus an MPEG2 based HD and other formats. Good places to shop: B&H Photo-Video in New York is the "bible" of prices and camera info for the industry. The salesmen are very knowledgeable and scrupulously honest, they have the highest reputation in the land. Their prices are usually very good: in fact if somebody else is asking more than 10 percent less for the same thing as B&H you should be suspicious and look them up on resellerratings.com. In that vein, stay away from an outfit called Broadway Video. Don't believe me, look them up via google. Once you shoot in HD, how are you going to show it? Laptop hard drive? Always playing out of the camera? Right now the coming thing is BluRay, and if you use Adobe brand editing and DVD authoring, you can burn HD onto BluRay disks that anybody can play in a set-top BD player or computer hard drive that's BD-capable. Those are going to be flooding the market this year. If you edit using Apple computers, you'll have to use Adobe Encore; Final Cut and iDVD and DVD studio PRo for the mac are not yet BD-enabled, might take a year. -Mark S. No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 269.23.5/1400 - Release Date: 4/27/2008 9:39 AM
