Video Camera

[abraxas]

Awesome! I just logged onto Youtube and decided I want to start a video business and be a professional videographer. What kind of camera should I buy?

Money is an object. I'm limited to how much I can steal from my Mom's purse.

Seriously, any recommendations?

 

[DeepSpring]

Panasonic DVX 100 is a great camera.

 

[Buszaj]

I have a Canon ZR-850, excellent camera, $600 CAD with tax, (included a case and extra battery and tape and cables). It's a mini-DV camera; this format uses small tapes that you can record over and film up to 90 minutes on. If you do get a video camera, you will also need a firewire connection and cable which you can by at computer stores and ebay. Finally, you will need a video editing program; I use Adobe Premiere 6.5:hail::hail::heart:. AMAZING PROGRAM! You have to get used to it, but there are a lot of tutorials. You can by it or get by other methods (downloading).

Good Luck!

 

[DeepSpring]

hmmm maybe you should talk more about budget... DVX is around $3500 or so.... you can get HD for $5000 or so. It's a great camera. It's used professionally ALOT. This one competes with the canon XL 2 which is around the same price I believe. It's mini DV too but I would recommend NOT recording 90 minutes. When you do 90 minutes you have to set it to LP which is long play which gives you poor image quality. If you record in SP (standard play) you have muuuuch better image quality. The panasonix DVX has the best 24p you can buy. Normal video records in 30 frames per second while film is 24 per second. If you want to get the "film look" that combined with letter boxing and manual control of things like the gamma you can get damn close.

 

[danalec99]

Awesome! I just logged onto Youtube and decided I want to start a video business and be a professional videographer. What kind of camera should I buy?

:lmao:

 

[DeepSpring]

ahahahaha h hopw did i not read that lol

 

[abraxas]

I am interested in video cameras though, so I do appreciate the input regarding which to buy. Youtube is impressive in the way that I can embed videos in my pages and not have to fork out $$$ for bandwidth. That brought my video clipping to a halt several years ago. With the ability to embed clips in my pages I can generate a revenue stream (however tiny).

Here's a video of some clips I took 7-8 years ago. I was fooling around the other night to see if I could make it happen.

Morro Bay

I have some desert wildlife clips of ~equal~ quality that will have to edited, but YouTube will function fine. At least I won't have to shell out for bandwidth.

This got me to thinking about making some new clips of higher (acceptable) quality. I was using my dinosaur, a sony mavica. I broke the wide angle adapter and had to scotch tape it on, so it's not good for clips any more. I've been using it for work for 7 years .

My fall budget is through the roof already. I may be able to fit the Canon ZR-850 (or something similar) in for the time being. Maybe the higher end Panasonic this spring. I have an acquaintance that films documentaries that I'd love to compete against .

Thanks Deep Spring and Buszaj for the starting points. I've had no idea on where to begin looking.

 

[Johnboy2978]

Might also want to look at the Canon Elura 100. It's in the under $500 range of mini DV and it's what I ended up with last year. The wife wanted a video camera to catch those special moments of my daughters first birthday. It's a pretty decent camera, but we just don't use it as much as we thought. It takes really good video outside and pretty good inside provided it has decent light. In low light it's pretty grainy. The still camera part of it really sucks in my opinion, but that's why we have those $1000 DSLR's right? I never really had much interest in one but it doesn't take much persuasion to buy more digital gadgets. I was all geared up to go w/ one w/ a built in HD but at the time, the reviews of most of them under $700 really stunk and I wasn't willing to shell out more. I think I ended up paying about $350 for it from Butterflyphoto.com. They did that scam of calling to "confirm" the order and trying to upsell but I just kept saying No I don't need X, Y and Z. Got the camera for the advertised price w/in a week. May want to find a more reputable dealer like B/H.

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Elura-100-MiniDV-Camcorder/dp/B000DZH4D8[/ame]

 

[abraxas]

Thanks. That looks like a decent first time option. Thanks for the buying tip. I've bought a few smaller items from BH. Usually I go to a brick and mortar for my purchases. I don't mind paying extra and can usually get a pretty fair deal. I like to dress down and don't get bugged to purchase more than I want .

 

[shorty6049]

i heard sony is comming out with a blu ray disc video camera which i'm assuming records in 1080 i or p, no idea what the price is yet , but it looks awesome

 

[Snyder]

make sure its a 3CCD camera if not you want get a professional quality look to the video ive been eyeing a Canon XL2 its around $5000 or a Canon GL2 its around $1200. Though I own Sony miniDv handcam with external mic and wide and telephoto lense and a miniDv panasonic video camera. I have made video from them and have even made money with them but Im never real happy about the quality. Im also going into post production to improve it.

 

[DeepSpring]

One thing to remember is no consumer camera is going to have great picture indoors. You're going to get that grain. As mentioned 3CCD will really be great and will help a lot in picture quality.

Personally I would go for tapes and not the hard drive.... I just can't see you being able to get that much great footage on a hard drive.