Ideal Camera (for a medium - low budget)

[Jesse P-S]

Flip cameras are AWESOME, but that might be too low-budget for you. They do have HD now though...

[Alex]

Most of the UCBcomedy Originals are shot with the Panasonic HVX200. The closest high quality pro/consumer camera that Panasonic makes is the AG-DVX100 which is half the price and still captures 24p and is customizable.

Cannon also reportedly makes some really good consumer HD cameras. I'm not familiar with those but would look into it. Sony also makes some sweet looking handycams and flip cams.

My wedding was shot with a Sony HDR-HC1 Handycam with steady shot consumer cam. It looked great given there was no additional lighting or set up. So maybe a less expensive version of this is worth looking at.

If there's a rental house near you it may be worth taking a visit to and trying a few options before you buy. Rental houses are also very knowledgeable and can be a great resource. Renting is also a good idea if it's available in your area if you are working from project to project.

[Rafi]

I think this is a tough question to answer without knowing exactly how much money you are willing to spend. Touchy subject but that will obviously narrow down the answers everyone can give you.

I also own an HVX camera and love it. Not sure if that is in your price range.

[scottbox]

I like the Canon HF100, HF10, HF11 and HV20 and 30 cameras. All of these are very compact HD cameras with great sound and picture. They're smaller and better than the high-end 3-chip cameras from 4 years ago. Their costs vary according to the features you want (tape, non-tape HD, non-tape SD card).

[nick]

hi, vaov.

This used to be an easy question. Sony PD-150 miniDV. or the Pana DVX that alex is talking about.

But now, since almost any portable device with solid state memory contains some sort of camera or camera application, you need to first fully think out exactly what you'd like to be shooting with it.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are looking to do some single-camera (film-style) sketch comedy. stuff that is probably 5 minutes long, MAX.

that being said, IMO, priorities for YOUR budget camera should be:

- microphone input
- size
- does the camera have easy-to-operate manual focus controls?
- image quality
- storage space
- battery life

The trick these days isn't to get a camera with good imaging, its getting a camera with good AUDIO inputs. Any camera that shoots HD-size images is going to compress down to the web in better quality then you'd ever expect. I've cut "flip cam" footage into many broadcast television shows, they are fantastic for capturing images, but the microphones in them do absolutely NOTHING.

So, if you're REALLY on a budget, you only really need the cheapest solid state recording camera with a microphone input that you can find.

If you have a laptop, you don't even need to worry about how much memory or HD space the camera has, just stop shooting when you are filled and back up your media to a folder on your HD.

Do yourself a favor and buy a LIGHT KIT and a 90 dollar microphone with the money you saved. Lights make the difference between shit and pro stuff almost all the time.

I'm pretty sure you can get all this stuff without too much of a hassle for >2000 bucks.

However, FYI, if i had to buy a camera for a professional job in 2010, this is what i'm getting... and i'm sticking Canon glass on it.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10406925-1.html

PS - if you really want a "prosumer" camera, you can probably find an awesome deal on a used HVX on craigslist... those cameras are the most reliable tapeless HD cameras i've ever seen. the images are fantastic, but the storage medium is expensive.

[Alex]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10406925-1.html

whoa, that is seriously the coolest link I've seen today. Besser shot Freak Dance with 2 Red camera packages and it looked amazing. This is very exciting.

[nick]

yeah, a camera with red guts and a canon lens... its not getting better than that for the cost for quite a while. plus that red footage plays nice with final cut in terms of transferring and making masters. The RED ONE, which is the one i've come across most out in the field and on shoots, lets you access the raw uncompressed files for color correction in apple's Color program, which basically means that you can online and color correct raw material to the pixel.

That amount of color correction is killing an ant with a sledgehammer for a lot of people... but its still amazing. We used to spend hundreds of bucks an hour to be in a room that could correct uncompressed HD. now, i can minimize this message board and fire up my own online suite

[nick]

panasonic just announced a new mid budget full HD camera! yeah!!

This thing is going to kick ass. Its got timecode, XLR inputs, and interchangeable lens capability... and it will probably come in cheaper than that RED scarlet i posted about before. Panasonic's really had the best mid budget cameras for a long time now, from the 24P one to the DVCPRO HD one... this should be no exception. Another great thing about this guy is that it shoots in AVCHD... out of all the non I-Frame codecs, I like AVCHD the best, as it looks really great when transcoded to ProRes, and it plays really nice with final cut's log and transfer mode.

Also, I'm really hoping that this camera kills the use of the Canon 5D... over the last year or so, people have fallen in love with shooting with the 5D camera's video mode because its cheap for a device that shoots full HD... , but its an SLR at heart, so it doesn't have embedded time code, or microphone inputs, and without that, its been a real pain to work with that footage in post.

I guess we'll see when it comes out end of year... if it comes in around $2K, i'd be real happy. fingers crossed.

engadget (ignore the snarky headline, of course:) http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/12/pana ... ders-itsel

camera site link from engadget's post: http://www.imaginginsider.com/?p=105470

[nick]

Canon added a log and transfer plugin that adds timecode to the video footage it shoots!
This is pretty awesome... Still obviously no XLR support, but I hate the 5D a lot less now.

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller ... cleID=3249