AaronM, JimGunn, Tony404, Markham Step Inside
 

...or other content shooters. :winkwink:

I am looking at new camcorders. My Canon is around 5-6 years old now, and it's time for an upgrade. Still works fine, but gradually bumping up the quality on gear, computes, software, post production, etc..

I prefer DV AVI tape, as that is what I am shooting on now. Just not ready to make the move to disk. I prefer Canon, but will listen to other suggestions.

What are you using? Links helpful.

Fire away.

http://www.red.com/

ftw

tapes will be a thing of the past soon enough, if you are switching now go all the way!
by soon enough we are talking the next 12 months....

:Oh crap:Oh crap

Great equipment.. price tag fits :thumbsup

Couldn't agree more, unfortunately. I would say that in 2 years, very few people will use tapes to record on. If you're upgrading now it makes a lot of sense to say bye-bye to tapes altogether.

i love using my lil hd sony harddrive cam.. i actually work on the videos.. i have stacks of tapes still never touched :/

I use a Sony HVR-Z1U ......:thumbsup

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...3_CCD_HDV.html

i'd love to have that one - but no client would probably be willing to pay extra for it. too bad. nevertheless - the quality is absolutely fucking amazing. :thumbsup

I use the Canon Vixia HV30 HDV (Mini DV's) you said you like Canon, this thing rocks and is affordable. You can shoot both HD and DV.

:thumbsup

That's what we use too, it really kicks ass and the quality is great for it's size and price. Haven't touched our GL2 in like 8 months.

As for the DV disappearing within 12 months prediction... I think it will take longer than that.

:thumbsup

I'm really loving my little Canon HV20. It's not true HD, but it sure looks sweet.

Fuck if I know. Haven't done much research on video cams for awhile. I'd say Tony or Dean might have some good suggestions though.

I thought you were da masta.
:Oh crap

Hell no.

Not even close.

red for shooting porn for the web is like killing a fly with a shotgun.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

For your needs and what you are using now. I think the hv30 or 20 would meet your needs and it is true hd. You can get a hv20 way cheap and the the 30 will be dropping because the hv40 is coming out very soon. I would also invest in the canon wide angle adapter.
now if you want to go 3 ccd or cmos, then give me a idea of what you want to spend.

And what's wrong with that... lol

I'm ok with a "lil" overkill.

You mean something like this?

Is $155 a good price? I'd love to get something like this but I don't really want to spend too much...

$155?? Is that low end?

I was thinking $500+. But Tony404 knows better my 'uses' or needs as he eluded to.

I am not looking to go full HD on amateurs. I am thinking somewhere in the middle of me now, and HD. Basically, just getting some better clarify, and definition. I do not need top of the line for my stuff.

You'll be good with this Canon Vixia HV30 HDV then because you can also shoot in DV. Then if you decide to go HD you can.

I love the wide angle adapter I got for my HV20 for about $150. I also got the hotshoe mic, which helps a bunch. Check out hv20.com for a great community all about the HV20 and HV30. there's a thread on there of people discussing what the "neccessary" optional accessories are for the camera.

Sweet!! :thumbsup:thumbsup

Honestly, I haven't researched new videocameras in a while. I am still using an almost four year old Sony FX-1 HDV camera and I get great quality out of it by concentrating on my lighting. There are indeed a lot of great options nowadays for videocameras that should suit your needs, from standard definition digital video to high definition video in several flavors like HDV, AVCHD and uncompressed HD, recording to both mini-DV tapes and also tapeless P2 cards. It really depends on the workflow you want to set up. I am pretty satisfied with my solution which records to mini-DV tapes and gives me good quality 16 x 9 video. I am pretty sure I am going to upgrade sometime in the next year and I am considering the tapeless solutions. But it's a major decision because I film so much and I believe tapes are the best long term backups for my archives and also to deliver edited videos to my clients.

More than just upgrading your camera, you would be smart to practice a bit with you lighting setup, improving your locations and set colors and that alone will make your videos look much better than they do now. Any time you want some tips, I would be happy to help you out since you have been so generous sharing your knowledge with me.

I was on a videographer board. And a guy was saying people spend a bunch on their camera and whats left over goes to light. He said should be the other way. If your lighting is good you can get a good picture on any camera.
$155 for wide angle adapter is good, I paid $200 for the same one at a local store. The hv would serve you well and I would get a mic for it also. Sound is 60 percent of the video experience.

Oh ok. I misunderstood you. $155 for the WIDE ANGLE part.
:thumbsup

Best thing I ever did was skipping tapes and going to a HD hard drive system

I think the flash drives or the compact flash ones would be the way to go. Less chance of failure.imagine shooting a couple of scenes and then the hard drive craps out. That's the one thing I got to say about tape. Been shooting for 8 yrs never had one issue with tape.

The Canon EOS 5D Mark II is a sweet smut making tool.
http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/control...articleID=2326

Pay attention!

My thoughts exactly..

I have been shooting on the RED ONE. If you are not willing to go that far I recommend the Sony EX-1. It is the best camcorder for the money.

:2 cents:

I have shot with DV and DVCAM tapes from 1999-2004

I have had a few tapes crap out and had many problems with dropouts and lost pixels due to bad spots on the tape.


Been shooting on a flash memory for 2 years with no problems. No heads to wear out or get dirty and no tapes that can have bad spots
Flash Memory is WAY more dependable than tapes if you ask me.

I shoot the canon A1 for HDV and the VX2100 for SD.


The Canon A1 is the best performer in low light out of all the HDV cameras. I edit all of the scenes i shoot and really know the ins and outs of both my cameras.


When i make the move to tapeless i will move into the new Sony. Its pretty sick!! My buddy Craven Moorehead got one 2 months ago and it is the best low light performer ever to come out. It puts all the cameras in the dirt for working in low light situations. I think Jay Rock has the same one. It shoots to Sony flash cards.:thumbsup

Here's a few pointers to think about.

Tape will store more info than disc or chip at the moment. Recording direct to the hard drive is not an option unless you want another lead coming off your camera.

The part of a camera behind the lens can be worth $10,000 but if you shoot through a $100 lens you have a $100 scene. Very often the techies spend a fortune on developing things for an extra effect and ignore the most important thing, the lens.

The better the camera the better the lighting should be. You can ruin everything by not having good lighting and each set up should be different for each setting and models. Great lighting with an average camera will out perform a great camera with average lighting.

Get off camera mikes, two is good. So the illusion is not spoiled every time your touch the camera and leave a click or the sound of you breathing. Position one over the models to capture the over all sound and one rifle mike aimed at her pussy to capture the squelching. ;)

Consider if the style and niche of the scene requires top end cameras, plus your skills as a cameraman, lighting, sound and director warrant top end equipment. Mine don't. Because all good equipment does is show everything more clearly, every good point, great moment, beautiful model is shown in better detail,l resulting in harder cocks.

And every mistake, zit, rash, boil, bruise, poor make up, plain model, poor porn, badly directed scene, models who does not give a shit will also be shown clearly and result in floppy dicks.

If only producing porn was as easy as spending money on a camera and learning how to light and audio. :winkwink:

?? it isn't 1970 s no more paul .. LOL

Hard drive is a great way to store your digital video. plus creating a great WORKFLOW .. that means in layman terms .. you won't spend the hour stairing blindly at a capture screen, only to find out that your settings are all off, cus youve been using the manifacturers presets .. LOL

NEXT .. WHAT digital camera head are you shooting with that can handle a 100$ lens .. please advise ... and please don't say canon cus a XL H 1 Cus this Can't take a 100 $ lens but is a 10 000 Camera ..

simply put if your in content and your seriously asking this question ? What camera to get" then find another posistion within our great industry . also if you think that digital tape is better then HD, your stuck in the past. The fact is that MiniDv isn't that great of a product, it has been laced wit problems from day one .. too small of a transport, resulting in lots of particles flying around and landing in the most in - appropriate places. Low life drum heads caused by second grade metals to keep prices down .. etc .. Adhesive tape is know not to have a good shelf life, if they couldn't do it with 1 inch what makes you think they can with a 8 mm tape ?

LAstly WORKFLOW. I won't even comment on the difference here.


Lookin at the newest cams out there for under 5000 $ .. Panasonic's P2 is awesome .. Sony's newest EX is grate .. but if you are stuck on canon .. Then the XH is your camera of choice hans down ... Opt for more expensive G1 rather then the A1. You'll thank me for the HD back up later.


All the best .. and please keep the Real Shooting to the Pros .. don't try this at home you just might hurt yourself . LOL

Great weekend all ... Vicious out

Yo Dave long time no see .. can you hit me up this week please amigo ...

BTW I too love the EX from Sony .. Shot 2 Features with it this year . it preforms awesomely
the canon's A1 color rendition is the shitznics ... great little camcorder for under 5000$

One model will suit your needs .. the Canon Xh A1

if you can afford it .. opt for the Canon XH G1 .. basically all of the features of the A1 plus a bunch of upgrades you'll love, like a lens stabilization and HD SDI, SMPT TIMECODE in/out, Genlock and many more extra features makes htis camcorder well worth the extra cash.


BTW in my 20 + years as a camera technicians I have seen all kinds of tape based problems when shooting MiniDV .. In the last year alone I've lost 3 shoots to bad tape. My Partners made the mistake of buying sony rather then Panasonic tape stock . huge difference in quality,, hence the price difference .. nothing sucks more then getting back to the edit suite only too see that the start of your tape is fucked with drop outs, and has resulted in a sub standard recording .. or better yet the whole tape is digitised and rendered useless. All because you didn't take that 3 sec to check record when you started, But even that isn't a fail safe. BAck up Hard Drive is a life saver .. oh and if the drive fails you;ll know before before you even get the the next shot. A camera on record hardly ever gives you an error due to drop outs.

Dave, you mentioned low light three times, and that might be useful for the original poster Barefooties since he seems to be barely lighting his sets. But us professional producers including yourself are using enough light to do surgery with on our sets, lol! Upgrading to a new camera is nice but most people shooting their own content would be better off getting excited about a pair of Kino-flo four foot four-banks (plus some extra lights) and learning how to use them than upgrading to the the latest technology videocamera and thinking that alone will make their video better.

I recently started filming a new project on a custom built studio set for the first time in quite a while and I had to set up a record six lights to light the set the way I wanted: the two large Kinos with daylight balanced bulbs as key lights; plus a Lowell Riffa 1000-watt softbox for fill, a Lowell Riffa 500 watt in the back corner as a hair light, plus a small Lowell Pro light to illuminate the back wall at a low angle and a small Lowell V-light light higher up to light the side wall and plant in the background. I think I am even adding a Chinese lantern style light overhead next time and hanging it from a hook on the ceiling.

I bet looks really good. God it must get warm.

Wow, my experience is so different than yours. I have been using the same brand of Panasonic professional tapes in my Sony FX-1 for years (and other cameras in the years before that) and I have never had a completely bad tape yet. One thing I make sure is I never record to the first thirty seconds of a Mini-DV tape, and drop outs are so very infrequent. And I recently recaptured and re-edited tapes I filmed on literally ten years ago that were simply stored in a storage place and they were pristine as the day they were shot. I am a pretty big believer in tape as a medium and long term backup. The physical media is so much more reliable and lasts longer than a hard drive does. Hard drives in my estimation are just temporary storage to edit on, and not a long term archiving solution.

I mean, come on, hard drives fail all the time! With the amount I film, no hard drives can realistically store all my raw video without having a giant rack of multiple 1 or 2 Tb hard drives sucking up power and taking up space that keeps growing every month. And backing up the data means doubling or tripling that amount of space! I may go tapeless eventually for a more efficient workflow, but I have to wrap my head around having my precious data stored in so flimsy a media with redundant backups and I just can't see dedicating the space for it.

I see a hd on cam failing not during the shoot that can be handled. I see going on one of my shooting trips. I shoot 3 to 5 scenes shot and then come home to move the footage turn on the camera and get the hd has failed sign. Like Jim I also use panny pro tapes, never had a problem or a drop out.

1TB drives average around 80 bucks each now. They're cheaper than tape, on a "per-hour stored" basis, and take up less space. If you use them like tape, and keep stacks of them around with an external SATA dock (or just use externals - 90 bucks), they don't consume power.

And how do you back up tapes without doubling or tripling the space used, now? :)

I use many HDDs to put my scenes on. The 360 gig mini HDs by western digital holds like 10 scenes (raw off the sony EX1) and is the size of a DVCAM tape. So technically you would save tons of space by shooting Hard Drives since 10 mini DV tapes take up more space. Furthermore I copy the project to my main drive and a mini HD which takes only 5 minutes for an hour of footage to copy over. You are stuck capturing video for the duration of the footage and it would take you just as long to make another tape and back it up. This doesn't makes sense and takes up a shitload of time. I mail out my scenes and I never use padding i just throw these things in a USPS priority mail envelope and send them out. I haven't had any mini HDs fail on me EVER and if they did I keep the scene on my system drive as well until I see that the client has put the scene out or on their site. Do you make a copy of your tape in real time then send them out to your clients?? What if the tape gets lost in the mail??? Did you backup the tape to another??? (PAIN IN THE ASS IF YOU ASK ME)

Mini HDs are the best way to go unless you are just completely old school.

SOME SONY EX1 ($6500 + MEMORY) SAMPLE CLIPS

THE FIRST VIDEO (Scarlett Faye) IS WITH KINO FLO LIGHTS THE OTHER SCENES IS WITH NO LIGHTING AT ALL JUST AVAILABLE LIGHT

http://jay-rock.com/hdvids/scarlett_faye.mov

http://jay-rock.com/hdvids/shyla_capri_GG.mov

http://jay-rock.com/hdvids/shyla_interview.mov

http://jay-rock.com/hdvids/shyla_april_GG.mov

I dont know about the A1 being the best in low light because I have only shot with it for HDV then moved to the HVX200 I could go on for days and tell you all the things I hate about these 2 cameras. But I guess having the Sony EX1 has made me a bit spoiled. The HVX200 was ok but went to shit in low light and if try shooting a bathroom scene where there is no room for lighting.... good luck. The A1 I had tons of things I hated about it the worst problem is that you can't check the focus by enlarging the viewfinder while shooting. You can only check it when you aren't rolling tape = LAME

For under $3500 I think its the best you will get though. Then again this camera came out 3 years ago.

When I send tapes with raw footage and edited movies to a client I still have the raw footage in digital form and project files on my external hard drives for a few months in case anything gets lost. No need to make a tape backup in that case. One thing about mini-DV tapes is they don't require power and they are easy to label. Small HDDs still need power and to be plugged in. Tapes are easy to throw in a drawer or closet. If I ever do go tapeless, small HDDs sound like the way to go.