Originally Posted by Barefootsies (Post 15562676)

$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.

Originally Posted by JustDaveXxx (Post 15565214)

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

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15565847)

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.

Originally Posted by vidvicious (Post 15565813)

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.

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15565866)

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.

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15565866)

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.

Originally Posted by JustDaveXxx (Post 15565214)

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

Originally Posted by Jay-Rock (Post 15566136)

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.

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15566226)

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.

Originally Posted by vidvicious (Post 15565763)

?? 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

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15566226)

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.

Originally Posted by Karen Kougar (Post 15566996)

"Mini-DV tapes don't require power?" Uhm- what???

With no power, DV tapes are just as useless as a hard drive, unless you're using gerbils on a wheel to power your playback.

We're just cutting some stuff Jay-Rock shot for me with his EX-1. It's gorgeous, and has given Tom some serious camera lust. He uses an HV-20 with the WD-H43, and says it doesn't even come close.

But the HV-20 is consumer gear, the EX-1 is in a whole different ballpark.

Originally Posted by Jim_Gunn (Post 15567220)

I meant the individual hard drives each require their own power. The less things that need power in my office the better. My electrical capability is just about maxed out! The Ex-1 looks pretty cool though for when I do go tapeless.

Originally Posted by Jay-Rock (Post 15566155)

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

Originally Posted by mikesouth (Post 15567610)

the people here telling you to get ioff tape are correct

go to solid state storage HD or SDHC cards or both and hi def is the only way to go

Originally Posted by JustDaveXxx (Post 15568555)

Im with you, but im still gonna wait to see what will be the standard.

Originally Posted by Barefootsies (Post 15561629)

...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.

Originally Posted by GetNaughty (Post 15562382)

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.

Originally Posted by Elli (Post 15562461)

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

Originally Posted by tony404 (Post 15567302)

You guys are going talking waaay ahead of barefootsies lol. He has been using a consumer camcorder for 5 yrs and Im pretty sure never touched the manual controls the whole time. Go with the hv20 if you can get it or 30 you will be very happy compared to the imagine you are getting now and it wont bankrupt you.

Originally Posted by Kolargol (Post 16347702)

We use HV20 and we use manual controls all the time and the quality is more than enough for our customers. The only thing we buy now is some new lights or better locations.