Upgrading my Camera

lyndon

lyndon

Active member
Right now, I have a pretty basic MiniDV video camera, and am not pleased with the picture quality. Ive been looking around, and notice that the HDD cameras have really come down in price. Im wondering what size HDD camera would be best. There have been a few I have been interested in that were 30GB. It doesnt need to be the greatest camera, but I would really like a decent quality picture.

Should I post some links to the cameras im interested so I can get some better advice? I know absolutely nothing about cameras.

Thanks

-Lyndon
 
SO MANY CAMERA THREADS

-i wouldent get a hard drive camera

-i wouldent get a HD camera like that

-i would try to find a miniDV, 3ccd camera
 
Yeah, I have read a fair amount of them, but as I said, none of it makes sense to me.

So I shouldnt bother with hard drive?
 
MiniDV is what you need for making DVDs, and such. MiniDV puts out 720x480 movies, wich is the TV standard. Unless you want to do HD DVD stuff you wont need HD. For now HD is useless, and if you burn it on a regular DVD, the quality will go down to 720x480. Sure the picture will be a bit better, but its not worth the investment.

3CCDs MiniDV is the better and cheapest way around. If you want good quality, never compress the videos you edit with (quicktime uncompressed for example), and just do color corrections. Color corrections is the best thing you can do for any movie you will do, its hard the first time, but you'll learn fast.
 
I would go with a solid 3CCD camera, the quality from the three chips are nicer than any fake HD camera.
 
One more thing with hard drive cameras. When they are captured, they aren't captured to a format readable by your computer, so you need a program to convert every single goddamn video you take to be playable on your PC. Hard drive cameras gets my thumbs down.
 
right now, hard drive cameras are pretty much harder to use than miniDV. That camera above isn't bad, but you could probably do better. There is no manual focus, and a firewire port is usually better. I think even within hard drive cameras you could find better than that. I do support miniDV cameras though, theyre just easier and seemingly better at this point than hard drive.

as for the HD thing, cheap HD isn't good at all, so go 3CCD until you can afford real HD
 
The compression ratio used on a lot of HDD camcorders at the moment means that it makes fast moving images jitter a little bit... now I wouldn't want a jitter in my perfectly balanced POW shot! I have the HV20 sick camera for the money... If you want to upload footage to the internet HD is the way forward as it doesn't loose as much quality when it compresses. https://www.newschoolers.com/web/content/videos/id/146078/cat/all/search_string/pre+season/

check that
 
UPDATE

I went out tonight, and checked out this camera. Seemed great, super sharp picture, light weight, nice and small.

Its a 30GB HDD camera. What im concerned about is I cant tell if it uses firewire. Also, what format will the footage be in once I put it on my computer? I would like it to be wmv., but Ive read its mov.

Is there any reason I shouldnt get this? Im trying to get away from MiniDV, or should I just get a 3ccd MiniDV camera?

here is the cam im looking at

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10084004&catid=
 
"Other features include 30GB hard drive with up to 37 hours capacity, 34x optical/800x digital zoom, sliding lens cover, Auto Illumi light, built-in DVD control, MPEG-2 recording, USB 2.0 high-speed interface, Stick Controller, auto and manual focus and......."

What I bolded, does that mean the video will be in like Quicktime format??
 
.mov is a trillion times better than wmv. Personaly, I'd go with MiniDV. MiniDV cameras (vx's, gl's)is a loooooooooong way ahead in technology, durabilty vs. HDD cams. And I don't think you'll be making super video premieres on HD projectors... anyway, MiniDV is the way to go if you aint got too much cash.
 
^^ agrrrreeeeeed.

and if you get a VX or something like that, buy a really cheap miniDV cams to transfer on your computer, so your heads and motors in the cam last longer.
 
I was going to get this, but at the last second I decided to go with the next step higher, the GS500. I'm pretty happy with my choice, but that is a solid camera...If your budget allows, try and do the GS500...

But - the site that you are looking at has that camera overpriced. Unless it is some sort of new model or something, I think it should be $499.99, like it is on the Panasonic website
 
Do NOT pay 600 bucks for a GS320. They go for way less in your local circuit city or Best Buy. The GS500 is better because it has 1/4.7" CCD's while the GS320 has 1/6" CCD's.
 
Its selling for 599 at Bestbuy, and we dont have a CircuitCity in Canada.

Im going to keep my eye out to see if it goes on sale at some point soon.
 
Before you order any camera online make sure you check the site with

www.resellratings.com there are soooo many scams out there. This site will help let you know if the site your about to order from is legit or not
 
Thanks, but Futureshop is a department store, about 7 minutes from my house. I wont be buying online, Ill be purchasing from a stor in my city.
 
I don't want to triple post. Newschoolers needs an edit button. Anyways, I was reading more about the GS320 on amazon and it says it cannot be shipped to Canada. There are other stores on Amazon that will ship to Canada I belive.
 
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