Beginner camera questions

FewFew

G'day ladies and gents,

I like to make films in a non-professional setting. I've made some short films, some videos for bands, nothing but fun and guerrilla publicity stuff.

So I'm considering getting a new camera. I've tried researching it online and chatting to a few friends that do this sort of lark as their jobs, but I'm getting so many different answers.

First question: Is HD that much better than SD, keeping in mind that this stuff will most likely never find its way anywhere other than the internet?

Am I better off getting a higher quality SD camera or a more basic HD camera? Factoring in cost, a sony HD consumer DV dealie is the same price as a 2nd hand PD170 (which I use in college and quite like.)

The aul anecdotal evidence would suggest that DV is on the way out, the likes of the PD170 are obsolete and we shouldn't even be using them in college etc. etc. etc., but I don't really want to believe that, or rather I'll resist until I'm shown the error of my belief.

For some reason I don't want to go near harddrives and much prefer DVs, am I wrong in my thinking? My past experience of HDDs has always been lower quality relative to DV, but that could have just been the cameras.

So any advice would be appreciated, my wee sony handcam is nearly on its last legs

Edit: Forgot to mention I'm hoping to use it for some online journalism work.

keefg

The most obvious question to ask first is what is your budget?

Remember to take into account that the camera is just one component of your kit. Depending on what you are filming you will need to think about a mic, tripod & maybe a top light.

FewFew

keefg wrote: »

The most obvious question to ask first is what is your budget?

Remember to take into account that the camera is just one component of your kit. Depending on what you are filming you will need to think about a mic, tripod & maybe a top light.

I'd say a grand at the very most. Really I guess the main thing I'm wondering is... HD+weaker lens/sensor > SD + better lens/sensor ? I've never used a HD camera so that's my biggest area of confusion.

johnnystork

Hi Fewcifur,

I recently had a similar post because I'm in the same situation. After alot of reading and weighing up the Pros and Cons, what I think will work for me is a Canon EOS DSLR. I'm still too poor to buy one but here is a rough list starting best to cheapest based on ebay prices.

5D Mark 2 - Around £1600 body only. Lenses will be more depending on what you need, but the Season finale of "House" is being shot entirely on this camera!!!! Records to CF memory card.

7D - Around £1000 body only. Still need lenses. Robert Rodriguez filmed a music video with this camera. Records to CF memory card.

550D - Around £600 body only, again still need lenses. Its basically a poorer build quality version of the 7D and with only 1 processor, but for movies its almost the same quality from what I've seen. This will probably be what I get unless a 5DMK2/7D goes cheap on ebay. Records to SD memory card.

They all now do 24p at 1080p for the film look, and think 7D/550D do 60p at 720p, can't remember if 5DMK2 can, you can google it.

The main draw back of DSLRs for film would be the poorer sound options due to no XLR inputs. So if sound is not good enough you'll have to dual system the sound then sync in post. Supposedly not as hard as it sounds if your on mac. Oh and you can only record film at 1080p for 12mins continuously, forgot to mention that though can't imagine that will be a massive problem.

Google philipbloom or visualrebel for examples of what these cameras can do.

FewFew

Thanks Johnnystork, when I'm upgrading my DSLR I'll definitely be going for one of the above, but at the moment I can't really justify buying a new camera when I'll need to roll with dedicated sound equipment. I have an external XLR dealie for radio production, but in situations when it's one man and his camera (or even a man, camera and reporter) I think having a one-stop shop for everything might be more what I'm after.

Pretty cool that an episode of House was shot with a DSLR, I would have imagined it wouldn't be suited, especially since there seemed to be a lot of bitching about how this generation of Canon's wasn't up to scratch video-wise (though that could have possibly been around the time of the 500D)