On Sun, 24 Jan 2010 09:13:12 +0100, in 'rec.video',
in article <Digital Camcorder recommendation?>,
Hello Neil,
Post by Neil JonesI am an amateur photographer and try to creat slide shows with the
photos. Some of them did turn really good. I want try and take videos
now. I haven't owned a camcorder for 10 years now and the last one I
owned used 8mi (something like that) tapes.
It was probably Video 8 or Hi8 format if analog or Digital8 (D8)
format if digital.
Post by Neil JonesI am looking for some advice and recommendations on which camcorder I
1. High Optical Zoom
12x to 20x is about as good as you're going to find in the typical
one-piece camcorder. Anything beyond that puts you into specialized
territory.
Post by Neil Jones2. High FPS for slow motion capture.
There are some low-end consumer grade camcorders that offer very high
over-cranking rates, often promoted as being useful for analyzing golf
swings, for example, but these products drop the frame size so as to
limit the recorded data rate, resulting in extremely low-grade video.
(Low-grade in this instance means just above cell phone quality.) In
other words, the feature is just a gimmick for the unknowing and not
designed or intended for serious professional use.
Truly high speed cameras do exist, but they're usually very pricey,
specialized products relegated to the professional world and are
usually rented as needed and not purchased outright.
Post by Neil Jones3. Lens accessories (wide angle, telephoto and macro zooming lenses
availability)
Sounds like you want a camcorder with an interchangeable lens
capability. This alone will up the price considerably compared to the
usual consumer offerings.
In summary, I don't see how anyone can really make any recommendations
for you without knowing your budget. I can tell you that the world's
best camcorder is probably the Sony SRW-9000. You might want to take a
serious look at what that has to offer and then work your way downward
to a more comfortable price point.
http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-SRW9000/
In the under (U.S.) $10,000 category, the best camcorder in my opinion
is the Sony PMW-EX1R. If you really need interchangeable lens
capability, then it would be the PMW-EX3. These are both XDCAM EX
format products that record to (solid state) flash memory cards, not
magnetic tape. The use of tape is slowly disappearing at all levels of
the video food chain and is now essentially gone at the consumer level
in the sense that few if any new tape-based consumer camcorders will
be introduced - and certainly no high-quality models.
Also in the budget category, you've got the handheld Panasonic
AG-HMC40 series products (24 Mbps interframe AVCHD format), as well as
the full-size, over-the-shoulder Panasonic AG-HPX300 series products
(AVC-Intra format at 100 Mbps intraframe). While I like the 10-bit
4:2:2 AVC-Intra 100 codec, overall I would tend to take a PMW-EX1R
over the Panny.
If your needs are really specialized, and don't include such ordinary
and mundane activities such as "family video", you might want to
consider use of a DSLR such as the Canon EOS 5D Mark II or for great
low-light capability, the new Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, but please be
warned that using a DSLR as a camcorder imposes a number of
limitations that camcorder users simply do not face.
A primary limitation is ergonomic, making it almost impossible to use
a DSLR in typical run-and-gun situations. If you're planning all of
your shots, have lots of time in which to set them up, and have full
control over the shot, then a DSLR may be for you, else my advice is
to use a still image camera for shooting stills and a camcorder for
shooting motion video (some would say, as god intended).
The other major limitation related to using a DSLR for shooting video
relates to resolution. No one, especially the DSLR-as-camcorder
fanboys, wants to talk about it, but the video resolution from a 1080p
DSLR is usually in the 500 to 700 line range. The Sony PMW-EX1R, in
comparison, will give you almost 1000 lines of real resolution. The
apparent resolution that you'll see from a DSLR is mostly attributable
to aliasing, so it's false resolution and not real. This is
unacceptable to the technically inclined user, but the movie maker
crowd seems to like it.
Post by Neil JonesAlso, I am planning to move all my computer activities to Linux. Are
there any good video editing tools on Linux?
I'll let the Linux users answer that one.
Post by Neil JonesThank you in advance.
Hope this helps.
--
Frank, Independent Consultant, New York, NY
[Please remove 'nojunkmail.' from address to reply via e-mail.]
Read Frank's thoughts on HDV at http://www.humanvalues.net/hdv/
[also covers AVCHD (including AVCCAM & NXCAM) and XDCAM EX].