So after shooting some footage with my phone today on my bday (thanks for all of those who sent bday wishes, for those who didn't you are dead to me), I realized I need a new video camera. The last one we had was like a Sony TRV19 or something. I don't even know what happened to it. Especially with the baby coming, I am going to be in need of a decent camera to capture the memories forever. I want two things:
1) HD
2) Be able to get a housing for it for SCUBA (Sony is the best as backscatter can custom make me one).
I am open to about anything that has these two requirements. Most people know me as a technology guy. That is actually not very accurate. I like to have the latest and greatest, but only on some things. I was the first I knew for HD TV and 7.1 Dolby Surround. But that is where my techie stuff ends. I like technology and the latest for TV and movie watching. I don't know when it comes to video cameras for sure. So I need some help. I know the weavester will come up with some good stuff. Any other underground techies with advice???
PS 45 minutes left of my Bday.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday AGAIN.....I don't want to be dead to you..so I want to say it twice to protect myself:)
Luv YA
All right... here you go dude.
It all comes down to a few things. 1. How much cash do you want to invest? 2. How much work do you want to put in to running the camera? Back in the day, the biggest difference between a $1000 consumer grade and a $5,000 pro grade camera was all about the quality. Well with lower priced cameras now sporting 3CCD's or CMOS sensors, the quality is not as big of a leap. (It's still there, but many peeps won't see it) It is now more about the control you have of the image. (Shutter speed, apeture, frame rate, etc.) Another thing to consider is what you will do with the end product. Hi-def is hard to edit but even harder to archive. Most hi-def cameras record to hard drive or SDHC memory. When you want to "make a disk" after you edit, you will need to find some kind of format to support hi-def. There are computer Blue-ray recorders but not many people have the players yet so you won't be sending your movies to friends. The Sony PS3 has a hard drive so you can load Hi-def movies to it but you will eventually fill it up. One more thing to consider is the underwater part. If I remember my physics correctly, you loose a lot of the reds if you go deeper than 8-10 feet. To compensate, most divers bring video lights down with them. You might want to find a camera that has some kind of underwater setting if you don't plan to bring lights down with you. Okay, all that rambling on with no suggestion. I just bought a Canon HF100 because it was super small, the image is great, there is a high level of control, it shoots 1080P, not i, it can shoot 60i, 30P or 24P frames, it was cheap and it had a microphone input so you can use an off camera mic. Oh, and I found it at Newegg.com for $629. The downside is that it does not have a viewfinder (just a really nice flip out screen) and it is a pain to convert the video h.264 files to something my editing suite can use. There is a housing available for it too although the housing costs about the same amount as the camera.
Post a Comment