Well, I purchased a Digital 8 camcorder. It has the microphone input. What I found shocking however was that the mic input is located directly below where the on camera light is mounted.
There was plenty of room to put the microphone in port farther away from the light. There is even a warning that the light and the surround area near the light will get hot, why put the microphone input so close to that area? There is a "lanc" input directly below the mic input, I sure wish they had reversed the order so that the mic input would be a bit farther away from the onboard light.
I Purchased a 2003 Digital 8 camcorder, new. The top of the line 2003 Digital 8 camera offers a 3 inch color screen and a mic input, the top of the line 2004 Digital 8 camera will only offer a 2.5 inch color screen and NO mic input and sell for approximately 2 hundred dollars cheaper.
I bought the one chip Digital-8 camcorder with a 4 lux rating. I was told there are only 3 Digital 8 choices in the one chip category. The 2004 model choices may only be one or two at most.
The bottom line is if you want the microphone input choice in a one-chip Digital 8 camcorder, it appears the 2003 models may be your only choice.
Well, I had the camera on night shot without knowing. I went all through the menu to turn it off and could find nothing. I began to wonder, could it actually be a knob or button (a good thing)!
Yes, there actually was a slider switch left in the night shot position.
I am still saddened that Sony never made a real digital 8 cam. Right up until like 1998 they had the over the top (feature wise) TR3300 Hi8 camcorder yet as soon as digital 8 comes out in 99 they only ever made low grade models. All that time supporting Video 8 and Hi8 and they try to force me to buy into mindv, no thanks.
There's another way to look at it. For $499.00 dollars plus sales tax, plus 4 tapes, plus a camera bag, plus an extra battery, plus the extended warranty, OK, for $792.00 you can own a camera that actually can complement any big camera shoot because it is so light and portable.
Most important of all is the 360 degree rotating viewfinder which allows for instant access to all kinds of camera angles that would take too long to take the big camera off of the tripod just to grab a quickie b-roll shot.
I would never dream of using the Digital-8 camera for master wide shots, low-light situations, or high contrast scenes, but for getting instantly overhead, or instantly low to the ground, or for fake, unimportant steadicam work, they are worth having around and will save any production several hours a day as an on set B-roll camera.
This was definitely one of the best investments I've made.
<font size="2" face="verdana, sans-serif">Why?Originally posted by Alex:
This was definitely one of the best investments I've made.
What made you come back to this?
Do elaborate, please. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Tim
No rhyme or reason, I was looking through some old posts and thought I'd update this one.
The reason I liked the investment so much was it allowed me to avoid spending thousands on mini-dv cameras.
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