Outbid! Blessing in disguise?

[CritUnitB]

Having done some research since my first green question on this board, I fought long--and lost--the battle for a Bauer C107XL. It went for $103.50, not including a hefty $27 shipping fee. This isn't what's important.

I realized towards the end of my bidding that the camera, though reviewed well, doesn't allow for a rate of 24fps, only 18. I am ready to get back in there and bid, but should I be looking for one with variable 18/24fps speeds? If so, what's good? I'd like to be able to transfer these to a digital medium in order to edit on Final Cut or similar. As I mentioned in my last post, NYU film school is swallowing all my money like the ugly beast it is, so under $200 please! Here's the current ebay link with everything that I can find: http://search-desc.ebay.com/super-8-...Z2QQsacatZ4689
Thanks!

[CritUnitB]

Still looking for a quick reply from anyone who can help me out. I'm heading towards the Canon 814 because they're more abundant on ebay than jesus' soul in a bottle. Is this a good move? any problems I can't see? What about batteries, I can't find what the 814s take. Also, what's the maximum reasonable price for one of these bulky beauties? Help?

[Tasty Fish Lips]

You go to NYU and nobody there can answer this question or give you camera advice?

[etimh]

Now that's helpful Tasty--maybe Crit just wanted to shoot the breeze with some comrades and thought he might get some friendly help here. Guess he was wrong.

If you don't have anything useful to add, I wish you cranky board lurkers would just keep any clever "observations" to yourself. Its no wonder this place is the dead zone--idiots drive off any new potential participants with snobbishness and hostility.

Crit: here are some thoughts from a relatively new guy too (I got my first cameras about a year ago). I can't really comment about the specifics of your auction experience but the best way to deal with auctions is once they are over, forget it and move on.

In addition to trying to get a camera with the most inherent useful features (good lens, various fps, dissolve features, etc.), I think the main thing to consider at this exact moment in time is a camera with manual exposure and better, a camera that will recognize the new Ektachrome 64 film and expose it correctly. The demise of Kodachrome 40 is actually going to be kind of messed up for a lot of people who own lower end cameras. If the camera is in fact capable of manual override at all, then it is going to take much extra calculating and work to get your camera to expose this new film correctly. The Canons are great in this respect as most of them can meter any speed film correctly.

If you are looking at the Canon 814--do you mean the 814XL-S? I know that there are many of the regular 814s on ebay, but you should definitely consider an XL camera in whatever brand you lean towards. It just gives you more flexibility in low light conditions. I have a Canon 814XL-S and it is on par with the best of the best, even the Canon 1014XL-S, which I also own and aside from the different lenses, are practically the same cameras.

The drawback with these particular cameras, as well as the other top fully-loaded models, is cost. A Canon 814XL-S is likely to cost you around $300 and a 1014XL-S up to $700--fairly steep but I'm telling you, well worth it.

One of the other cameras I have is a Sankyo 620Xl--this was the top of the line Sankyo made and has lots of cool features. I really like it. The great thing is that they are usually VERY reasonably priced considering the level of features that the camera has. I have some other lesser cameras that I don't use much so I wouldn't want to give you any advice on these. Of course, all of the great models from Nikon, Nizo, Bauer, and of course, Beaulieu, have their advocates and proponents--you just have to match and balance useful features with reasonable cost.

Hope these very elementary suggestions are useful and help you get a great camera.

Tim