What to look for in a camcorder

[synergetic_salami]

Hi everyone.

I'm looking to buy a digital camcorder for making random short films and just wondered what things i need to look for in one.

My budget is up to ?1000.

Also is my computer "beefy" enough to deal with editing?

I've got windows XP, Intel P4 2.3GHz, 512Mb RAM, 240 GB Hard Drive + a decent graphics card if that matters.

[richard.fisher]

Hi Synergetic,

The board is currently full of threads discussing the various pros and cons of film vs. video. If you haven't read them yet, then you may like to spend a few minutes reading some of the recently started threads on the subject.

Once you've done that (or decided you can't be arsed to) and if you've decided that you do want to press on with video, for the time being at least, read on:

1) You're computer should almost certainly be capable of running the software you need to edit. It has similar specifications ot the one I use (rather unsurprisingly, also the one I'm using to reply to this post), although I currently have 1Gb of RAM.

2) With regards to hard disk space, you will never have enough. 1 hour of uncompressed footage takes up roughly 13.3Gb, add to that another 1Gb if you use editing software that needs to process the audio into a different format before it can use it (which adobe premiere does). With those figures, your 240Gb hard disk could hold about 16.5 hours of footage. That's assuming there's nothing else on it, and I imagine you probably have your operating system and other programs on that disk, which all takes up more space than you realise.

3) You will find it difficult (but not impossible) to make a movie without a camera, but before you blow all of your money on the best camera you can, please don't forget the benefits of getting a shotgun microphone. I won't go on forever about this, but if your not bored already you can read what I said on the subject here: http://www.hostboard.com/cgi-bin/ult...c&f=410&t=6142

4) As for which camera to get, I would suggest that one of the most important factors I would consider would be it's ability to cope in low light situations. If you look at the sample footage provided by manafacturers, it's all of family's on the beach, and school sports day, all at midday, and at the height of summer. Now look at you script, and read the list of locations, and if it's anything like mine, it'll read INT. Cave, INT. Basement, EXT. Field (at night). This website has exhaustive reviews of a wide range of cameras: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/

5) Once you have a shortlist of cameras, find the cheapest online prices online, then go to a retailer you trust, and try all the cameras you are considering. Look not only for the picture quality, but also how easy is it to adjust the focus and other manual controls while shooting etc. Then haggle and get the same price from the shop, as you could online. In my experience they will haggle, and they will meet prices, even online ones.

[Xendar]

Unfortunately ?1000 doesn't get you alot of camera. A couple of things to look for are:

It's 3CCD - most domestic cameras are only single CCD and the picture quality that comes out of the isn't very good.

It's DV in and out so that you can output your work back to DV tape.

The Canon XM2 is a good camera but slightly out of your price range. The Sony TRV950 is also a good beginners camera but again slightly out of your price range. Sony is always a good bet though.

As for you computer it sounds fine in terms of specs for video editing. All you'll need is a firewire card and a copy of any of these software packages:

Premiere Pro
Liquid Edition
Avid
Vegas
Edius

There are other consumer pieces of software but the ones mentioned above are all very good.

[jb_617]

With regards to the software, you can do a lot worse than Ulead's Media Studio Pro 7. It's quite cheap and very powerful, it's not AVID or Liquid Pro 6.0 but if you're starting out, it's a better bet than Premiere Pro 1.5 as I believe you can get it for both Mac and PC. Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 seems to be PC only these days. I don't know why. Of course if you have a Mac then Final Cut Pro is all you'll ever need, it's awesome.


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Hope that helps.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ March 07, 2005 08:42 AM: Message edited by: jb. ]</font>

[richard.fisher]

You can get a panasonic GS400 for ?1,000. It is a lot smaller than some of the pricier cameras, and people hold that against it. However, I was pretty pleased with the image quality when I used one, and a lighter, easier to transport, less conspicuous camera is full of positives as far as I'm concerned.

[richard.fisher]

Review of the GS400: http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content...der-Review.htm

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...=77729&_LOC=UK

[danr7]

Make sure you get one with an external microphone jack. An earlier post mentioned getting a boom mic. The problem with many of the inexpensive camcorders are that they don't include an external jack, so you're stuck with the built-in (worthless for filmmaking) mic.

Also, some of the really inexpensive camcorders (such as the Canon ZR series) can't record from an external video source. That means you can't edit on your computer and then dump it back out to MiniDV. It's kind of unexpected when they trim what seems like a common feature. This, however, may be on cheaper camcorders then you are examining.

Dan Rahmel
Author: "Nuts and Bolts Filmmaking"
http://www.cvisual.com