New HD Cam

[osbornes5]

Hi folks. You may think I'm new here because I haven't been around in some time. Had too many other things on my plate and I was "wasting" too much time on here. I finally had to tear myself kicking and screaming from these pages. Although I do have some big editing projects to work on, my lawn business is wrapping up for the year and so I may be able to kick around on here a bit more often. Only problem is I feel a bit behind the times. To that end I offer the following question to those who are a bit more up to speed:

I have a family member who is wanting to purchase a camera for their church. They do lots of plays etc and so it has to be good in low light. After seeing some sports video on the Oklahoma Sooners web site that apparently shot with a CMOS chip cam, I am even more dubious about owning one myself because I shoot some sports footage as well. Man it was terrible. Now it may have been a lower quality cam but you would think that if OU was shooting it they would be using at least a decent one. It may also be that the user didn't have it set right but it was still a great example of what the rolling shutter is capable of. I don't want to turn this into a discussion about CCD v. CMOS but if that's what interests you so be it. I just need input on cams.

The reason I threw in the info on CMOS is that they will likely not be doing much if any high motion shooting. It will primarily be used inside a church only so a CMOS chip cam might be acceptable. I was going to reccomend a Sony 2100 because I knew they would have the excellent low light performance they were looking for at a price point this small church could handle. I am so far behind the times, I didn't even realize that the 2100/170 had been discontinued. It could very well be that a 2100 from e-bay is the way to go for them but I wanted to see what was new and different. When I kinda checked out from these forums the Panny HMC-150 was making a stir. What's the latest and greatest?

Price is a concern. I know they have some sort of a dual chip puter for editing but don't know for sure what kind of NLE they have or anything else about the puter. If they go HD I am certain it will have to be upgraded to some degree. More on that later as I get it. Need info ASAP as I think they are in a hurry so they can have it before the Christmas plays etc.

Thanks all!

[kwshaw1]

What's their realistic budget limit? At a recent video association meeting the two cameras which seemed most promising at a reasonable price were the HMC150 you mentioned and the Sony Z5U. If those are out of reach financially a used Sony FX1 is an option I'd recommend, having used two of them for some time now. The HMC150 looks promising but may require more of a learning curve in terms of working in HD on flash memory cards, versus choosing between SD and HD on the Z5U using a traditional tape-based workflow. Depends how forward-thinking they want to be.

Low-light footage should be decent on either of the above cameras - not sure why the sports footage you saw wasn't good. (What were the image quality problems?)

Regarding their editing computer, if they have a dual-core model it may be adequate for HD editing with some limitations: I do most of my editing on a dual-core laptop.

[HankCastello]

Especially if they're only editing a single track, the dual core should work if they have at least 4 gig of ram and sufficient harddrive space.  Multiple drive configurations work best.

I agree that the FX1 is a good low-budget choice, but only the first two mentioned are likely to do decent in low light, and those are expensive - especially the Sony.

I've got a couple VX2100s I'd consider selling and a Panny C7, but they are no good for widescreen shooting.

[On a Roll]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I recently got the chance to do a side-by-side comparison of the 150, the Z1U (the previous generation of the z5u), and the ZH-A1s, and I bought the XH-A1 (previous generation of the A1s). Ultimately, if that's their budget range, they'll likely be happy with any of the cameras. The really sweet thing with the Panny is that it records on SDHC cards, so if you have an above-par computer, the process of transferring footage is a lot shorter.  Now, if you're like me and operate on a dual core with a few gigs of ram that's a couple years old, the AVCCHD HD footage that the 150 natively creates will be a bit of a choking hazard. Panasonic does offer a free transcoder that converts the footage to a very easily editable format, but the time associated with the conversion more than makes up for any saved time from just capturing through your firewire port.

Personally, the Sony was my favorite, but it was also the priciest one of my three (at least at the rates the local AV store priced them at).

Now, I'm a huge CCD fan, I personally think they get a better picture. Having said that, there are really great CMOS chips out today, and there are some pretty crappy CCD chips. I don't think that's a huge concern.

A buddy of mine got the Panny HMC 40p. It's a lot more cost effective than the 150, and it does pretty good.

And if you really wanted to go SD, for less than the price of one new XH-A1s, I could sell you three Canon GL's. They're old technology, but we've used them at our church with absolutely no problems. Having said that, it ultimately comes down to the needs of the church. If they only plan on using video for internal productions and public access (Which is going to stay SD for the foreseeable future) than SD is no problem. But I would say it's worth considering HD cameras if you plan to do much else.

[osbornes5]

not sure why the sports footage you saw wasn't good. (What were the image quality problems?)

Not sure how to explain it ohter than to use the word "jagged". It looked similiar to other examples of rolling shutter problems I hads seen but much much worse. On stationary shots, it was a nice pic but motion shots were awful. I was actually shocked that OU (being the greatest institution of sports and higher learning (not necessarily in that order) that hase ever been known to man) would even use it. I was unable to find it the other day so they have apparently removed it already. I was hoping to link to it.

I love the idea of the FX1's but the low light issue concerns me. Don't they struggle there? The Panny C7's are good for what they cost originally but compared to the 2100's, they aren't close in bad light.
Of course I am very familiar with the 2100's and they are phenomenal in low light. I have seen wedding footage shot with the GL 2's and was pretty underwhelmed. Which model of GL do you have?

As far as their budget goes I think they could do $2000 pretty easily and maybe three. I do suspect that they will at least have to add hard drive space and possibly RAM so that will eat a few bucks as well.
I think they are will

[markhennings]

The FX1 was discontinued and replaced with the FX1000 in Nov. 2008. I own two of the FX1000's and they're great in low light! I definitely have to work with the shutter and gain in really low light, but they're quite dandy cameras.

[HankCastello]

The Sony FX1000 was tagged as Videomaker's 2009 Best Tape Camcorder, and is supposed to have better low-light performance than the FX1.
http://www.videomaker.com/article/14037/

[kwshaw1]

I love the idea of the FX1's but the low light issue concerns me. Don't they struggle there?

Yes and no. They're not as sensitive as typical DV cameras, but if you let the gain go to at least +12db and drop the shutter speed to 1/30 sec you can get usable footage in most situations, including dimly lit stage productions. Add 10-20W of halogen lighting and you can shoot people dancing at dark wedding receptions, provided you get close enough. And with some massaging in post you can squeeze more out of an FX1 image than most people would believe is there, something it's taken me a while to figure out.

But as others have said the FX1000 is a newer camera which apparently is better in low light, so that's another one to look for used.

[HankCastello]

Not sure about their low-light capabilities, but you may want to hold off and see what the new hd-3d cams will cost -
http://www.panasonic.com/3D/

[On a Roll]

As cool as the 3D stuff is, the bottom line is tha viewers will still need to wear those nifty polarized glasses to see it correctly, and until they invent a 3D television that doesn't require head gear, I don't see it as being anything other than a novelty. It's like Imax - interesting, yes. Superior to traditional filming - yes. More popular? Not so much.

Back on topic, to answer the question, I still have two GL-2's and a GL-1. Like I said, we use them in our church to do a variety of stuff, and I think that they get a worse rap than they deserve, but ultimately they are dated technology. The problem with buying them is that they are behind the times. At the same time, a one-camera shoot is going to stink. In an ideal world you would have three cameras and either a live hardware switch, or a PC with a software switch.

I know one church in the area that decided it would be better stewardship to buy three Canon Vixias and all the gear they needed, as opposed to just one XH-A1 without any extras. They spent about $4000, got three cameras, tripods, batteries, audio recording, and everything they needed to do live production. Sure, compared to the big cameras above the quality is painful, but to the average joe, stuff shot on 15 year old Sony Palmcorders looks "good enough".

[HankCastello]

wear those nifty polarized glasses to see it correctly,

Looks like Mr. Grant has let his Creative Cow subscription expire and has been without Internet service since the CSS show in January.

for starters -
http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/setting-a-new-3d-home-standard

But this is but one of dozens of 3d without glasses standards moving forward. 

Sony launched its 3d initiative then Panasonic followed suit and has a road show going on right now -
http://www.panasonic.com/3D/

[osbornes5]

I reccommended the Sony FX1000 to them if they wanted HD and didn't care to pay that much. If they didn't want to spend that much I reccommended a used XHA1. If they still didn't want to pay for that and didn't care about HD, of course, I went with the 2100.

[kwshaw1]

But this is but one of dozens of 3d without glasses standards moving forward. 

Interesting, but as much as I like new technology I'll be surprised if 3D displays become commonplace before I'm too old to care. Not only is it another expensive transition most folks aren't likely to be eager to make, I suspect having images leaping off the screen may be too novel to catch on quickly. I realize some said the same thing about HD so maybe I'm equally wrong about 3D, but my hunch is it will remain a novelty for quite a while.

[HankCastello]

I'll be surprised if 3D displays become commonplace before I'm too old to care.

Twenty bucks says you'll own one within the next ten years.

[ampsonic]

Twenty bucks says you'll own one within the next ten years.

He's right you know.