View Full Version : Can You recommend a camera for my friend
JOE BLO
08-09-2008, 08:09 PM
My friend is a travel writer and he has been shooting footage of himself in all kinds of countries visiting resorts and doing adventure travel with a Sony 150. He needs to upgrade to a High Def camera, that is user friendly, Can have external Mics plugged into it, be able to wear a headset and listen to audio, and isn't delicate, as he is often in Jungles and such.
I told him that I didn't think the HVX200 was a good choice for him, since it was more difficult to use and had more bells and whistles then he would need.
He wants to have a camera with a hard drive and not worry about tapes.
He wants to get something for around $5,000.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Joe
Aroon_Narayanan
08-09-2008, 08:30 PM
Well, if he doesn't want complicated, he's going to end up getting something cheaper. Also, hard drives aren't found in cameras above $1500, unless as add-ons. Perhaps he would like the XH A1 with a Firestore hard drive plugged in? I don't know how it would stand up in a jungle, though.
Tom Shortridge
08-10-2008, 05:52 AM
I assume he already has mics (with XLR connections), and the $5K is specifically for the camera?
JOE BLO
08-10-2008, 11:55 AM
Yes he has mics already. He does need a portable light kit also, If you have any ideas. I will tell him about the XH A1 with a Firestore plugged in. Thanks.
Huy Vu
08-10-2008, 03:00 PM
In rough environment, a Firestore is just a bad idea. There's nothing to secure the firewire to the 4 pin connection on the A1 (which isn't exactly very well designed to start with) and if you're moving around a lot it just might slip out and screw up your recording. Worse, it can actually break the firewire pin on the A1. A solid state based camera like the HVX is actually the perfect solution to the problem. Sounds like he's looking for a handicam formfactor in which case either the Canon HG20 (hard drive based) or the HF11 (flashcard based) would be a better choice if he doesn't want to shoot tape. But of course the tradeoff is a compressed codec that is resource intensive to edit.
Batutta
08-10-2008, 05:52 PM
I'm hearing good things about the Canon HF-10, a hard drive based HD camera which is way cheaper than 5,000. It records to the dreaded AVCHD codec but uses a higher bit-rate which seems to be working better than it has in the past. Full review--
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/Canon-Vixia-HF10-Camcorder-Review-34711/Performance.htm
Canon XH-a1, Panasonic HMC 150 (coming October 2nd), and (why not) the new Sony z7.