Newbie Question - About to purchase first camera.

[Alejo_NIN]

I'll introduce myself:
I'm originally from Colombia but reside in Miami, FL. it has been about 6 months now that i have gotten into videography/editing. i'm an I.T. specialist so video is just as a hobby. I use FCP Studio 2 to edit my videos. currently i have very crappy cameras to work with (8mm, D8mm and a DV panasonic camera among others in the same class)
i have gotten pretty good at the editing, not OSCAR good, but good enough to put smiles on peoples faces. what i am lacking now is a good camera.

I was thinking of going DV-Standard Def, but i've been told that i should start HD right away. i've been looking at sub-2k$ cameras like the HMC40. I've read just about every review about this camera and all seem to come to the conclusion that it is a "daylight" camera, it is horrible at night.

anyways, do you guys think this is a good camera to start? is there any other (cheaper*) cameras that you would recommend to a hobbiest who will mostlike be shooting carshows and similar events?

i've gone a little to long...
thank you in advance all for your time.

[PerroneFord]

Do you have any examples of what you've done so far?

[William_Robinette]

Sounds like a used Panasonic DVX-100A or B would be a good cheap solution for you. It's standard def, but if you cannot make something look good with SD, adding more pixels isn't going to help you.

[Robert M Wright]

Despite the low sticker price, the HMC40 is serious camcorder, capable of producing top-notch footage (easily rivaling camcorders that cost more than twice as much) with adequate lighting. It does use 3-1/4" imaging chips (CMOS), which is a bit on the small side, but does not perform nearly as poorly in low-light situations as I would have thought, from reading about the camera here and other places. The gain is surprisingly clean, which makes a real difference. You can go up to 12dB and still get a real decent image from the HMC40. I feel it's adequate indoors for a lot of purposes, so long as you have pretty good lighting in the room. It's not going to do well in a dimly lit room, like in a living room with only a couple 60 watt table lamps turned on in the evening (will suck then).

I'd much sooner shoot with an HMC40 than a DVX, in most circumstances (with reasonably good lighting, the image from an HMC40 will absolutely knock the snot out of the image you get from a DVX or any other standard def cam).

If I was going to get another standard def cam though, I'd watch for used JVC GY-DV300Us. They tend to sell for insanely low prices used (like $500-$700 these days!). A GY-DV300U is a little known, but quite serious prosumer camcorder, in the same general class as a DVX100 (3-1/3" CCDs - robust pro level manual controls, XLR audio, etc. - shoots a very good SD image).

[Robert M Wright]

I've shot with a number of camcorders (up to an XH-A1), and I can flat out say, I was more impressed with the HMC40, straight out of the box, than anything else I've ever handled. The value (bang-for-the-buck) is awesome. (The GY-DV300U is a close second, as far as exceeding my expectations. I basically bought it on a lark, since I had an opportunity to get one, in excellent condition with like 20 hours on the heads, for $570 almost 4 years ago, when comparable camcorders were selling for around $2K, and it knocked my socks off when I got it. That camera can certainly hold it's own with any prosumer 3-1/3" CCD SD cam.)

[ggrantly]

Correct me if I am mistaken, the JVC DV300 is strictly an interlaced cam, no progressive.

Grant

[Alejo_NIN]

Sounds like a used Panasonic DVX-100A or B would be a good cheap solution for you. It's standard def, but if you cannot make something look good with SD, adding more pixels isn't going to help you.

ovbiously, more pixels is not going help...but why not start at HD now that everyhtng seems to be going that way anyways?
i think having the HD as an option for when i get better is a good thing, i'm not spending 5000...this camera is dirt cheap compared to other nonHD cameras in the market now.

i dont expect to be making money out of this but i definately don't want to get stock doing SD and then wondering why i never purchased this camera.

but, you do make a good point tho.


here's a sample of what i have worked on...is not state of the art, but it was good enough for me to want to release it :)
hope you guys like it.

http://vimeo.com/channels/74465

[William_Robinette]

I'm not advocating against an HMC40, just saying take a look at a DVX.

Because you can get one used for a lot less then $2000 which saves you money you can put toward other items that will add production value to your work (like tripods, audio equipment, etc). Also, shoots at night and in garages (from your video) will benefit in a huge way from the DVX's sensitivity.

And ask yourself what is your distribution model? Web, DVD, broadcast?

[Alejo_NIN]

what you say makes alot of sense. still, i think the HMC40 is a great starter camera, there will be time to get tripods and such later on....

[PerroneFord]

...there will be time to get tripods and such later on....

And this is how it begins...

[Alejo_NIN]

ok, so i've been reading up on the DVX100b
there is actually one on ebay now selling for 1600 with 45hrs on the head.

i dunno man, this is getting to be a hard decision
what do i want?
HMC40 pros: HD, SD cards means faster video transfer. True HD 1080p and 720p
HMC cons: sucky sucky at low light. editing HD takes horsepower(what's the point of goind HDtoSD), most manual settings need to be accessed thru touchscreen

DVX100B pros: it actually behaves like a prosumer camera, it hats alot buttons for manual settings. it is cheaper, performs betetr at low-light. uses tapes, easy to backup video.
dvx100b cons: tape, dealing with timecode, TAPE, slow transfer times.


so, there you have it...
i may be wrong on some things as i have neve rtouched either camera.
i've worked with a Sony PD-170, and i had lots of fun with it.

[Robert M Wright]

I'm no novice by any stretch of the imagination (don't shoot professionally though), but even if I were, I would not go back to shooting SD (aside from maybe getting out my DV300 if I had to shoot something where the practical lighting was utterly dismal and I couldn't use any extra lighting).

Shooting SD is not going to improve anyone's skills any better than shooting HD will. (You'll actually learn to focus better shooting HD, that's for sure!)

Regardless of skill level, the difference between images shot with an HMC40, and ANY SD (DVX, JVC, Sony or Canon) camcorder is unmistakable (regardless of format, and yes, the DV300 is a 60i only camcorder - only the DVX and XL2 shoot 24p, among comparable SD cams). Displayed on a modern, nice big widescreen TV, there's just no way that footage from a DVX (or any other SD cam) can look as good as (reasonably well shot) footage from an HMC40 will. Of course, any hack can botch shooting footage with any camcorder. That's not the point! (If you can't shoot, to save your life, don't get a camcorder! Take up painting or something!)

You won't save much getting a high quality SD cam (unless it's a DV300 I suppose - just because folks seem to be almost giving them away, for some odd reason). A DVX will cost a little over a grand used (if it's in decent condition - won't have any warranty - and cameras that shoot tape do wear out). The HMC40 is $1850 (out the door from B&H) with a 3 year warranty (has no parts to wear out anyway), but it also comes with a bunch of nice extras too. You get a decent basic editor (Edius Neo 2), which is well suited for editing AVCHD (especially with the booster option, which is also free, if you go through the hoops to get it through Panasonic) and you get a fairly decent Blu-Ray player (and they give you a Vasst AVCHD training DVD for a giggle - don't know if it's worth a darn tho).

I can almost promise you, that if you are serious about shooting video, and spend a little over a grand on an SD camcorder, and then get your hands on an HMC40 a little later, first you'll kick yourself, and then your new (old) SD cam will be gracing the classifieds here, or the listings on eBay, in short order.

[Alejo_NIN]

i totally agree with you. technology moves pretty fast and getting a 1 year old camera (hmc40) is bad enough let alone a 3 yr old camera .
so, i've pretty much made up my mind, i just don't see anything else out there that tops the HMC40 on price and features...i mean...6 months ago i was dying to get a VX1000..hahaha...then the VX2000, then the PD-170....little did i know back then....i would literally be kicking my ass if i ever did...

budget is set at 2000$ so hopefully i can buy a nice tripod to go along with the camera...and a blue ray dvd player, maybe sell it and buy a lens or something...lol


I'm no novice by any stretch of the imagination (don't shoot professionally though), but even if I were, I would not go back to shooting SD (aside from maybe getting out my DV300 if I had to shoot something where the practical lighting was utterly dismal and I couldn't use any extra lighting).

Shooting SD is not going to improve anyone's skills any better than shooting HD will. (You'll actually learn to focus better shooting HD, that's for sure!)

Regardless of skill level, the difference between images shot with an HMC40, and ANY SD (DVX, JVC, Sony or Canon) camcorder is unmistakable (regardless of format, and yes, the DV300 is a 60i only camcorder - only the DVX and XL2 shoot 24p, among comparable SD cams). Displayed on a modern, nice big widescreen TV, there's just no way that footage from a DVX (or any other SD cam) can look as good as (reasonably well shot) footage from an HMC40 will. Of course, any hack can botch shooting footage with any camcorder. That's not the point! (If you can't shoot, to save your life, don't get a camcorder! Take up painting or something!)

You won't save much getting a high quality SD cam (unless it's a DV300 I suppose - just because folks seem to be almost giving them away, for some odd reason). A DVX will cost a little over a grand used (if it's in decent condition - won't have any warranty - and cameras that shoot tape do wear out). The HMC40 is $1850 out the door from B&H) with a 3 year warranty (has no parts to wear out anyway), but it also comes with a bunch of nice extras too. You get a decent basic editor (Edius Neo 2), which is well suited for editing AVCHD (especially with the booster option, which is also free, if you go through the hoops to get it through Panasonic) and you get a fairly decent Blu-Ray player (and they give you a Vasst AVCHD training DVD for a giggle - don't know if it's worth a darn tho).

I can almost promise you, that if you are serious about shooting video, and spend a little over a grand on an SD camcorder, and then get your hands on an HMC40 a little later, first you'll kick yourself, and then your new (old) SD cam will be gracing the classifieds here, or the listings on eBay, in short order.

[Robert M Wright]

Btw, the important basic manual controls aren't buried in menus on the HMC40. You have a (switchable) focus/zoom ring, aperture and gain on a single wheel (that I actually like better than the more conventional approach of separate controls - it's quite fast to set), and white balance (which I also think works pretty nicely). You do set the shutter speed with the touch-screen (not difficult), but unless you regularly do some pretty odd shooting, shutter speed isn't something to be adjusting while shooting under normal conditions anyway. All-in-all, the controls on the HMC40 are quite well thought out, especially for such a small camcorder. It's also quite comfortable to hold. The engineers at Panasonic really thought the design of the HMC40 out well. It's clearly not something they just threw together, simply to re-package parts from the TM300, just for making a few extra bucks (like the HMC70 was to the first generation of Panasonic consumer AVCHD camcorders).

[Robert M Wright]

Oh, and the HMC40 was introduced less than 6 months ago (way less than a year old). This is brand spanking new stuff. The only thing akin to it, is JVC's (way pricier) HM100 (and frankly, even if the price was the same, I'd probably opt for the HMC40 anyway).

Also, shooting for the web was brought up. I'd sooner shoot with the HMC40, to put video on the web, than with an SD cam. HD web video is young, but it has arrived, with Adobe's Flash Player embracing H264 encoded video and a large chunk of the country having access to broadband at speeds exceeding 2Mbps now, and it will only get better. Vimeo's HD has improved, and the quality is fair now. YouTube's HD is pretty lame (but at least they've made a start - will assuredly get better with time). DIY is downright cheap (using decent hosting like 1and1 at under $10/mo, x264 for H264 encoding, and Flow Player), and really can provide for pretty stunning quality HD web video, if you know what you are doing.

[David W. Richardson]

ok, so i've been reading up on the DVX100b
there is actually one on ebay now selling for 1600 with 45hrs on the head.

i dunno man, this is getting to be a hard decision
what do i want?
HMC40 pros: HD, SD cards means faster video transfer. True HD 1080p and 720p
HMC cons: sucky sucky at low light. editing HD takes horsepower(what's the point of goind HDtoSD), most manual settings need to be accessed thru touchscreen

DVX100B pros: it actually behaves like a prosumer camera, it hats alot buttons for manual settings. it is cheaper, performs betetr at low-light. uses tapes, easy to backup video.
dvx100b cons: tape, dealing with timecode, TAPE, slow transfer times.


so, there you have it...
i may be wrong on some things as i have neve rtouched either camera.
i've worked with a Sony PD-170, and i had lots of fun with it.

Yeah, while it's certainly faster to get the footage onto your computer from an SD card, before you start actually editing that footage you're going to want to convert it to some intermediate codec. That conversion is going to take time, so you may find there's very little time saved over just capturing a MiniDV tape.

[Robert M Wright]

Edius Neo 2 comes free with the HMC40 (also comes free with the HMC150). With the booster option (which apparently is also free if you jump thru some hoops with Panasonic - otherwise it's 50 bucks), dropping AVCHD straight out of the camera, right onto the time-line, seems to work pretty good. On my lowly AMD Phenom 9850 (relatively low end quad CPU), AVCHD footage plays back from the time-line, silky smooth in real-time, with CPU utilization hovering between 30%-40%.

[ggrantly]

Alejo,

Don't forget that the XLR audio component for the HMC40 is an additional $260, and without it and a mic or two, you are more or less shooting silent films. You might also want to consider the cost of memory, an extra battery, and those things that shine brightly.....oh lights.

Sarcasm aside, just make sure you realize that the cam is only a small portion (maybe 25%) of the cost of your kit. I am not saying to not move forward, you have to start somewhere. But seriously, the cam is just the start. You might want to hang in the audio and lighting sections to learn more. Read the stickies, use the search feature.

Grant

[Alejo_NIN]

haha, "Silent Films", i find it funny coz it is so TRUE!
if you check out mt videos, they are mostly silent. i've gotten used to it tho...
but yeah, i do understand that there are other things to be considered like
tripods
fluid heads
memory card
lights
microphones
diffusers
lenses
etc..

but if i get the lights, mic, memory, lenses, tripod, heads and not the camera...wouldn't it be useless?
like you said, i have to start somewhere...and i don't agree with the camera being 25% of the kit...i think it is more like 75%, because without it people will think you are crazy having mics, lights, tripods, heads etc....lol

anyways. it is a START and other toys will follow.
i'm buying the one of the most expensive parts of the kits...the rest are a piece of cake and can be even be made by myself


Alejo,

Don't forget that the XLR audio component for the HMC40 is an additional $260, and without it and a mic or two, you are more or less shooting silent films. You might also want to consider the cost of memory, an extra battery, and those things that shine brightly.....oh lights.

Sarcasm aside, just make sure you realize that the cam is only a small portion (maybe 25%) of the cost of your kit. I am not saying to not move forward, you have to start somewhere. But seriously, the cam is just the start. You might want to hang in the audio and lighting sections to learn more. Read the stickies, use the search feature.

Grant

[Robert M Wright]

It's way cheaper to buy a $75 32GB SDHC card (records about 3 hours at highest bitrate), and not get bled to death by tape costs. Buy 30 tapes and you've spent more, even with really cheap tapes. I burn DVDs to save the original footage (costs about 50 cents/hour of footage - using Verbatims), but I'm going to start burning Blu-Ray disks instead soon (will cost about a buck and a half per hour of footage, using Memorex disks - still much cheaper than tapes). For some purposes, the long term reliability (and convenience) of tape storage might be much more suitable though (although you can probably get effectively the same reliability cheaper, with some creative strategies).

The little battery that comes with the HMC40 lasts amazingly long (like in the neighborhood of 3 hours!). B&H sells some neat little adapter thingy, really cheap, that the battery piggy-backs onto, and it adds considerably more capacity. I'm going to give it a try - and hope it works good. Frankly though, for my purposes, the battery that comes with the camera is quite adequate. It's just awfully rare that I would shoot more than 3 hours in a day - can't recall doing that in a heck of a long time.

It really depends on what you do, as to whether or not the XLR adapter is worth buying. If you only shoot with a mic mounted to the camera (which is perhaps fine for ENG style, but otherwise sucks), Rode VideoMics (mono or stereo) can be a very economical way to go (and no need for XLR). I've got the Rode Stereo VideoMic, and for an on-camera stereo microphone, it works dang good. I'm not sure there's much point in spending more, for stereo audio from an on-board mic (in the vast majority of circumstances). Works great for on-the-fly, run-and-gun shooting video of my grandkids, puppy, etc.

When you need high quality, from a boom mic (or whatever), I'm really starting to question whether or not recording audio with a camera makes a whole lot of sense (XLR or otherwise), when you can use a portable digital recorder instead. Sure, it's more work, but if you want high quality, a camcorder isn't going to give you the greatest audio recording quality. Even a low cost portable digital recorder (costing close to the same as the XLR adapter) should work better (I would think - haven't tried it tho).

Would using a mic that costs 10X more, on a boom pole, recording with the camera (using the XLR adapter) really work better than putting a $150 Rode VideoMic on a pole and recording to a $300 portable digital recorder with 24 bit 96kHz sampling? (I don't really know, but would like to find out. Audio is something I want to learn a lot more about.)

[dan.carter]

Alejo,

I'm a digital photographer who now favors my HMC40 over my Nikon DSLRs. Several years ago I spent thousands of dollars on SD video gear, only to give it up because the quality was so poor. If video quality and resolution are important to you, HD is by far the better choice.

The low-light light horse for both digital photography and video will continue to be badly beaten, but is a very subjective issue. For my use, the HMC40 has performed well in what I consider to be low-light, but others certainly disagree. Vimeo and YouTube have some good samples for you to evaluate.

Good luck with your decision.

Dan

[Robert M Wright]

I'll somewhat echo what Dan said. Folks aren't buying little 25" CRT televisions for their living rooms anymore (remember when that was huge?). Those days are gone forever. Folks are buying much larger, widescreen, HD televisions for their living rooms nowadays.

Footage from a DVX (or similar cam) may look great (if properly shot) on a lttle CRT television, but no matter how compelling the material, or how well it's shot, edited, etc., it's just never going to look stunning on a 70" 1080p plasma or LCD television (or even fill the screen, unless you spend a significant amount of money on an anamorphic lens adapter, except with an XL2, or seriously degrade the image by cropping and upscaling the image in post, effectively turning it into 360 line video - yuck)! Even if your final destination is SD DVD, you can get better results by shooting considerably oversampled footage (in HD).

If you are capable of producing compelling content at all, it's simply going to be more pleasing to watch if it's properly shot with an HD camera, rather than a DVX (or similar cam). There's just no way around it.

[Alejo_NIN]

yes, i think i've mad eup my mind. is just no use going back to SD when technology(and even the gov't) is pushing towards HD.

i saw some pretty cool SD systems for sale...actually many...and very few HD...it makes you wonder...if SD camera's are so "cool" and "better" than the HMC40....why are there 10's of DVX cameras for sale in here and none are HMC40's?(a few are HMC150's..but you get my point)
people are running away from SD.

[Robert M Wright]

One reason you don't see that many HMCs for sale used, is they are just plain pretty new (not even out for a year yet). It takes a little while, after a cam is first introduced, before people start selling them used (unless they really suck). I think what's more notable is just how quickly prices of SD cameras are falling, and also how quickly the prices of older HDV cameras are falling too (especially the first generation FX1). I do think the introduction of pro level AVCHD camcorders is putting extra downward pressure on the value of both older SD cams and older HDV cams. I get the impression that a heck of a lot of wedding and event guys are trading up from older HDV cams, to HMC150s, nowadays.

I also think that when one of the major companies finally introduces a 3-1/3" CMOS AVCHD cam, that can yield the same kind of high resolution image an HMC40 is capable of (but with the better light sensitivity you get with the bigger chips), that's really going to be rough on the value of HDV cams. HDV imposes something of a practical limit on recorder resolution (in essence). For anyone who's shot with an older HDV cam, the first time they see well shot images out of an HMC40, it's got to be awfully hard not to notice the greater image detail. I say CMOS, not because I really have a preference one way or the other (couldn't care less really - got nothing against CCD), but because apparently it's just not very practical to build camcorders using CCDs capable of cranking out images with that level of fine detail.

[Alejo_NIN]

thank you guys for all your input. it makes me feel like the choice i made was right.

now, onto my next question. :)