looking to go HD,,student film maker

S

skee

Member
I film A TON of bmx, surfing, and skateboarding, but I am starting to get into actual short film making, as i will be taking a class next year where we will do a lot of documentaries, and shorts and that kind of stuff.

I am wondering if anyone has any input on what a good HD camera would be for me. I have played around with cameras that have manual zoom and focus, and I would love to have that, but they are not a necessity. I have heard good things about HV20's but i know barely anything about them.
My bugdet is about $1900 for the camera, becaus i need a good tripod and all that stuff on top of that.

Thanks!!!
 
Hi skee. I'm a high school student and I have a Canon XL2 and HV30. For your budget, I would recommend you get an HV30 and a good microphone. You will also need an adapter for the mic since the HV30 does not have professional XLR inputs. But whatever you do, don't forget about the sound. That's very important and you don't want to end up with a really awesome camera with terrible sound.
 
Skee, as soon as I wrap the editing for timefest...(all nighter tomorrow? I think so) you can take a look at my post for my film (BNICE) which will have a lot of info for zero budget filming. I am shooting with a stock HV20.

Granted it isn't an F900, or an Aaton, it works really well. Never had a problem with the Global Shutter, CMOS issue. Zoom is manual. Focus is as well, but its a pain. Not that you would have much play with focus anyways.

You can run an external mic into it. Which is great. Problem with it is the cinemode and the lack of manual control over the the Gain. Though there are workarounds. The problem with it is the HV20 likes to add gain, and a lot of it. And Canon was nice enough to not add in the flags for pulldown removal when trying to shoot 24. But there are workarounds for that too. Just a little time consuming.

But all in all, its a nice little camera.
 
CMOS sensors only capture one line of resolution at a time, unlike CCDs. This can create problems when moving the camera, as the camera will be in a certain position when capturing line 1, but a different position when capturing line 1080. The whole image will appear to skew. However, CMOS sensors capture lines quickly enough to where this isn't a problem unless you are a) filming something that moves with any degree of speed, or b) moving the camera with any degree of speed. I know this sounds confusing, but it's a very technical issue that unfortunately can have a huge impact on your footage, depending on what you are shooting. It's all relative.

Oh, and I have an HV20, and it produces an amazing image! However, seeing as you film a lot of sports, the aforementioned "rolling shutter" effect might cause you to think twice about it.
 
thanks for letting me know!. can you recommend any other cameras that could be about as good as an HV20 in the same price range? and does the HV20 connect to the computer with firewire? thanks!
 
Haha, rolling shutter...it was 2:05 AM East Coast, I can slip up. Thanks for the correction Ryan. :)

And the rolling shutter issue is something many members here and elsewhere complain about religiously. However, the any degree of speed thing isn't exactly true. Mind you I've had this camera since it first hit the market. Never had an issue with the CMOS ever. And I've shot events with the camera that required a whip pan to focus on another group of people (read: at concert events). Never had an issue.

But then you can run across people who can't get a stable image to save their lives. You can get some beautiful images out of that camera. You can also mess it up royally. (No idea how some people do it though).
 
And to add: For the price of the HV20 currently settling around 600 I think? You can't get a better camera in my opinion. I mean, you can buy a little handicam for that price and get a good image. Which is exactly what I did a few years ago to film paintball events. I started as a photog, and then moved to video because there was more money involved there. Great images. I still use that camera as a C-camera sometimes. But it doesn't have external mic inputs. Since audio is 70% of the image...an external mic should be the third thing on your purchase list. !) Camera, 2) Sticks, 3) Mic.

And yes, the HV20 connects via firewire as well as HDMI. :)
 
cool! once again thank you all so much, i think im gonna go for an HV20 now! can anyone recommend a legit place to buy? i know B and H is super reliable and everything, so that is my first choice, but just wondering if there is a another place to buy new that is legit, and maybe cheaper than B&H (their price for a new HV20 is about $800)
 
I've got one that I would be looking to sell here in the next couple weeks along with the xlr adapter, microphone, lenses, filters etc but i still have to film one last thing with it, but the marketplace in general on here usually has an hv20 come up for sale every now and then, if you are looking to buy new however it will be difficult to find many places that still sell the hv20 seeing as how it was replaced with the hv30 late last year I believe.
 
after_effects said:
You mean you want HDV right? I dont think u can afford an HD camera.
Click to expand...
true yah you would be looking at hdv not full hd and technically yes the hv30 is probably a little better, but the price difference between the hv20 and hv30 in my opinion is not worth it since it will give you about the same quality footage.
 
The HV30 is the new model HV20 thats all.....they are just keeping their product line updated although they share almost all of the same features and capabilities
 
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