Which camera to buy for documentary ($5000 budget)

The Sony is fine but be careful with hard disc recorders because they can have noisey cooling fans.

Take a look at the Canon XH-A1 also.

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Well if you are on a budget get the best camera for you buck I am a big HVX 200 fan, but the A1 would suit you fine because with that you can get a few other items that will prove useful for your documentary.

I am actually starting one Next month.

As far as what I would recommend:

XH A1 -
EW100's wireless lav -
 
I have had great experience using the XH-A1 and it shoots straight to the DV tape so that if you are out in the field for a while it is still affordable to shoot as much as needed especially if you don't need to re use tapes.
 
No, the camera doesn't have to be new....

I looked into the XH A1, but didn't want any loss in quality by going to a tape rather than straight to hard drive..... is there any quality loss going to a tape?
 
Loss? From what I remember, you can have a very minor edge in quality if you stream out from the camera's component outs. It's probably not very noticeable though.

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For that price I prefer the A1 to the Sony.

For a documentary, I really don't think the A1's straight to tape image quality will be insufficient for you. You'll run into limitations in sound or lighting way before you start saying to yourself "damn, the A1's version of HD is just not sharp enough."

Just my thoughts. Good luck with the purchase.
 
mikewest13 said:
No, the camera doesn't have to be new....

I looked into the XH A1, but didn't want any loss in quality by going to a tape rather than straight to hard drive..... is there any quality loss going to a tape?
Click to expand...

There would be loss in that you are limited to a 4:2:0 chroma subsampling and the 25Mbps compression required by the HDV codec. However, until the RED Scarlet comes out Spring '09, you won't really find a camera that can do 4:2:2 or 4:4:4 chroma ss and get you a much higher compression scheme and stay under your $5k mark. You might be able to do it with the JVC HD100U but you'll still have the 4:2:0 and 25Mbps unless you shell out the money for the hard drive recorder and get 4:2:2 with the ProHD codec. Those both together will run you awfully close to $5k. And yes, sound is an important thing, so make sure you save some money out for a good wireless lav and a shotgun with boom. I just got an XHA1 myself along with a Sennheiser K6/ME66 shotgun and a Sennheiser EW100ENG wireless lav system. All those together will run you about $4500 leaving you a little extra money for cables, a good set of headphones, and maybe a UV filter for your camera. Also, if you're doing like an indie documentary, save yourself money by building your own boompole and steadicam (just built both for myself for a combined price of under $50 and I'm getting great results). One other thing you'll need is a good tripod--don't skimp on that because a bad tripod will result in bad picture. I've read good things about the Libec LS-38. I'm personally using a Bogen 501 head on a cheap set of Bogen sticks and I'm not real happy with it (but since I didn't pay for it, I can't complain too much).
 
I definitely don't want/don't plan to neglect the sound.....

Going further with the XH A1 route, it may get more expensive than the HVR V1U with the cost of the tapes being roughly $30 a pop. granted that is 40 tapes and 40 hours of footage which I doubt I could actually use.....

Got the tripod covered....

Would you guys buy a camera like this off of ebay? I always see great deals listed that include a ton of extras usually at less than the cost of the whole camera at a local retail outlet.
 
I would pretty strongly recommend against using standard MiniDV tapes. They'll work, but they're more prone to drop outs and problems with HDV. The favorite tape among the XH-A1 users that I know is the Panasonic AY-DVM63AMQ (at $6.50/each) or the Panasonic AY-DVM63SQ (at around $3.75 each). That other forum has a lot more XH-A1 users on it (dvxusers is more devoted to Panasonic's cameras) and they all recommend either of those two tapes.
 
Yeah, I'm actually kinda confused on that myself--You'd think the "SQ" would stand for "Standard Quality" the same way that "AMQ" stands for "Advanced Master Quality," "PQ" stands for "Professional Quality" and "MQ" stood for "Master Quality." But according to my panasonic tape rep, the "SQ" tapes are the panasonic replacement for the discontinued and very popular "MQ" tapes. If they're the replacement, that would make them master quality tapes, and, according to my panny rep, they are designed with HDV in mind.

Also, the other forum users highly recommend both the AMQ tapes and the MQ tapes (now SQ) and the few that have used SQ since it came out say its a good tape for the camera. There have been some problems with the PQ tapes, though.

It seems that the vast majority of A1 users, at least on the other forum use one of those two panny tapes in preference over the sony and canon HDV masters. (They're also a LOT cheaper.)
 
Well, $6 bucks sounds a lot better to me than $30, lol

What type of stores do you find these tapes in? Regular camera stores?

I think I've finally decided that the XH A1 camera is the right choice for my documentary with the budget I have. For the balance, what type of audio equipment should I get?

Boom with mic
Shotgun
Lavs
 
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