Camcorder For High School Project

Erik Naso

Erik Naso

Veteran
My son is shooting a trailer for a high school project. He wants to get into the film biz. God help him! Ha! I have a C100 and GH4 but I think they are to complicated to use and focus can be an issue if you don't know these cameras very well. Also trying to keep the camera setup simple. No external recorders or monitors.

I think he should use a camcorder. I have some P2 cards available if it's a Panasonic HVX camera. I'm want to buy a used one so he can have it and use it in the future for other stuff too. He is a HS senior going to collage next year. I dont know the camcorder market at all since I use large sensor cameras. Whats a good camcorder for film look at a decent price these days?

Thanks
Erik
 
For someone looking to learn film it seems to me a large sensor camera is best so they can learn about depth of field, different lenses and focal lengths, manually setting white balance, aperture, etc. if the goal is just to get usable footage for one shoot where image quality is not important (such as a low profile event) then perhaps a camcorder would be better but if the goal is to have a camera to learn on and make films I with would think a larger sensor would be best.

I think a GH2 is a good cheap starter camera.
 
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Eric Coughlin said:
For someone looking to learn film it seems to me a large sensor camera is best so they can learn about depth of field, different lenses and focal lengths, manually setting white balance, aperture, etc. if the goal is just to get usable footage for one shoot where image quality is not important (such as a low profile event) then perhaps a camcorder would be better but if the goal is to have a camera to learn on and make films I with would think a larger sensor would be best.

i think a GH2 is a good cheap starter camera.
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I totally agree. I have a C100 and GH4 but worry that he wont have the experiance with them. He's getting graded on the project. I don't want audio issues and out of focus shots that will effect overall success. He used my C100 with the 24-105 and had focus issues on a documentary project last year. I'm trying to avoid this if I can.
 
I'd actually side with the GH4 you already have (or alternately GH3/2/AF100)... the 4K crop makes focus a little easier, the monitor and EVF are useable, peaking works, audio is definitely OK for student-level production, and if he'd rather not deal with that, then use a 12-35 or 35-100 and flip it into auto... IMO it's more competent in auto mode than my HVX or HMC ever were. C100 could likely work as well if you have the DP-AF upgrade as a fall-back. Don't forget he's also got a damned good in-house mentor available to help him learn those cams... no better time for him to learn the basics properly from a man who uses that gear every single day, vs. picking up a bunch of bad habits in college.

Side vote for the BMPCC's S16 crop, though needs more manual fiddling. A friend teaches media/film at a local high school and they got ~5 of these and a truckload of batteries, and the kids have been using them successfully.

If sticking with the camcorder idea, I'd vote for a 2nd hand HMC150 or Canon XF100-ish camera. HVX's are dirt cheap these days, but IMO the P2 workflow isn't great for beginners.

I'm with Eric on this... it will greatly help him to learn as much now about basic camera operation as you can teach him... I was frankly flabbergasted recently seeing the level of work that was expected in a portfolio to even enter a number of college film programs. Yes, he's getting graded on this one project right now, but if the long-term goal is truly understanding cameras, a small-sensor will frankly slow his learning.

and last note... make sure he at least minors in something, anything relatively unrelated to film in college.

edit: I was just thinking back to the photography unit in my high school art class, way back in the early 90's. We were using (at the time) 30-year-old full manual Nikon F's and loading our own film canisters in dark rooms, making pinhole box cameras, developing and enlarging... IMO that class gave me a heck of a lot more grounding for this profession than the 'advanced communications' elective where they regularly sent us out to shoot teenage idiocy with a POS infinite-focusing VHS camcorder.
 
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Erik Naso said:
I totally agree. I have a C100 and GH4 but worry that he wont have the experiance with them. He's getting graded on the project. I don't want audio issues and out of focus shots that will effect overall success. He used my C100 with the 24-105 and had focus issues on a documentary project last year. I'm trying to avoid this if I can.
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My mother bought me a 35mm camera when I expressed an interest in photography... it was really cheap... and broke almost immediately. I bought a Minolta for the second camera, and while it had more 'complicated' controls... lasted me a year or so, until I moved in to medium format.

Camcorders of course have the benefit of 'everything there', which I some times would like rather than dual sound, etc... but if you do get a camcorder, get one that has most of the controls that one would expect to have... iris control, manual focus, gain control, shooting frame rate control for the usual suspects, etc. with a reasonable zoom lens.

I resumed my interest in 'moving pictures' when the DVX100 came out, and I would hope there is a similar modern camcorder on that order still available... at much reduced from the $4K that I paid for the DVX100...
(I when I was young 16mm 'watchworks' Bolexes were going for about $300 which was out of my 'price range', then in addition there was the expense of film in reasonable lengths and attendant processing... last but not least... how to project it... to even see the damn thing... so I went the 'still photography' route.)

I think you should buy for future capability, perhaps more awkward use use 'right now', but has growth potential, than something that is 'easy' now, and has to be replaced in a short time as he develops...

The other alternative is, which is what we do with the Daughter, is she gets the 'handmedown' cameras that we've moved on from... which is one reason why we never sell cameras and lenses...
 
Why not an AC-90a? It can be had for less than 1500 on ebay if you look. I completely disagree with everyone here. I think the opposite, and more like the OP - this is not the time to buy a cam that will have all the technical doodahs of which there are a million "so he can learn". That's BS. Learning will come later, and with other gear, including as Erik himself said, the more complicated DSLRs. That's not the focus right now. Right now, the focus is his creative side. He needs something that will allow him to concentrate on the artistic side without getting distracted by wrangling the technical stuff just so he can wrench a semi-passable image out of the darn thing. There will be pleeeeenty of time to learn the technical stuff. Right now, he needs to concentrate on what's in front of the camera, not on the camera itself... you know, how the dog sometimes looks at your finger, instead of looking at what you are pointing to? It's the same thing - peering at the camera instead of looking at where the camera is pointing.

So, ignore the voices to the contrary. Grab the AC-90, it's got the lens already, it's stabilized up the wazoo, it gets a fantastic image and it's as effortless as you can get, so it allows him to concentrate on what's important.
 
OldCorpse said:
Why not an AC-90a?
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I was just about to post this.

Compact form, all-inclusive, accessible media (SD cards), fully auto or fully manual or anything in between to grow with learning. Plus, it's within economical reach.

Grabbing a DSLR, new or used, still requires glass, second-system sound, and a few other bells and whistles that all add up to more than the investment of the AC-90a.
 
Great comments from all. Thanks!

I'm still thinking the camcorder is best. He is writing, directing and probably going to act in this project too, so yeah I don't want the camera to be an issue. It's about the story he is telling not fussing over the camera and audio. He understands depth of field and that's pretty much the only trade off I can think of and no way he is going to do seperate audio. Now if I get a AC-90a which looks pretty goos I can always use it for BTS stuff later anways. If he decides to to be a filmmaker then of course dad will have what he needs. :-D
 
My first camera was a Quaker Oatmeal box pinhole camera, which had very easy controls. I wonder if they make a digital version now? :engel017:
 
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I would take a look at the Sony CX900 or X70 depending on your budget. The X70 has XLRs and will have a 4K upgrade path in the new year.

My main concern with the AC-90a is low-light. ( the image seems to soften up quite a bit once you add a lot of gain )
 
Erik Naso said:
Great comments from all. Thanks!

I'm still thinking the camcorder is best. He is writing, directing and probably going to act in this project too, so yeah I don't want the camera to be an issue. It's about the story he is telling not fussing over the camera and audio. He understands depth of field and that's pretty much the only trade off I can think of and no way he is going to do seperate audio. Now if I get a AC-90a which looks pretty goos I can always use it for BTS stuff later anways. If he decides to to be a filmmaker then of course dad will have what he needs. :-D
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You are correct. A camcorder is best. Let him focus on being a director, not a camera operator. Depth of field isn't important unless you want to be a camera operator, or you can afford to hire one.
 
How about a good ol' Panny DVX100B?

Okay, I know -- "It's not HD!!!!" Who cares? It shoots 16:9, and with the 3-CCD system and proper lighting, its footage rivals low end HD cameras. And it's MUCH better in low light. He can run fully auto -- focusing and exposure -- to make it simple. The built-in mics are adequate for a great many things. Plus he can learn on it over time, using manual settings and changing scene files.

Okay, capturing from tape to PC take a little bit of time, but not all that much. And editing can be handled without the need for a high-powered computer.

A kid could learn a lot using a DVX100B. And for under $500 (used), it's a bargain!

http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-AG-...e=UTF8&qid=1414543342&sr=8-1&keywords=dvx100a
 
You know....capturing from tape to PC is almost sort of one thing I miss, but only for 2 reasons:

1. I liked capturing only the clips I would need and giving them appropriate names. File based transfer from cards (at least avchd) ends up with all the extra footage not wanted and also with nonsensical names 0100.mts, 0101.mts vs burnout.avi

2. Tape archive backup

But other than that I don't miss it at all :)

Good suggestion with the dvx100b. It operates like a real camera. I was going to suggest hmc 150 before I changed my mind and went with ac90a. Never even thought to mention the good old dvx.
 
firehawk said:
You know....capturing from tape to PC is almost sort of one thing I miss, but only for 2 reasons:

1. I liked capturing only the clips I would need and giving them appropriate names. File based transfer from cards (at least avchd) ends up with all the extra footage not wanted and also with nonsensical names 0100.mts, 0101.mts vs burnout.avi

2. Tape archive backup

But other than that I don't miss it at all :)

Good suggestion with the dvx100b. It operates like a real camera. I was going to suggest hmc 150 before I changed my mind and went with ac90a. Never even thought to mention the good old dvx.
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Good points!

With HD, especially AVCHD, there's also the issue of having to render out intermediate files for editing. That takes a LOT of time. Of course, if your editing PC is powerful enough, that rendering is unnecessary. But the beauty of SD from the DVX is that it can be edited on as lowly a beast as a dual-core processor. I used to edit DVX footage on a slow dual-core with only 2 GB of RAM using Adobe Premiere 6.0 (not Pro). Slow, but it worked. Even laptops work well for DVX footage. However, few laptops have firewire ports, so the footage would probably need to be captured to a USB drive using a desktop PC. But then editing could be done on a laptop.

BTW, I've got 2 DVX100a's and I love 'em!
 
David W. Richardson said:
Re: Tape... Good points!
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Ugh... I hate tape... ok the only tape that I found to be reliable was 1/2 inch 9 track mag tape... once 8mm and 4mm tape became popular, things went down hill... especially as storage capacity increased. This of course is based on general 'compute' use of tape, and reliably reading data off the things. I considered them to be 'write once, read once, and hope for the best'...

For my own DVX100B, I found most tapes exhibited some form of dropout at some point, even when the camera had just come back from a 'tuneup' at the shop (a local well respected service shop...).

I will agree that the DVX100 SD would be 'good' for low end (by current standards...) computer editing. (However, I hated the non-square pixel business when displaying on a square pixel device...)

At this point I would think that the HMC150 would be 'cheap'. But does have the AVCHD 'problem' of requiring a higher performance editing setup.

I was thinking about this one for my upgrade back when, but the GH-1 came out and I grabbed that... now I've got the Blackmagic Pocket camera. Does require dual sound... is more complex... but definitely in the 'cheap' zone... especially with a non-fancy Nikon or EF adapter, for manual lenses...

But that may be more complex than one would want for a young person 'just starting out'.
 
That's interesting. Over the years I've used TONS of tape -- MiniDV, in the Panny DVX100a, DVX100b, and Canon HV30. I've shot a feature film, a couple of shorts, music video, training video, stock footage, weddings -- never had a single problem with any of the tapes.

It's interesting how vastly different our experiences were.
 
Using a tape camera first would also help a young user appreciate file based cameras later.
Yeah, a DVX100 would be a cheap camera and allow a cheap NLE. You could even edit it with Adobe Creative Suite Production Premium (Premiere Pro 2.0) /CS2 which is free now.

It's funny I had little more than a rare hiccup with my digital tape cameras: 2X AG DVC60, AG DVC7 and Sony 730 Digital-8 .....EXCEPT with my DVX100B and it was the one that had some write problems. And then there was always that little fear that it would have a problem, though it overall served me well. I followed the record once, use only one brand tape method since new, using a deck to ingest footage. :)
 
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