Newbie Question - About to purchase first camera.

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

now, onto my next question. :)
 
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