Remembering our favorite SD cameras

Mike Krumlauf

Mike Krumlauf

Award Winning Filmmaker
For those of you who, like me, began the journey with cameras in the SD world of the mid 90s/early 00s, what would you say was "the" camera that changed everything for you and the one that started it all.. or maybe they are the same for you? For me, my first ever camera was in 1999, a JVC GR-DVM90U Mini DV Camera. I still have it and it still works good as new. The camera that made me serious about cameras was the Sony DSR-PD150 I got in 2003. That sony was a tank.. i owe a lot to that one. I think it's great sometimes to look back on where you started and see how far you have come in terms of talent but also education with the equipment we use. It's crazy to think that i've almost been behind the camera in someway for close to 20 years. time flies when you are having fun :)
 
Haha, one that changed it all for me was the Sony TRV950, loved that camera, the colours you got coming from a single chip cam were amazing
I thought it was the dog's boll**ks having a 3 CCD camera!
that plus an Amphibico underwater housing set me up job wise for a good few years as a dive resort videographer :)
 
I think one of the best SD cameras I used at the time was the Panasonic SDX900

My first Mini-DV camera back in 1996 was a Panasonic AG-EZ1, which has now replaced my old Bolex as my old sitting on the desk camera.

Finely sold the Bolex on eBay a couple of years back.
 
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I started with Sony Hi8 then got a Sony VX-1000 miniDV camera which was a real step up, but the low light wasn't there yet (I did a lot of weddings and events at the time). The replacement Sony VX-2000 was really AMAZING and I had 3 of them, just always made great images in any light and had all the desired manual controls and nice form factor!! Went from there to Sony HDV and lost my low light again, and HD camcorder low light has never come back to the degree the VX-2000 provided (short of going to DSLR), so to me the VX-2000 was really the pinnacle of cameras during my career. Mostly retired from video now.

Thanks

Jeff
 
I never had one. I never found NTSC video an acceptable format. I didn’t get interested in video cameras until HDV came along.
 
621723090665635.jpg

JVC GR-S707

- 1990
- S-VHS-C, 400 lines of resolution, 30 minutes per tape
- Hi-Fi + Mono, so that I could dub in music while keeping the dialog!
- $995

If you haven't edited tape to tape, you won't fully appreciate today's computer editors. First you put your record deck into record-pause mode. On your playback deck, you fast-forward to a little bit before your first shot, press play, and unpause the record deck. At the end of the shot, you pause the record deck again. Then on the playback deck you rewind or fast-forward to the next shot.

Of course, videotape took a few seconds to get up to speed. So you had to press play several seconds before the beginning of your shot. Professional decks let you mark in and out points with buttons, while you were playing. Then it would robotically do the edit for you.

I couldn't afford pro gear, only prosumer. In fact I had to use my camcorder as the playback deck. But the nice thing about this camcorder was that it actually had the mark feature and would automatically rewind, including a few seconds of pre-roll, and unpause the record deck (a prosumer JVC S-VHS VCR) through a LANC cable.
 
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Mike Krumlauf said:
For those of you who, like me, began the journey with cameras in the SD world of the mid 90s/early 00s, what would you say was "the" camera that changed everything for you and the one that started it all.. or maybe they are the same for you? For me, my first ever camera was in 1999, a JVC GR-DVM90U Mini DV Camera. I still have it and it still works good as new. The camera that made me serious about cameras was the Sony DSR-PD150 I got in 2003. That sony was a tank.. i owe a lot to that one. I think it's great sometimes to look back on where you started and see how far you have come in terms of talent but also education with the equipment we use. It's crazy to think that i've almost been behind the camera in someway for close to 20 years. time flies when you are having fun :)
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I was shooting weddings as a still photographer until I bought a Sony PD150 in 2002. As mentioned the PD150 was built like a tank and recorded to mini dv tapes in the DVCAM codec. I have a JVC BR-HD50 tape deck and I am in the process of archiving 150 hours of DVCAM footage using the FCPX archive function. I'm surprised how well the PD150 image quality has held up after 15 years.
 
OK this is easy. It was an Ikegami 79E from the 1980's. No chips but three Plumbicon tubes. Also had no built in recorder but one needed to wire it into a separate deck. It was the mainstay of the ENG industry for many years and was just a beautiful thing to behold. I have not-so-fond memories of lugging the camera and 1 inch reel to reel deck around the streets of NYC on many occasions. Don't miss it all all though.

http://www.golden-agetv.co.uk/img/equipment/56b.JPG
 
Had a CCD Panasonic in 1990 with flying erase head and full manual controls, and later a Sony Hi-8 (before they spread to consumber mass market.)
But the 1st camera that I think had good looking footage was the D-8 Sony DCR-TRV 730 (oddly cost less than the previous two). I thought that looked as good as my friend's Canon XL1.

Several more cams after that but I never really liked Mini-DV. I liked my AG DVC60s more than my DVX100B. However, the Panasonic AG-HMC150 was the 1st camera I really really liked.

ditto the earlier remark about linear video editing vs non-linear. I do NOT miss the days of tape at all, and especially not analog deck to deck editing! Same with interlaced footage. Never again! :)
 
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The first camera I owned was a Sony UVW-100B Betacam. I cut my teeth on that camera. God only knows how many basketball and football games I shot with it plus all of the news. That camera saw a lot in the ~six years I used it. The D600 was the "stud" camera in the late 90's and early 00's. Even though I never owned a 600, I shot a ton with it. My second Betacam was a Sony D-50WS. D600 performance for literally half the price. I still shot on the 50 a lot, even after I had bought my first VariCam.

I still have that first Betacam that I bought 20 years ago. I actually still have every camera that I've owned...
 
The first video camera I owned was a Sony DXC-1800, purchased early in 1981, along with a VO-4800 3/4" recorder. This had a 1" single Saticon tube which offered tremendous bang for the buck at the time. The raw image quality of the work I did back then no longer looks especially good, but owning and caring for my very own camera, and feeling free to carry it with me everywhere and experiment spontaneously, was a revelation for me. I went everywhere and did everything I could with that camera. Really got good at shoulder-mount shooting and seeking out interesting shots and angles. We had many good times together for a little over a year until I got the bug for a "better" camera and bought a three-Saticon Ikegami ITC-350. The pictures were sharper and the color was better, but the Ike was a much larger, heavier and more complex beast, and I never quite had the same feeling of being one with the tool as I had with the Sony. It also took a lot more day to day maintenance to keep it in top shape. There sure are a lot of things you can mis-adjust inside a 3-tube camera.

- Greg
 
I had a lot of video cameras before it, some that cost close to $100k, but the Panasonic DVX-100A was the first video camera that I really fell in love with. Even my Betacams, back in the day were too expensive, big, heavy, and just a PITA to carry around all day. The Sony DSR-500A was a big improvement, DVCAM in a mini Betacam one piece package but the images were still interlaced. With the DVX-100, I loved the images, the 24p, the size, weight, everything about it. I think I bought mine for about $5k when they camera out and I calculated a few years later that I had billed out about $28k in camera charges for it. Super reliable, great images (for SD), small, light, a pleasure to use. I miss it but it eventually did break down during the HD era and I couldn't justify the money to repair it.
 
I started on VHS, but my first digital camera was the JVC GR-DVL120U back in 2002. I was 17 years old and worked as a martial arts instructor. I saved for months and went to Best Buy and bought this camera and a desktop for editing (Intel Celeron, 512 MB RAM). This setup allowed me to experiment and play and start finding my voice as a filmmaker. I did 40 short films and shot part of my first feature with it, eventually wearing out the heads in the five years I used it. I still have it sitting up on my edit suite. I had a Canon ZR800 after that for a little bit, but the next game changer for me was my entrance to HD with the Canon T2i in 2010. That camera really changed everything for me, but since this is about SD, I'll end it here.

Jump to 4:35 to see the JVC

 
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El Director - Love it dude. :) I was thinking of doing a video to show off some of the cameras that got me where I am today but i'd have to buy most of them again, which im trying to save up for. Besides my JVC which i got in 99, i'd need to re buy a PD150, DVX100A, XL2 and HVX200, those were the monumental cams during my self teachings as a teenager and i'm not exactly made of $$$ so it will take some time.. but its pretty nuts how the DVX100A i paid $3500 for my freshman year is now $250.. and the HVX200 I paid $6500 for in 2007 is like $500 bucks... crazy how HDSLRs left some of these amazing tools in the dust. Which is crazy because I QC a bunch of HVX200s and Sony EX1s coming from jobs at my work @ VER Camera here in Chicago.
 
Mike Krumlauf said:
El Director - Love it dude. :) I was thinking of doing a video to show off some of the cameras that got me where I am today but i'd have to buy most of them again, which im trying to save up for. Besides my JVC which i got in 99, i'd need to re buy a PD150, DVX100A, XL2 and HVX200, those were the monumental cams during my self teachings as a teenager and i'm not exactly made of $$$ so it will take some time.. but its pretty nuts how the DVX100A i paid $3500 for my freshman year is now $250.. and the HVX200 I paid $6500 for in 2007 is like $500 bucks... crazy how HDSLRs left some of these amazing tools in the dust. Which is crazy because I QC a bunch of HVX200s and Sony EX1s coming from jobs at my work @ VER Camera here in Chicago.
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You definetly have some nicer cameras to repurchase than I did, but I can say that while it's somewhat expensive, it's worth it to be able to pick up the same model you used years ago and reflect back on it. Or maybe I'm just too nostalgic ;) I was actually thinking of buying an XL2 for my collection simply because it was my DREAM camera in it's heyday and at the price it goes for now, could be worth it :) If you get them and make a vid, send it my way, I'd love to see!
 
SD was gross. I could never bring myself to shoot with digital at all until we had HD and 35mm adapters (and with that some slight chance of an appealing image).
 
35mm adapters had to be the biggest PITA ever...I always regretted buying one with my hard-earned money at the time.

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The T2i was a favorite of mine as well...but eventually the 5D Mark II was irresistible.

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(My first camera coming soon...taking a photo of it tomorrow.)
 
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