Mike Warren
Well-known member
I'm probably in a different position to most people here. I used to shoot professionally about 30 years ago using U-matic/3 tube cameras and 16mm, but have worked in the electronics industry for many years. I did shoot events in the late 80s and early 90s on a part time basis, but have been away from video for some time. I missed the whole DV period.
My interest has been sparked again in the last few years and I'm looking for a reasonable camcorder. This will be purely for hobby use, although I won't object to doing some paid work to help justify the cost of the camera and accessories. I like to shoot wildlife (and shoot stills now with a dSLR and video with a consumer camcorder) and would also like to get into some music videos.
These three new Panasonics are the first to really interest me, because of the combination of the lens and the price, but I'm not keen on P2. It seems to me that using dual recording with quality SD cards on a 160 will not carry any greater risk of lost data than using a single P2 card, so the only real benefit to me of P2 is not significant. So, the 160 should be the camera for me, but I'm concerned about AVCCAM when it comes to green screen work. There is also the very small possibility that I might actually produce a wildlife program interesting enough for TV, although I'm not under any illusion that it's a real possibility.
If the 250 was just a 160 with improvements then I could overcome my reluctance of P2 and the extra cost. But it's not. The 250 has to drop back to 720p in order to get overcrank functions and overcrank is an important function for me. This may not be as much of an issue as I'm expecting if the lens is not sharp enough to resolve the full 1080p image, but the way people are talking, I think it probably is.
I will be using Adobe Production Suite on Win7 for editing. Getting the files from SD cards is easy. I already have card readers and they are cheap and readily available anyway.
What will I need to get the files from the P2 cards onto the computer? I assume a USB cable from the camera is one option, but is it a practical one considering the file sizes of AVCIntra100. I'm not sure what P2 readers are available, but I'm guessing these will be expensive.
The 1/3" chips bother me as it is, mostly because the range of usable apertures is seriously restricted. I'm not used to needing to worry so much about diffraction because the old cameras were 3/4 inch and the resolution of the format wasn't as unforgiving as HD.
One thing that really bothers me about modern consumer camcorders it the highlight handling. As I understand it , the 250 handles highlights better than the 160. There is also flash band compensation only in the 250. I expect that to be a slight benefit in shooting live music. Can this be done as well in post? It seems like all the camera is doing is duplicating frames.
Sorry for the long rambling post. I want to get a detailed understanding of what I will need to do to work with P2, and I also would like to get other people's opinion of which way they would go in my situation.
My interest has been sparked again in the last few years and I'm looking for a reasonable camcorder. This will be purely for hobby use, although I won't object to doing some paid work to help justify the cost of the camera and accessories. I like to shoot wildlife (and shoot stills now with a dSLR and video with a consumer camcorder) and would also like to get into some music videos.
These three new Panasonics are the first to really interest me, because of the combination of the lens and the price, but I'm not keen on P2. It seems to me that using dual recording with quality SD cards on a 160 will not carry any greater risk of lost data than using a single P2 card, so the only real benefit to me of P2 is not significant. So, the 160 should be the camera for me, but I'm concerned about AVCCAM when it comes to green screen work. There is also the very small possibility that I might actually produce a wildlife program interesting enough for TV, although I'm not under any illusion that it's a real possibility.
If the 250 was just a 160 with improvements then I could overcome my reluctance of P2 and the extra cost. But it's not. The 250 has to drop back to 720p in order to get overcrank functions and overcrank is an important function for me. This may not be as much of an issue as I'm expecting if the lens is not sharp enough to resolve the full 1080p image, but the way people are talking, I think it probably is.
I will be using Adobe Production Suite on Win7 for editing. Getting the files from SD cards is easy. I already have card readers and they are cheap and readily available anyway.
What will I need to get the files from the P2 cards onto the computer? I assume a USB cable from the camera is one option, but is it a practical one considering the file sizes of AVCIntra100. I'm not sure what P2 readers are available, but I'm guessing these will be expensive.
The 1/3" chips bother me as it is, mostly because the range of usable apertures is seriously restricted. I'm not used to needing to worry so much about diffraction because the old cameras were 3/4 inch and the resolution of the format wasn't as unforgiving as HD.
One thing that really bothers me about modern consumer camcorders it the highlight handling. As I understand it , the 250 handles highlights better than the 160. There is also flash band compensation only in the 250. I expect that to be a slight benefit in shooting live music. Can this be done as well in post? It seems like all the camera is doing is duplicating frames.
Sorry for the long rambling post. I want to get a detailed understanding of what I will need to do to work with P2, and I also would like to get other people's opinion of which way they would go in my situation.
