Still pretty hard to beat the Sony EX1R or EX3 for the price.

I am going to say something stupid.


I don't really see what you are getting in those big pro level Camcorders. I never have. Maybe it is because I have no clue to anything video but...
I have a prosumer level Sony HDR- CX 12/ Full HD. Has everything. Cost about $900.00. I see the quality of some other things shot on a $3K cam and would prefer the look my cam gives.


Tell me how wrong I am.



ice

Hey CFong,
I have the JVC gy hm700u, You can check out my site by clicking on my name and see what some of the video looks like. They dropped the price by a grand at BH and when I got it it came with a battery and charger and I ordered a tripod too and it was under 8 grand in total. It is a great camera, it records XDCAM EX (no need for the SxS recorder) It ingests video very easily and has great battery life if you get the right batteries(I have DIONIC 90 Anton Bauers) In fact it is being used by a local company right now live streaming on the net as we speak located here (just click on A Sound Celebration HQ) http://ecma.bellaliant.net/ Its the camera front of stage on the tripod. Hope this helps.

BH link
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/606881-REG/JVC_GY_HM700U_GY_HM700U_ProHD_Solid_State_Camcorder.html

Carla, mark me down as another happy JVC user.
The department at the college I work for bought an HM700 just before Christmas and then about two months ago added two HM750s (the 700 is already discontinued).
I was fortunate in that the second 750 got shipped out of Japan the day before the earthquake hit.
I don't know what the status of the JVC plant currently is so check with your vendor for availability.
I've been happily using a pair of JVC DV500s for several years so the switch to HD was great.
32 GB. SD cards (you only need class 6, not class 10) will hold 2 hr. of HD video and the camera has two card slots.
When you're done shooting, load them into a USB card reader, run XDCAM EX ClipBrowser and drop them onto a hard drive in MXF format which Vegas loves (much easier to edit than AVCHD!!!).
The major differences between the two models is that the 750 has an SD record mode (the 700 only went down to 1280 x 720) and the menu has several colour balance presets.
The 700 only had 3200 & 5600K while the 750 has 2800, 3200, 3400, 4200, 4800, 5200, 5600, 6500 and 7500K.
I've shot several hours of material of all kinds with them so far and remain very happy with the decision to go with JVC.
The only complaint is that, due to 1/3" CCDs, noise in low light level situations is not what I call acceptable.
The bulk of my shooting is in well-lit situations though so this isn't an issue for me.
The user group at http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/jvc-gy-hm-series-camera-systems/ is full of knowledgeable folks if you ever have any questions.

Mike

ice,

Many of the latest consumer cameras have amazing picture quality, no doubt. What those big pro level Camcorders offer is a great deal of control over the image and speed in making adjustments. In this business, you might miss the shot you need if you are waiting for the auto focus to adjust properly, or if you can't make the little plastic dial on your camera spin fast enough to pull focus. At the very least, there is the distinct possibility that you will tick off your director or the talent you work with by taking too much time to surf through the endless list of menus that cheap cameras use to replace the easily accessed buttons and switches on pro cameras.

Again, the latest consumer cams are great. I use a Sanyo HD2000 as my personal camcorder and take it just about everywhere. For my side work, I use my Sony FX1. It isn't as sharp as the Sanyo, but it offers a lot more manual control and less motion artifacts. At my job, I use a Sony EX3, with still more manual control and pro audio inputs. If I had my druthers I'd put glass on the front of that camera that costs more than the camera.

Finally, like it or not, big cameras just look more professional. This is changing with the acceptance of DSLR video (I also use a Canon 5DmkII at work), but even those small cameras are usually build out with accessories when used on professional shoots.

That said, sometimes content is king. I've seen some pretty amazing stuff shot with a cell phone. That Australian bully getting his due was riveting.

Corey

Thank you Corug7,

I didn't mean to hijack this post but I had been wondering... Your explaination helps a lot. Probably quite obvious to most but I have never put my hands on a pro camcorder.



Again, great info. thanks.


ice

The more years I spend working in this craft, the more I can appreciate the value of a higher spectre camera. I don't see the value in calling them Pro cameras, they are, after all, grades of specification and specialisms.

You sit in a Rolls Royce it has a certain quality. But you wouldn't used it for all terrain activity. You'd use a 4x4, hopefully! Likewise in town one would use a civic or some such animal.

Cameras should be solely viewed for fit-for-purpose. That can also mean budget too.

Ice if you ain't "driven" or held or demoed one at a trade show, then you really are missing out on what is possible. However, this can lead to unfortunate emotional disturbance - camera envy. Quickly followed by covertness and the inevertable slide into procrastination, lethargy and in the most severe cases, techno-denial. Thankfully, and over a matter of months, I've been recieving therapy when I reached this last, isopatory stage. I'd been seen stalking camera guys who'd be totting large lensful rigs, dripping with filters and pull focus "knobs"'. Sad, real sad.

Well, on a brighter and more hopeful note, I've at last come to terms with my affliction and attend and hold meetings with fellow techno-deniers. We are legion. I can still be seen waggling my Canon SD XM2 3 CCD about the place.

Seriously? My rig has an optical zoom of 20x and has a Canon wide angle
That is just terrific. The colour rendition is great and the audio controls are everywhere on the camera.

As content is king, getting it right with this setup is awfully demanding. Having more control would give me far, FAR greater leeway and, undoubtedly, greater creative options AND
better options in post.

I'm ready to upgrade. But I still can't find the optical equivalent within my price range. And yes, it is frustrating beyond belief.

Cheers

Grazie

"I've been recieving therapy "

Camera Coveters Anonymous?

grazie, i thoughth you'd gone hd?

anyway, grazie's right - exactly WHAT do you need the camera for? event, tvc, doco, corporate, music video, or simply hobby?

if it's anything other than hobby, you really need to think seriously, what sort of zoom / wide angle lens will cover the work you envisage, then the actual work flow, tape, tapeless, not to mention onboard audio; jack, xlr, etc.,

finally, you REALLY need a touchy-feely session to find if the camera feels 'right', that the controls are where you want them, etc.,

and don't forget the rest - lights, mics, legs.....

Yes.

The trouble is, once you've seen, felt, used a higher specced piece of kit there just ain't no going back. The awareness-Geni has now long left that bottle behind.

Grazie

"if it's anything other than hobby, you really need to think seriously, what sort of zoom / wide angle lens will cover the work you envisage"

Even for hobby, such as travel, a big zoom range and wide angle lens are very useful.

Leslie is spot on.

So in the meantime, I've loaded up on lights, matte box + filters, lens adaptors, mics, amps, cabling, PC, legs, more mics, field-monitors, bags etc etc . . .

Doing my biz plan this way means I am getting the best audio and the most appropriate lighting for the job, by squeezing and teasing out the last drops from a 3CCD SD cammie. And THAT means I can take shots I'm proud of. And in turn it its THAT which to date, has got me work.

An upscaled SD DVD on a 40" Bravia is well good! Well, me and my clients like it.

Grazie

grazie is spot on too ;-)

doesn't matter how good a camera you get if you audio is crap, images dark from lack of lighting, and every pan / tilt wobbles because of cheap legs.

it's also very important to keep in mind your audience and their needs. if your end product is going to be dvd, or web, then (imho) well shot sd looks infinitely better than badly shot hd - and it's very, very easy to shoot bad hd - all i have to do is look around stuff my clients have (had) shot, youtube and vimeo ;-(

as he also points out, it all boils down to business - as long as it's earning why upgrade. my entry to hd was predicated by my 170 not shooting true 16:9 (as demanded by a number of my clients) and since the v1p was an affordable option, i took it.

OK, from reading the responses I think I should 'flesh out' my situation a bit to better describe my camcorder needs.

I'm getting back in the business after years of relative inactivity, upgrading from old NTSC (Sony DXC-3000 & M3A's) to something current and HD. We'll be keeping the studio (NTSC) running and add a couple of computers and video ADC's to use in place of the tape machines - just for the nostalgia value.

We've got all the peripheral bases (lights, microphones, sticks, etc). pretty well covered. I am accustomed to the position of the controls, etc. on the Sony (from shooting with the DXC-3000's more hours than I'd care to count) but changing user interfaces isn't really that big a deal to me. I can learn.

I need at least a 10:1 zoom range, more is better as long as the falloff isn't too bad and the aperture is big enough to make pictures in dimmish light. As an aside, these modern cameras seem to be able to make pictures in what used to be considered 'total darkness' so I'll have to re-learn lighting at about -6dB :)

Auto focus and auto aperture would be cool, as long as they're easily disabled for complete creative control. I want variable frame rate, multiple native output formats and long battery life with cheap yet reliable solid-state media.

Once again, thanks for the pointers and I'm still asking for help in selecting the 'best bang for my buck'

Carla

Carla, the JVC 750 has auto iris but, like most pro cameras, no auto focus.
The stock Canon lens is a 14:1 model.
I'm getting almost 4 hr. continuous running on a 90 W. Anton-Bauer battery.
You get multiple frame rates as well as over and undercranking capability.
Output is either MOV (meant for FCP users) or MP4 (meant for PC users).
Class 6 SDHC cards are very affordable.
Go to http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL102066 for more information on this camera.

Mike

Sony NX5.

From your specs the Sony EX1r ticks all the boxes. I've had mine in record for around 9 hours, most of it in full sun, camera stood upto it better than I did. Never had to change batteries, I use a quite cheap 95WH 3rd party battery that also runs my on camera light.

Seeing as how you're also looking at using the camera in a studio mode you might do better with the EX3. Exact same camera in a different box. You have a small selection of lenses available but you also get genlock and a connector for remote CCU. There's a 3rd party making a unit for the EX3 that'll give you the full studio cam experience with comms, painbox (CCU) control etc over a standard cable.

With any of the XDCAM EX cameras you can choose to buy the rather expensive SxS cards or use the way cheaper 3rd party SxS adaptors with SDHC cards in them. From my experience in the field the SxS sized cards are physically as small as I'd like to go.

Bob.

I've been following a lot of the XDCam EX units on e-bay and noticing how many seem to be listed with very low hours...can the in-camera clocks be hacked to get lower hours, or are there known issues with either the EX1 or EX3 that have folks dumping them so early?

I've been following a lot of the XDCam EX units on e-bay and noticing how many seem to be listed with very low hours...can the in-camera clocks be hacked to get lower hours, or are there known issues with either the EX1 or EX3 that have folks dumping them so early?

I think people may be dumping their EX1s and EX3s and getting Canon DSLRs for even shallower depth of field. Hmm, makes me think that maybe it's time to start looking for a good used EX1.