Video Camera

[GRitchie]

I'm sure this is posted every week, so please redirect me to a thread if there's a recent one already about!

 

I've been set with pricing up and finding a new video camera for the drama department/whole school.

It will be MAINLY used by drama and for recording the school show (so needs to work well with low light/theater lighting).

 

Thoughts? :-)

[dhicks]

Thoughts?

 

Do you have a particular price range in mind? For basic camcorders, we've tended to buy Panasonic devices in the past - decent quality video for a reasonable price (£200-ish). I assume you want something you can plonk on a tripod in front of a show and leave to record for a couple of hours. With that in mind, budget for a basic tripod with bag, a small bag for the camcorder, a couple of the largest SD cards the camcorder will take (maybe up to 128GB) and an external battery power supply so you can have a stand-alone device with no wires trailing around the place. You can probably do that lot for under £500 off Amazon.

 

For a bit more you could upgrade to a 4k camcorder (£800-ish). The advantage of 4k is that you can film on a static wide-angle shot and be left with enough detail to be able to zoom in during the editing process. I've tried with a 4k GoPro but the low-light performance part of things isn't so good, so a 4k camcorder is probably best. You'll then need something capable of editing 4k video, of course - I think Adobe Premier Elements supports 4k now (better check that before you buy anything) and probably has most of the capabilities you'd want for editing a video of a stage production.

 

For the best in video quality, get a (full-frame) DSLR. You'll find that DSLRs are limited to recording half an hour of footage (I think this is an import restriction rather than an actual good reason, so you might be able to buy a DSLR in the US and import it). The solution used by some people is to use an external recorder that can record from the HDMI output of your DSLR. You're best using a DSLR that doesn't compress its HDMI signal. You're probably looking at around £2,000 - £3,000 in total for such a setup.

[K.C.Leblanc]

(so needs to work well with low light/theater lighting).

 

Thoughts? :-)

 

Something that'll let you manually control the exposure, which shouldn't be a problem.

 

.....and someone competent to operate it, good luck with that.

 

 

I would also look for a camera that'll take an external mic. Or if you don't mind a bit more work get an external recorder and a decent mic then mix the results together.

[VeryPC_Anthony_L]

Hi @GRitchie

 

Not sure where you have got with your camera purchase but as mentioned by @dhicks the Panasonics are well worth a look such as the V770. If you want to use an external mic the Panasonic has a connector but no hot shoe to mount a mic. One opetion you could look at is the Canon HF G25, this has a hot shoe and mic input. From memory I believe the GF25 is more or less the same as the XA10.

 

Hope that helps

[dhicks]

If you want to use an external mic the Panasonic has a connector but no hot shoe to mount a mic.

 

If it's anything like our Panasonic camcorders, you need an adaptor that mounts in a slot at the back of the camcorder to mount standard hot / cold shoe equipment. We've tended to buy the second-from-cheapest model of Camcorder from Panasonic's range, figuringyou get a decent device for around £200.

 

I've been quite pleased recently with my Kodak SP360 4k. You can just leave it running in a corner and capture everything going on in front of it - with a 235 degree field of view you don't need to worry about moving the camera around. Footage in equirectangular format is actually suprisingly viewable in a standard video player, too, although a proper 360-degree viewer would be better. The sound is quite acceptable, too - it should be able to pick up most sound from a small stage, for instance.