Advice on buying a camera

[Rhona]

Hoping to invest in a camera in the new year, trying to figure out where to start looking. I’d like to be able to shoot shorts, music videos, record gigs. Nothing too complicated or expensive, and something I can clumsily edit myself in iMovie. Budget-wise, I’m hoping I can get away with a regular home-movie style digital cam, without going into professional film making equipment. Is this possible? Would I be better off getting a cheap camera and better editing software, or vice versa?

Ok nerds, lets have ye…

[Dan]

What is your budget?

My advice is to stay away from a pure consumer camera as you will very quickly realise you spend the best part of 6-800 euro on a piece of crap that you could have saved and waited to put on a slightly better camera. I would stick with iMovie for the tiime being as its a great way to learn basic editing and latter down the road you could always upgrade to final cut when you feel a bit more confident or restricted in iMovie, but if you buy a cheap camera you are pretty much stuck with it.

Also If your gonna be shooting a lot of concerts and stuff indoors those consumer camera are really really bad in low light, your gonna want something that will hold up under those low light situatiions.

Canon ESO 7d (€2,000):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cFS83r3c3U
I could recommend a DSLR, you can get a really nice Digital SLR camera for about 2k that will shoot full progressive HD and they are extremely good in low light, but there are a lot of technical requirements in understanding how they work in post, ie. converting codecs, recording your sound seperately and syncing it up, and a good knowledge of aperture and shutter speed, lenses etc… If you are already into photography then you may be able to figure it out quite easily but i think the post, technical, may still be a bit of a struggle for anyone starting out, especially seeing as your only using imovie to edit. (ie the footage you get from the camera cannot be edited until you convertit to a different video format…)

SONY HVR-HD1000E (€1,500)
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/822889/art … igh-d.html
Cheapest prosumer camera, limited in low light, not a lot of controls, basic sound in jack, but a good starting point, its designed to look like a pro camera, so you won’t look like an amateur when you ask for an interview or if shooting say a wedding people will feel they are dealling with a pro.

It looks heavy but it basically full of air, very light. Good Hd image but again low light does look a bit grainy, basically down to the small sensor size of the camera.

PANASONIC AG-HMC41EU (€2,500):
http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/3989256/ar … nitio.html
Great all round camera, tapeless, uses memory cards, sound in, sound out, HD, looks great, good in low light, and very reasonably priced.

Anything above this price range won’t see you wrong, but do be aware of the Sony Fx7 as it has no input for an external mic of any kind, so your stuck with the onboard sound.

Hope this helps?

Dan

[jameila]

Are you looking to buy a new camera? Which type of camera you need depends on the type of photography and where it is used. There are so many digital cameras are available in market. choose the one most suitable to your requirements and budget.

These cameras are available in different resolution in different megapixels.

Thanks.

[Author]

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