This is my first time posting anything on this website and I am so glad to have found it, I love this place!!! Well I am going to get a video camera for Christmas and want to make independent films. The problem is I only have about $800 to spend on one. I am looking for something that will give me a professional look because I plan to enter film fesitivals using the camera. I also would like a camera with audio jacks that would enable me to hook up a boom mike to the camera. Any suggestions...
Need advice on getting a camera...
- Thread starter Kyle
- Start date
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superfly
Guest
Hi Kyle,
I'm also very new and looking for a camera, however my budget is a bit more than $800, since i've been looking for a few months now, and nothing "great" will be found for that much that you could use to submit to film festivals, also somthing with XLR is going to cost a bit more than $800.
Have you ventured around ebay yet? sometimes good deals are there.
go to ebay.com and type in "camcorder 3CCD" (without the quotes) - that should get you started
you should be looking for minimum something with 3CCD - you can then add on XLR inputs such as the ones from Beachtek.
Good luck mate!
I'm also very new and looking for a camera, however my budget is a bit more than $800, since i've been looking for a few months now, and nothing "great" will be found for that much that you could use to submit to film festivals, also somthing with XLR is going to cost a bit more than $800.
Have you ventured around ebay yet? sometimes good deals are there.
go to ebay.com and type in "camcorder 3CCD" (without the quotes) - that should get you started
you should be looking for minimum something with 3CCD - you can then add on XLR inputs such as the ones from Beachtek.
Good luck mate!
directedition
New member
Well, if you have big shoulders and don't mind carrying around tons of extra weight and doing some extra research, you can do things as I have. You can get old analog 3CDD 1/2" chip ENG cameras on ebay for cheap these days. I got a Sony EVW-300 for $450 (tape doesn't work, but don't need it) and then I bought a DV camera that supported analog input (Canon Elura 65) and just recorded directly from the Camera's BNC and S-Video outputs to MiniDV, giving me the quality (if that's what you call 4:1:1 *sigh*) and cheapness of minidv with the sweet image quality of 3 1/2" CCDs. Another benefit of using ENG cameras is that you can get TRUE manual control of everything. I can't live without true manual focus (not that faux manual focus ring on the GL cameras and others like it), I also got zoom and macro with all that. I also bought a battery pack for the ENG camera that cost me $65.
All told I paid $650 for my setup which will get me the (almost) same image quality of a $20,000 DVCAM setup. The catch being all the wires I have to wrangle, the extra weight, and the risks of buying off ebay. Seriously, I love it.
EDIT: Oh, and the EVW-300 and most every ENG camera out there will have XLR inputs with at least one providing phantom power.
All told I paid $650 for my setup which will get me the (almost) same image quality of a $20,000 DVCAM setup. The catch being all the wires I have to wrangle, the extra weight, and the risks of buying off ebay. Seriously, I love it.
EDIT: Oh, and the EVW-300 and most every ENG camera out there will have XLR inputs with at least one providing phantom power.
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