Making movies
There are many expenses when it comes to having a baby. Clothes, furniture, food, diapers, car seats, strollers, etc... Along with all that, you also have some electronics needs. Baby monitors, cameras, and camcorders. I already bought the Canon 40D, still looking at baby monitors (most likely candidate is the Philips DECT unit which doesn't get interference from 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz devices), and today I ordered the Canon HV20 camcorder.
If it's not obvious, I'm a fan of Canon for cameras and camcorders. However, I don't buy just because of the brand name. I have been doing lots of research (http://www.camcorderinfo.com is a great site) and the HV20 is a great value for quality to price. I actually wanted the new HF100 solid state memory camcorder since it removes the need for tapes, but it doesn't come out til May and I didn't want to miss any memorable moments. I can probably sell the HV20 later if I wanted to. The HV20 records in HD and uses mini-DV tapes. I'm probably not going to spend as much on accessories as I have on my camera since I'm more interested in still photography than video.
posted by Steve @ Sunday, February 10, 2008
4 comments
4 Comments:
The video quality of HDV on miniDV is great. Some people think the DVCPRO format on miniDV is better, but they are wrong :)
I too have been a long time fan of Canon, but not just for brand loyalty. Canon consistantly puts out high quality photo / video products at great prices.
Oh, I don't know if camcorderinfo.com has anything about this, but I notice no difference when taping HDV to regular miniDV and when taping HDV to the miniDV meant for HDV. those HDV miniDV tapes are 2x the price of normal ones. since I don't notice a difference, I don't buy 'em.
Also, I know this was true on the XH-A1, and I'm willing to bet yours would benefit from this as well - get yourself a quality microphone. the built-in mic on the XH-A1 is pretty decent, and I thought it was great until I invested in a quality mic - HUGE difference. Most built-in mics are omni, and going cardioid (did I spell that right?) will make sounds - such as baby's voice - sound better.
lastly, I've used my XH-A1 in "external" mode and recorded HDV straight to my laptop - no tape required. this may make videos easier early on while your baby isn't too mobile :)
I've been reading up and it looks like "HiDef" miniDV tapes is really a marketing thing. At the end of the day, it's just 0's and 1's.
One of the criticisms of the HV20 is that the mic is better at picking up the cameraman than the subject, so I'm definitely picking up an external one.
Recording straight to laptop sounds interesting. Of course it means I can't move too far away from the laptop :P
I got a R0de mic for ~$200 I think. I made a video at Cowgirls using it to pick up the voices of the patrons. It worked a lot better than I thought it would.
http://www.joeltelling.com/video
I think any omni mic is going to have that problem - though - most mags will also say get a Sennheiser at 5x the cost of what I paid for the R0de. I'm willing to bet the kind of mic I got will do just fine for the vids you're taking when compared to something much more expensive.
heh, yeah, recording to the lappy means being pretty stationary. there IS a device called the FireStore that'll do direct-to-HD recording with the XH-A1, not sure about the HV20. It's WAY expensive though - I know I can't justify the cost no matter how hard I try :)
what software will you be using to capture and edit vids on the computer? iMovie on the Mac is pretty good about importing and editing. On the PC I used Adobe Premiere to grab the video, though, the process is much easier on the Mac. My PC video editing was some time ago, so there may be better solutions.
That's a pretty good quality video and the sound is pretty good considering you were in a loud bar. I'm probably going to use Windows Movie Maker initially for editing and likely to go to Premiere once I get enough footage.
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