This is a reply to an email I received asking about camcorders. I though the info might be of use so I have posted it here.
Ok Kimmy Sue,
I see by my inbox you have a busy day planned for me! I will address each email separately so we don’t get all crossed up here.
Camcorders.
The argument that you need a purpose built camcorder to record video instead of using the video capabilities of a still camera gets weaker everyday.
Consumer camcorders were the best in the past and even up to last year, but it has all changed now.
Most consumer camcorders have very small lenses and because of that they restrict you greatly in what you can really achieve. For family ‘point and shoot’ of course they are fine but if you want to go further then they will always fall short because of the lens. If you look at some you will see they have very small openings for the lens itself.
Video is just photography on crack. Ultimately the quality depends on the ability of the camera or camcorder to record light and that really takes us straight to the lens. The main difference between something shot by an amateur and something shot by a pro is depth of field. This is important. Remember I told you to try to de-focus the background footage? The reason for this is that if you look closely at how movies and TV shows are shot you will notice that the main action is always in sharp focus and whatever is happening in the background is out of focus. This is achieved by being able to control the aperture of the lens. Most consumer camcorders cannot do this or cannot do this very well.
Shakin’ all over.
You have entered the world of high definition. This means that you now have a new best friend. Meet Mr. Tripod! You may as well have him surgically attached to your body because from this moment forward you are forbidden to take hand-held shaky shots following your husband around the house annoying the crap out of him! The codecs being used to compress the HD footage you are taking do not “compress.” They actually take a whole bunch of the image data and throw it away! This results in small file sizes with amazingly good quality. The trade off is in the ability of these new codecs to display motion smoothly. Panning across a scene too fast or moving the camera will result in jumpy or jittery motion so you have to keep that to an absolute minimum. Use a tripod or BE a tripod… it’s up to you.
Audio.
This first thing you are going to notice once you settle down and get over the video editing excitement is that hey!… my videos sound like shit! That’s because they do! The audience wont notice, they will just leave either physically or mentally without knowing why. The most important part of video is… audio! You must get a cam that has a jack for an external mic. The on-board mics of camcorders and cameras suck mightily and will destroy any effort you make in creating a good looking video.
Put A Sock In It
Actually that’s incorrect. Put a sock ON it. When shooting outside using an external mic (because you read the previous paragraph) take a wind sock with you and always use it. There is nothing worse than getting home and discovering that all you can hear in the video is the sound of a gentle breeze constantly blowing across the mic surface… and nothing else.
Compression
Currently for High Definition we have two main camps. Under one label you have h.264 under many guises such as AVCHD, .mov, MP4 blah, blah, blah. On the other side we have HDV. HDV is the same architecture as MPEG2 which you find on standard definition DVDs. The difference is that the resolution had been ramped up to HD standard and the bitrate (amount of data per second) has equally been ramped up from around 4 to 5Mb per second to around 25 Mb per second.
Both give great quality but the AVCHD/MP4 camp gives smaller file size. The real difference for me is that AVCHD/MP4 still presents the user with great difficulty in editing and requires an enormous amount of processing power to manipulate.
Whilst the whole MP4/H.264/AVCHD camp represents the wave of the future HDV will still be around for a long time yet and is easier to deal with. HOWEVER take note that HDV camcorders use tape to record rather than solid state memory cards so you can only transfer it to a computer in real time. An hour of video takes an hour to get on to the hard drive.
So what to buy?
Well I guess it comes down to cost in the end so here are some recommendations.
Camcorders
Kodak Z18 Pocket Video Camera.
For around a hundred bucks this little camcorder is great for “talking head” videos for online type presentations and can be carried around in your pocket to shoot anytime you want. It has a mic jack so you can plug a decent microphone into it for good sound and records very nice HD footage.
Click to see in full
Canon Vixia HV30
This is a HDV camcorder recording to tape. It is my pick of the dedicated camcorders because Canon have included a big fat ol’ lens out the front allowing for great shots and good control over depth of field and low-light situations. It has external mic capability and produces beautiful video.
Click to see in full
Panasonic DMC-DH1
Still camera with great video properties.
Click to see in full
EOS 5D Mark II
This would be my pick for a still cam to take video. No point telling you why… just watch this video shot with one. The final episode of “House” was shot entirely with one of these. By the way, take note in the video of the way it is edited. Look at just how they go from one shot to the next.
Click here to see in full
