videography

[valleytinworks]

i am posting this here because i trust hoggish advice.....

so i need a middle of the road professional video camera, something fairly easy to operate etc....any experience or advice...links please

 

[noss4]

It depends on what you want to spend. ? Usually the more you spend the easier the camera is to operate. example. The higher end cameras usually have more simplified controls such as a manual focus and zoom ring on the lens as well as manual exposure controls as well. The cheaper ones ( like I use ) most of the controls are contained in menu system of the camera. It can be a pain to adjust the camera settings on the fly.

also they usually have inputs for external microphones such as a shotgun mics. This will greatly improve your sound.

Look for a camera with a good optical ZOOM and ignore the digital zoom rating. Image quality degrades with digital zooms.

A good camera with some very profesinal controls is the Sony DCR-VX2100
It's not cheap at 2198.00 but it is a great camera and very easy to use compared to the cheap stuff. It is a digital mini DV camera. It is very easy to transfer the video to your computer using any fire wire port.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/303956-REG/Sony_DCRVX2100_DCR_VX2100_3_CCD_Mini.html

This Sony is probably the best consumer/professional camera on the market for this price.

 

[OldPhysics]

Sent you an e-mail, VTW. Perhaps Becky can help.