Canon HV20 - A Good Buy?

[Tom de la Rosa]

Okay first post in the forum, so hello

 

Okay so i have been lookign around at HD camcorders for a couple of months now and the HV20 has caught my eye.

Not too expense, easy to use.

 

So i was just wondering if anyone has any experiences with HV20s so i know what to expect, what to look out for if i purchase one.

 

I want to use it mainly for short nature films

Any help would be much appreciated as i am completely new to this whole thing.

 

Tom

[stevewitt]

Its a great little camcorder. It is now being discontinued and replaced by the HV30. But ones left in stock at retailer should have decent prices. Read more about the HV20 and HV30 at these links. The last link has to do with tricks to have nearly total control over the exposure on these camcorders. That is because the HV20/HV30 are not pro camcorders and do not have all manual controls. I have one and I love it. It makes a very good 35mm imaging adapter camcorder.

 

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/forumdisplay.php?f=139

 

http://www.hv20.com/index.php

 

http://dvxuser.com/jason/hv20/

[stevewitt]

One additional link that you should check out. I have a Brevis 35mm imaging adapter made by Cinevate, and the HV20 is widely used with this adapter and is well discussed on this forum. Check forum inside to see photos of HV20s hooked up to this adapter, and there is also lots of sample video clips from HV20 on there. Have fun.

 

http://www.cinevate.com/phpBB2/index.php

 

Here some HV20 rigs below.

 

http://www.cinevate.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1067

 

http://www.cinevate.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.p...537&start=0

Edited February 25, 2008 by stevewitt

[Phil Rhodes]

The problem with the HV20 is that it has a rolling shutter - like Red, only worse. This can show up pretty severely, either as a variable slant in the image during pans, and it can create a rather unpleasant wavy effect if the camera is subject to high-frequency vibration - such as being hardmounted to a vehicle.

 

Other than that the pictures are actually surprisingly nice.

 

Phil

[Eric Tanaka]

well, im thinking of buying an HV30

is there any better consumer camcorder?

im only in high school, so i cant fork over $8000+

so if you guys have any suggestions that would be really great.

i heard the sony's dont have good microphones

and from the reviews i have seen, the HV20/30 is the best place to go.

but before i jump the gun and get it, is there any better camcorder for the prosumer?

[Tom de la Rosa]

okay, thanks alot for the links

 

and as to the rolling shutter, hopefully it will not effect me overly much as i will most be doing slow panning and very little movement

 

cheers for all the help and links so far

[Tom de la Rosa]

dont let the mics put you off

 

for not much you can always buy an external rode videomic iv heard good things

ill be getting one with my hv20 hopefully

[Freya Black]

The HV20/30 is an incredible camera for the price. It shoots progressive video at 1080 and it even comes with a microphone socket which has traditionally been a problem with cheap camcorders.

 

I got to play with one recently (a HV30 but basically the same) and before I got to play with it I was worried about the lens (as I have a cheap canon dv camcorder that is awful) and about the fact it is a single chip camera. Well my concerns were unfounded! The lens is nice and the colours were also realistic.

 

Sadly I had quite a bad experience with the camera however. It's like the saying "that was a little more detail than I needed to know"! I pointed the camera at my face and was shocked to see I had a scar just below my eye. Then I realised it was just a vein! The camera picked up everything in a somewhat harsh way. I thought at first it was the lighting but it seemed like the only camera on the canon stand with this problem and it did the same thing regardless of which direction I pointed the camera. I think it's something to do with the default image processing and it might be possible to compensate for it with the right settings but it left a sour taste in my mouth. It could have been a bad example of the camera too.

 

However if you are shooting landscapes or nature then picking up every tiny detail might be completely wonderful!

 

My experience is that theres not much choice in the way of low end camcorders these days, and the HV20/30 is the total standout camera if you have no money. Theres nothing else I've seen that can touch it and it records to DV tapes which will save you money again.

 

Until someone else comes out with something decent (and based on the way things have been going so far I wouldn't be hopeful) then this is the only low-end camcorder worth looking at, at this point. Buy it before they replace it with a model that records mpeg4 on 3 inch dvd's and doesn't have a microphone socket.

 

love

 

Freya

[Phil Rhodes]

> im only in high school,

 

yeh we cud tell that from teh gramar and puncshu... punstu... punktu... little dots and things that go round the words.

 

P

[stevewitt]

The problem with the HV20 is that it has a rolling shutter - like Red, only worse. This can show up pretty severely, either as a variable slant in the image during pans, and it can create a rather unpleasant wavy effect if the camera is subject to high-frequency vibration - such as being hardmounted to a vehicle.

 

Other than that the pictures are actually surprisingly nice.

 

Phil

 

Yeah, the rolling shutter CMOS artifacts hit most cams with these type sensors. I cant believe they didn't do global exposure sensors for the Red. Are global shutter CMOS sensors that expensive???

 

Here is a good article on these artifacts by Barry Green.

http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/

[Tom de la Rosa]

cheers for all the help and stuff

nice to see theres help about!

 

i shall purchase my hv20 asap then!

 

thanks alot everyone

[Erik Bien]

Here's a little contest entry we put together with HV20s and Cinevate adapters wearing Nikon lenses:

 

Heinz Fanatic