Feature Doc - Best camera?

[Rachel Oliver]

Hey There.....

I'm about to embark on a feature length documentary. I come from a film background but due to budget concerns I'm gonna leap into the wonderful world of DV! My camera budget is around the 3.5K dollar mark. I'm intending to eventually end up on 35mm film so i'm looking for your valuable opinions on a good budget DV camera to use as my main camera. I will be mixing S16 and super 8 (16/9 anamorphic) into the film and will end up on Digi-Beta before any film blowup. I need to shoot 16/9 format, I've so far been liking the newish Sony PDX10 due to it's native 16/9 mode but that Panasonic DVX100 looks great and suits my 16mm mindset a little more due to it's layout and 25P frame rate (UK pal). How is the Panasonic 16/9 converter? what would you go with out of these two or any other cameras in this price field?

Thankyou very much for your feedback.

Olly

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

There's always a pretty big question in my mind as to whether it's better to shoot on a professional camera which probably won't be progressive, or on a handycam which will, but will have lower overall resolution. With recent, very good smart deinterlacers, I'm less convinced than ever that the prog-scan thing is an issue at all - and the difference between even a lowish-end pro camera such as the one I own, and a DVX100, is like night and day.

 

Phil

[Guest Ultra Definition]

I'd get the DVX100A with anamorphic adapter but if you can, wait for NAB in April to see if any new camera(s) come out. PDX10 is not bad either.

[Marcel Zyskind]

Hi

 

I've just recently shot a film with the dvx100 with an anamorphic adapter and I'm very pleased with the result.

We are tranferring to 35mm, one way or another.

 

I find that the panasonic anamorphic very easily gets dust inside the lens and it's bit of pain to keep it clean. So beware, but apart from that I like the lens. It gives you some nice flares and softens the "clean" dv image a bit. It was easier to keep dust out the smaller century anamorphic for the pd150.

 

We shot interlaced because we were using the pd150 at some times as well and I wanted it all to match.

We made a test blowup on 35mm with some of our interlaced dvx100 footage and it looked great.

 

All the best.

Marcel