Sony DR60 or Lighting kit?

[Cillian Daly]

Howdy all.

 

Am currently pricing a combination of camera (V1E most likely) tripod kit (manfrotto 503DV Kit), sound kit (Sennheiser 416 Kit), and a Photon-Beard Red-head lighting kit OR the Sony DR60 HDD storage drive. My question is really would it make more sense to go with the lights, or the convenience of shot footage archived to tape and captured to hard drive at the same time?

I'll be primarily using the gear to shoot documentaries (final year specialisation) and shorts. I'm leaning towards the lights as being more useful on a doc shoot, but at the same time I'm tempted by the convenience/safety of the hard drive.

 

Any advice/experiences/problems with the above, I'd much appreciate it.

 

regards,

 

Cillian

[gregory mandry]

Howdy all.

 

Am currently pricing a combination of camera (V1E most likely) tripod kit (manfrotto 503DV Kit), sound kit (Sennheiser 416 Kit), and a Photon-Beard Red-head lighting kit OR the Sony DR60 HDD storage drive. My question is really would it make more sense to go with the lights, or the convenience of shot footage archived to tape and captured to hard drive at the same time?

I'll be primarily using the gear to shoot documentaries (final year specialisation) and shorts. I'm leaning towards the lights as being more useful on a doc shoot, but at the same time I'm tempted by the convenience/safety of the hard drive.

 

Any advice/experiences/problems with the above, I'd much appreciate it.

 

regards,

 

Cillian

 

I wouldn't bother with red heads anymore I know they are cheep, but with a modern camera you just don't need that level of light. In you situation I'd go with the storage and hire some lamps for individual jobs. Then save up and buy a nice lighting kit, 300 / 650 watt fresnel lamps, something like that.

[Brian Drysdale]

Lights are a standard part of a kit, hard drives are an extra. However, I wouldn't just go for Redheads, but a mix with at least one Fresnel. The Redheads work fine in a lot of situations, if not the most controllable lights, once you start using CTB and diffusion the small lights are a bit limited. Also, you can always scrim a larger wattage light.

 

HDV cameras aren't that sensitive compared to the MiniDv cameras.