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Lower end HD Cameras


Ernie Zahn

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I'm going to be making a series of short web videos over the next few months as well as some short documentaries. I'm looking to see if there are any great HD cameras that shoot progressive and are fairly cheap. I'm ok with bad sound because I'll be using a Zoom H4n for external audio. I was looking at the Sony Cybershot. It sells for $250 at Best Buy. It's nice, I worked with it on a project once but it will would be nice to have a little more lens control but I guess that's where the extra $500+ comes in right?

 

Can anyone recommend a line of HD cameras that are in the consumer price range like the Cybershot? Would Cybershot be your first choice? I'm okay with whatever storage media, HDV, SD, CF whatever. For these projects which are more practical, I'm okay with auto-focus, exposure etc. just as long as it handles those functions well. Suggestions?

 

P.S. this will be a temp camera for me as I will prob get a 7D in 7 months or so. However, I need something for the time being.

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Lowest end camera I used recently at all was the Canon HV20, it's a bit more expensive than they cybershot, but wasn't all that bad to work with when I had to. Also there are those new "flip" cameras, but I haven't worked with them honestly, but might work for you.

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Lowest end camera I used recently at all was the Canon HV20, it's a bit more expensive than they cybershot, but wasn't all that bad to work with when I had to. Also there are those new "flip" cameras, but I haven't worked with them honestly, but might work for you.

 

Thanks. Yes I've seen the flip. I haven't used it but seems a little too rudimentary. This is the Cybershot that I'm looking at:

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001OI2LV8/ref=as...ASIN=B001OI2LV8

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I would recommend the canon vixia hfs100, or the latest version of it. shoots true 1920 x 1080. Image quality is quite good. The cine mode isn't so bad either. really good camera for no budget projects.

I second that, I have that camera and it's just amazing, you could check out videos shot on it on Vimeo, and I know some guy who used it to shoot along with a CineAlta and the footage wasn't half bad in comparison...

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I dunno about the Sanyo HD2000, but I looked into the Sanyo FH1 when I was shopping for a camcorder, and I didn't like the footage at all, it had lots of chromatic aberrations, the colors weren't accurate and the overall image looked kinda diffused...

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The Canon HFS100 scored 10.03 for color perfomance while the Sanyo HD2000 scored 10.08 which is almost a tie. Sanyo's weak point was its skin tone reproduction. Sanyo's chromatic abberations result because the color is recorded at 30 frames per second while the luma is recorded at 60 frames per second.

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