I am looking at buying a nice camcorder and am prepared to spend up to say 2500 USD for a primary one and not sure what I need for "secondary ones"
So, my questions!
Can anyone of you kind gentleman suggest a primary camcorder that would shoot MOV so that it can be ingested into FCPX, and that has a very smooth consistent zoom? I'm also thinking it would have to have a high quality audio section.
Could you also suggest what I can use as a secondary camera to film the other 2 angles for essentially filler shots and questions from me. It too will have to record in MOV. Would I be even better off using a DSLR here?
Any advice, suggestions thoughts would be greatly appreciated as I have such little knowledge in these matters.
Thanking you all
Regards
Zahari
There are a lot of $2500 cameras in the small cmos design, canon makes a fairly good one though the small chip cameras require a decent amount of light, usually have fixed zooms (at this price point) and are very video looking given the fact the sensor is small and it pulls a lot of focus. Not that there is anything wrong with the video look for this type of work.
In fact a lot of people have moved to dslrs and some larger sensor cameras to give a cinematic look which will add to the visuals, but always causes more effort as focus is more critical and some videos really should look like video.
Actually look at a show like TOP GEAR that does documentary style videos with eng video cameras. They put a lot of money into produciton and post but the program is shot well and doesn't suffer. In fact I think if they went to big sensor cameras they would lose some of their style.
Some of these $2500 cameras allow for connecting a zoom controller that allows you to dial in the zoom amount and do a slow crawl to a fast slam zoom.
Going Multi cam will add interest, but two cameras is triple the work, as your lighting and sets will have to be designed to cover a wider angle, so instead of a 50 or 60 degree angle you can end up covering 180 degrees, you will add another operator, more lights (usually) and increase your editorial time.
One thing that helps for this type of work is to have one camera with a long lens come in on details, an A camera covering the establishing set and a third camera on a jib arm above the set to add interest and a more detailed view.
But once again, every camera more than doubles the effort and you will also need to run some type of sound into each camera, (if only scratch sound) to do sync, especially if you chose to use the auto sync function in fcp X.
Good luck, look for cameras with a connector for a zoom controller and I hope it works out for you.
IMO
BC
P.S. Avchd is not the end of the world as long as the mbs data rate is good at least 24 to 50. Obviously you will have to unwrap and transcode the footage but there a tons of small software suites on the cheap like wondershare, that will make very fast work of this. Kind of a set your preset, set a folder destination hit the button on go to bed.
For sorting into scenes you can use Expression media (I-view) or adobe bridge.
One other thing and I'm sure you know this but single or multicam Always Slate every camera and don't let an operator turn them on and off and lose the continuity.
If you can find cameras that have genlock it's all the better though most genlock cameras are about a thousand more.
I'd look at the Canons as I've used them in the past and they worked quite well, though the build quality is a little fragile.
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/canon-xa20/4505-6500_7-35655907.html