Best Camera option?

A

Anthem

Hey all. Very new to the movie making proccess but thats what excites me. I want to know what would be the best camera option in the 2-3k price range. I want a camera that will shoot in the standard hollywood frame rate and shhot in HD. with that cash what would I need? I could go higher but thats where I want to aim for till I can afford the RED camera ^^


Thanks all for the help in advance and i cant wait to show you all my first film :)
 
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Oh, sorry about that. Hmmmm... not sure how to fix that. If the Canon XH A1 looks interesting to you, let me know if you have any specific questions. I can also show you some sample video footage. I can even show you raw HDV footage, if you have a codec to play it.
 
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See, this is the kind of thing I need to learn about.

On the technical side of filmmaking, my knowledge is minimal at best, and I really don't know where to go from there.

And yeah, this sounds like a thread unto itself, I know.

Heh.
 
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barnaclelapse said:
See, this is the kind of thing I need to learn about.

On the technical side of filmmaking, my knowledge is minimal at best, and I really don't know where to go from there.

And yeah, this sounds like a thread unto itself, I know.

Heh.
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Buy $100 in books. I guarantee your technical knowledge will no longer be a limiting factor.
 
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There are so many aspects to film making, from scripts, funding, contracts, production, casting, lighting, audio, camera operation, wardrobe, makeup, special effects, post-production, and distribution, etc., that I feel like I know nearly nothing, even though I do have a pretty decent technical background in digital media, lenses, lighting, and the like. It's not a thread onto itself, it's a volume of books.

So, what was your question? :)
 
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I've personally found that the technical is the easy part to pick up (of course, I'm a geek - could influence my approach). The part it's taking me longest to learn is getting from the pictures in my head to seeing that same thing in the camera.
 
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In the event that anyone finds this interesting, this is a private message I sent to Knightly as part of our discussion about still image quality from video cameras. I've been shooting TV commercials with my Canon XH-A1 for a few months. I've got my workflow down and I've reconciled myself to the cameras strengths and flaws. I'm actually quite satisfied, given what I paid for it.

That would be true even shooting with 35mm film, as the 1/48 second shutter does not produce sharp images of moving objects, but it all looks natural when you watch it in motion. I'm not disappointed in the Canon's video quality; especially considering the price. Most of what I'm doing gets downscaled to SD anyway. I may be the only one who ever gets to see it in it's full glory until the HD delivery streams become more mainstream. I needed a new camera; especially for progressive frame shooting. It was originally between the DVX 100, because I already have many accessories that would work with it, so it would be a cheap upgrade, or the JVC HD-110U, which may have been a superior camera to the Canon XH A1, but the JVC would have cost about $6000 by the time I got batteries for it. The $3250 Canon XH-A1 started to look like a great first step into prosumer HD.
Once you work out the process of configuring the 48 different image control settings, you find the Canon is quite flexible and the quality is more than adequate.
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