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Howdy. I’ve recently sold my HD camcorder as I will be upgrading at the end of the month. It was a consumer style Samsung 1080p and the picture quality was fantastic. I want to get into making lo/no budget films and want to know what I’m best going for on my budget.
I can spend a maximum of £1000 on the camera but would ideally like to spend a lot less than that… ideally nearly £500. For £500 I can afford a sweet decent run of the mill HD camera but it won’t have all the features available on a pro-sumer style SD camera along the lines of the Canon XL1.
Which one would you go for? The only main features I can see that would be gone from a cheaper HD model would be a manual focus ring and interchangeable lenses. Is this a huge deal?
Does anyone know of any HD camcorders with a manual focus ring that are in my budget?
Thanks.
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For your situation, I might recommend the XL2 instead of the XL1. Here’s why: the XL2 isn’t that much more expensive than the XL1. But the 2 has some features that a young filmmaker might appreciate, such as the ability to record in 24 frames/second. As long as you’re also editing in 24 frames/second, your final product will have that “film look” that you see in professional films. Of course, I’m assuming you’re not Vincent Gallo and will actually shoot your scenes with good lighting and a tripod, lol. It’s also important to have good editing software. Adobe Premiere, Avid, and Apple’s Final Cut are all excellent to use.
I don’t know how much any of these items cost in British pounds, but I think if you forget the HD and go SD, the money you will save should be able to help you get good, professional editing software.
And as you may well already know, the XL series all have interchangable lens. I don’t know how much of a big deal that is to you, but the lens any of them come with is excellent quality, especially for filmmaking. You don’t need a lens that can zoom 9000 feet (or meters in your case, lol), since you probably won’t be filmming from across town. Any 3CCD prosumer camera should suit your needs; it’s suited mine for years. I’ve been working in video and television production for over ten years and have yet to upgrade to HD, simply because none of my clients use it yet.
Good luck with your filmmaking. Hope I helped.
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