There are three things that are VERY important when getting a camera:
Three CCD’s or CMOS
Manual controls for the iris, shutter, focus and white balance.
A microphone input.
The JVC GZ-HD7, the first of the JVC HDD cameras is now a little
over a year old and discontinued, but I’ve seen these on line for
as little as $800. A really nice Fujinon lens makes a huge difference
and full manual controls is important. Three 1/5’ 16:9 progressive
scan CCD’s are pretty impressive for a camera in this price range.
It has manual controls, a mic input and an excellent focus ring
which is surprisingly rare on small cameras. It records directly to a
built in 60GB hard drive. The issue here is the MPEG-2 compression
(TOD). It’s not compatible with many NLE’s so you’ll need to convert
the TOD to QuickTime or AVI.
The GZ-HD6 can record 1080/60p through HDMI - pretty impressive.
The GZ-HD40 is a bit of a disappointment. I like that it records using
AVCHD compression which makes it compatible with most NLE’s but
it loses the important focus ring. And it’s so small.
The Panasonic HDC-SD100 uses a 3-CMOS array and records 1920 x 1080
video in the AVCHD format to SD and SDHC memory cards. I like the ring
on the lens that controls zoom, focus, white balance, shutter speed, and
iris and it actually has a viewfinder in addition to the LCD screen. Very
important it has both a mic and headphone jack. I found it difficult to
handle with all the cables attached (mic, headphones and monitor) but
it’s a camera with all the basics.
The Panasonic HDC-HS300 is a fine camera. I got to use it in
January for a little test run shooting some behind the scenes
footage for a model shoot in Las Vegas. I likes the focus ring -
a great improvement over similar cameras. But I didn’t like the
touch screen controls. On the plus side it has the essentials -
headphone and mic jacks and manual control over all the basics. I
like that it uses the AVCHD format. There is a nice toggle switch
at the front of the lens for switching between the zoom and the
focus. It took just a few tries for me to master it.
Close is the Canon HV20. It records in HDV (1080i) and 24p (60i), has a
mic input and manual controls of white balance and focus but it uses one
1/2.7” CMOS sensor rather than 3 CCD’s. And it’s so small the handling is
difficult.
The HV30 adds a 30f (Canon’s “frame mode”) in addition to 24p.
The Sony HDR-SR12 has a mic input and a good sized 120GB HDD. It uses
a 1/3” CMOS chip and like the Canon is really small. Because of the input
placement, the mic cable kept getting in my way. The HR9 (which records
to tape) is also a nice, very small, camera with the essentials. Again the
mic input is just below the lens which is rather poor placement, in my opinion.
Pushing the price cap is the Sony HD1000U. It’s $1,400 and has all the
essentials. The touch screen is too unusual for me - I’m old school - but
it works quite well. I like that it’s a shoulder mount camera. It only uses
one CMOS Sensor, but the image was very nice.
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=12037
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