another Which Camera to Get thread...

See, i get a Graduation gift this year, and my friend and I have always been interested in filming, and we've been movie buffs forever...so we put two and two together and decided we should make an Indie (horror..zombie :) ) film... I have this little sony DV Hi-8 camera now that i use for snowboarding and whatnot..its not to great and doesnt look like film...and for graduation i decided i want a professional style DV camcorder, one that can get as close to film as possible..but still under $4-5k

I've been researching a lot... and i dont know if i should get the Sony VX2100, Panasonic AG-DVZ100A, Canon XL-1s, or any others that you might reccommend...

I know the Panasonic can shoot at 24p, and i heard 28 days later was shot with the canon XL-1s, and then transferred to 35mm

so what do you reccommend, what am i overlooking, etc... please help!
 
Is the 4-5k the total film budget? Or just loose change for a camera?

Reason I ask is... no point blowing 5k on a camera, if you will be missing some other basic essentials... such as lighting kits, possible permits, buckets of blood, fake limbs, on and on... the extra expenses add up fast.

A 2k camera with a good lighting setup will blow the water out of a 5k camera using an improvised lampshade, for example. Do you have the rest of the basics already?
 
i basically have nothing but the love of film making.... :( we don't even have a complete script yet, but we do have a lot of one..we have some guns(airsoft guns) that we're gonna use, i have adobe premiere pro that i obtained...through my own methods, and the parents dont seem like theyre gonna spend TOOOOO much money on a camera, but my dad is easy to get to buy things for a lot..lol...and i can always do a commercial for his business...since he always looks at options like that when buying me things, i have a job so i can pay for some of the props out of my own pocket, i hope the other people involved in the pre production will do the same...but i cant count on them...soo...basically im broke, i get this graduation gift, and i love film making, so we decided to make one..haha


also, are halogen lights good for use with video? i skate as a "hobby" and my friend has some that we use to light up certain skate spots at night, and they light the crap out of the place, and theyre only 30 bucks and home depot..
 
You would probably do better if you rent, rather than buy. It's a great way to stretch your budget. You could get hold of a $20,000 camera for $2,000-3,000, & still have money left over to rent lights & audio gear.
 
well the parents are buying it for graduation, so im just gonna buy a camera instead of rent, that way i can keep making films, and its down to either the Panasonic DVX-100a or the XL1s, right now, for me, the Pana is winning
 
well, Hype i guess, im just starting to learn about cameras and settings and lighting...all that complicated stuff... And the XL1s looks nice, and looks really customizable as in settings and what not, but the Panasonic has 24p which i was lead to believe will look a lot more like film. But then again 28 days later was shot with teh Xl1s..but didnt theyuse the 35mm adapter? Which thats not quite an option, unless ofcourse i rig up a homemade one...So basically i THINK the panasonic is FAIRLY basic and closer to film, but i made this thread so you guys could help clear it up for me :)
 
The Panasonic is better! It's newer technology, of course, and in addition to the frame speed being film-like...it also captures light quite beautifully. I actually think it looks better than 16mm and much better than the Canon. The XL1 wouldn't be much worse, but if you can afford it, I say go for the DVX100.

Check out http://mattmcdermitt.com and http://dvxuser.com. I'm going to try to save up for a DVX100 over the summer. These sites sort of sold me on it. Check out "Uninvited at mattmcdermitt.com. It looks absolutely awesome.
 
Interesting. I havent seen any footage from it yet.

I'm not sure about the whole 24p thing. It seems like it is a lot more problematic than its worth unless you plan on transfering to film. None of the conversion processes quite work right.
 
Forgive me if this has been discussed before. I went to the panasonic website and printed out an AG-DVX100A page. I'm looking at getting my film distributed. Does it mean that I can be able to transfer to film with this camera?
 
Technically you could have a company transfer your DV to film but it will generally look bad and it costs several hundred per minute of video I believe.

For the purposes of an indie filmaker who isn't going to be showing in theaters deinterlacing to 30p is enough IMO. It saves a lot of time, trouble, money and has a better likelyhood of looking good (as far as I know).
 
At Cannes, I think 100% film projection. Sundance has digital projection, but be prepared to get a 35mm print, because they do not guarantee digital projection. Smaller festivals offer digital, and video projection ... some even VHS. Most popular video formats for projection are BetaSP, DigiBeta, and DVD.
 
As far as what percentage is actually shot on digital formats, I think that varies too much to give an actual percentage.
 
Shaw said:
I'm not sure about the whole 24p thing. It seems like it is a lot more problematic than its worth unless you plan on transfering to film. None of the conversion processes quite work right.
Not true. It's the exact same as regular video...it just looks better. True, it's difficult to keep "true" 24p when transferring (whatever that means), but that really doesn't matter because it will still look the exact same to the human eye.

If you transfer to your computer, then tape, then film, or something...it might lose quality, but that's kind of the same thing that would happen with any video.

You need no extra programs or anything. Just the same programs you would normally use (Adobe, Final Cut, etc.)
 
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