top camcorders mac image
Shane A
First of all, thank you so much for your willingness to share your expertise. Starting a production company that will be filming all types of events. Mostly weddings, documentaries, corporate seminar type stuff. Not shooting Avatar here. Looking for professional advice only. We need a solution to shooting video, capturing good audio, and stills in one piece of equipment. Looking at the Canon 7D currently. Price range needs to be kept under $2,000USD.
Answer
The Canon 7D is a great mid-range dSLR for capturing still images.
It's video cabilities are pretty good, too - Since it captures to h.264 format video MOV files, I presume your video editing environment can deal with these files. Using a current Mac and Final Cut would be best. iMovie will work, too (but be careful with the mode selected - not all will work). Most Windows based editors will require the MOV video files to be transcoded to something the editor can deal with... Lots of transcordrs out there - be sure the one you select does not drop the video out of high definition otherwise you are sort of defeating the purpose of recording in high definition.
Please keep in mind that video is more than moving images - there is the audio portion and this is where most DSLRs fall when compared to camcorders. If you are planning to use an external audio capture device (Zoom H2 or H4 - there are lots of others) to get the audio (then import when you are editing the video, and sync), then this discussion is moot - but if you are depending on the dSLR to get acceptable audio for you, you really need to re-think this.
So... here's the advice: I would strongly suggest that you use a camcorder for video and the dSLR for stills - and maybe occassional video... but combining the two is still not there.
While we're here, how are you planning to archive the captured video if you don't use digital tape? You migh want to investigate a RAID1 hard drive array... NetGear, Promise, Buffalo and others make small business Network Attached Storage systems that might meet your needs - EMC, HP and others make larger systems... They can be pretty expensive... At $3 per 60 minute miniDV tape (or the equivalent of up to 63 minutes of HDV format video which would take up 44 gig of computer hard drive space when uncompressed), it is still a cheap $/gig capture and storage media.
At your stated budget, the Sony HDR-FX7 prosumer (sibling to the pro-grade HVR-V1) is about it...
And if you watch the Avatar credits, the cameras used were from Panavision. I think they start at about $100,000... Lenses are more.
The Canon 7D is a great mid-range dSLR for capturing still images.
It's video cabilities are pretty good, too - Since it captures to h.264 format video MOV files, I presume your video editing environment can deal with these files. Using a current Mac and Final Cut would be best. iMovie will work, too (but be careful with the mode selected - not all will work). Most Windows based editors will require the MOV video files to be transcoded to something the editor can deal with... Lots of transcordrs out there - be sure the one you select does not drop the video out of high definition otherwise you are sort of defeating the purpose of recording in high definition.
Please keep in mind that video is more than moving images - there is the audio portion and this is where most DSLRs fall when compared to camcorders. If you are planning to use an external audio capture device (Zoom H2 or H4 - there are lots of others) to get the audio (then import when you are editing the video, and sync), then this discussion is moot - but if you are depending on the dSLR to get acceptable audio for you, you really need to re-think this.
So... here's the advice: I would strongly suggest that you use a camcorder for video and the dSLR for stills - and maybe occassional video... but combining the two is still not there.
While we're here, how are you planning to archive the captured video if you don't use digital tape? You migh want to investigate a RAID1 hard drive array... NetGear, Promise, Buffalo and others make small business Network Attached Storage systems that might meet your needs - EMC, HP and others make larger systems... They can be pretty expensive... At $3 per 60 minute miniDV tape (or the equivalent of up to 63 minutes of HDV format video which would take up 44 gig of computer hard drive space when uncompressed), it is still a cheap $/gig capture and storage media.
At your stated budget, the Sony HDR-FX7 prosumer (sibling to the pro-grade HVR-V1) is about it...
And if you watch the Avatar credits, the cameras used were from Panavision. I think they start at about $100,000... Lenses are more.
How do I import movies from my camera into iMovie? ?
Katie
I have a Mac desktop compuuter and cannot import my old and new videos from my camera. I have checked the website numerous times. I go to import from files and none of them are clickable. help
Answer
If you have a mini dv (cassette) camcorderâ¦.
Your dv camcorder needs a firewire connection (ieee 1394) in order to download video, your PC probably did not come with a firewire port, so you will have to buy one and install it, since most computers (except possibly brand new) don't come with a firewire port, your camcorder did not come with a firewire cord so you have to purchase a cord too. Your camcorder did come with a USB cord and that is used for downloading stills from your camcorder. Make sure your camera is in playback mode.
The fine print in your manual makes reference to firewire (ieee 1394) connection.
If you have a mini dvd camcorderâ¦.
You will have to finalize your dvd in the camera and then put the dvd in your computer's DVD burner (top loading only) and then you will have to convert the files (I downloaded handbrake file converter free) and import them into your editing program. Use the HELP feature in your editing program to learn about editing. Once you are ready to burn, your project will be burned to a different DVD and you can file the original away.
If you have an analog (VHS) camcorderâ¦
You need an analog converter, either internal card or external such as the dazzle. It's very easy to use and come with good software. You would hook your analog VHS camera or VCR to the analog converter, the dazzle and then hook the dazzle to your PC. The dazzle cost around 70.00 , but worth the money if you have a lot of VHS to tapes to convert.
**Please Note There is no 8mm or Hi 8 to VHS Adapter that currently exsists. This type of VHS Adapter only exsists with VHS-C tape**
If you have a mini dv (cassette) camcorderâ¦.
Your dv camcorder needs a firewire connection (ieee 1394) in order to download video, your PC probably did not come with a firewire port, so you will have to buy one and install it, since most computers (except possibly brand new) don't come with a firewire port, your camcorder did not come with a firewire cord so you have to purchase a cord too. Your camcorder did come with a USB cord and that is used for downloading stills from your camcorder. Make sure your camera is in playback mode.
The fine print in your manual makes reference to firewire (ieee 1394) connection.
If you have a mini dvd camcorderâ¦.
You will have to finalize your dvd in the camera and then put the dvd in your computer's DVD burner (top loading only) and then you will have to convert the files (I downloaded handbrake file converter free) and import them into your editing program. Use the HELP feature in your editing program to learn about editing. Once you are ready to burn, your project will be burned to a different DVD and you can file the original away.
If you have an analog (VHS) camcorderâ¦
You need an analog converter, either internal card or external such as the dazzle. It's very easy to use and come with good software. You would hook your analog VHS camera or VCR to the analog converter, the dazzle and then hook the dazzle to your PC. The dazzle cost around 70.00 , but worth the money if you have a lot of VHS to tapes to convert.
**Please Note There is no 8mm or Hi 8 to VHS Adapter that currently exsists. This type of VHS Adapter only exsists with VHS-C tape**
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
No comments:
Post a Comment