question abount entry level camera

spooydermot

hi folks,

Could anyone recommend (or tell me where to start looking for information on) for an entry level digital video camera thats up to broadcast standard, also a boom mic?

thanks, and sorry for the newbie question.

cheers
D

trendkill

Hey, thought i'd reply as noone else has bothered to,

Great to see a fellow film maker thats serious enough about buying their own equipment. First of all, for a broadcast camera, it has to be a 3ccd, anything else isn't broadcast quality. Every camera thaq says 3ccd on the side of it, is basically perfect. Do't get sucked into all this Hi-Def shiit thats been going on for the last two years. A normal 3ccd Mini-DV camera is perfect, a cheap place i c an recommend is www.globalmediapro.com. At first glance,, the prices seem so cheap that one can hardly believe that its for real. I bought a camera there about four months ago, a Panasonic Shoulder Camera, and its fabulous, We, (our production team) saved an absolute fortune on this, getting it from them, almost €1500, its unbelievable, They are shipped directly from New Zealand so there is no worry about NTSC cameras from America. They are PAL. The order was placed on a Friday, and on the following Monday, i had the delight of answering the door to the delivery guy from UPS, they had rang me arlier to inform me of the Import Fees, since it had been bought in New Zealand, the fees came to €380 but for the money i saved, it was well worth it.

This was necessary for us as it was a shoulder camera.
However, in collehge, we used a Canon XM2, these are fantastic professional cameras, one would probably find them on EBAY for upto €2000, but there is no point wasting mthat amountr of money, for when you see the web i mentioned, that money can go a longer way on something brand new and out of the box. You also could check out, the canon XM1, the XM2's smaller broyther, this was the first in the line for prosumer cameras by Canon, its a 3ccd camera, smaller then the xm2, not much difference, and if you look on ebay, you could find it for , sometimes €600 only. IIs a great starter camera. Howver, when on ebay, don't just look on .co.uk, check out ebay.de.... or ebay.es... and so on, because when you search for something on ebay.co.uk and then select worldwide.... its actually lying to you because it doesn't include the other sites like the german or spanish ones. It show the odd one or two, but not the rest of the hundreds of listings... plus since we are in the E.u, there is no import fee's. KAfterall, ebay wouldn't be making much money, if everybody was able to find the things they want for almost half the price in another country. Don't worry about not spaeking the langiuage, just copy and paste the page into an online translation page and let modern technology do the work(and save you a fortune) I could talk forever, but if you have any questions, just post a reply, or check out http://trendkiller.tigblog.org.


Trendkill

trendkill

Oh yeah, about he boom mics... checck out.... prostudiotools on ebay.com,, they ship worldwide, they have some great packages, boom mic(cardioid and supercardioid) , boom pole, cables including xlr connections for as little as 80 US dollars. I bought one of the mpre expensive packages and have been very satisfied ever since... as Robert Rodriiguez said, Do things for as cheap as possible without sacrificing quality and your intention. Plus, when you do get financing for a film short... you can legitimitally rent out you own equipment to your self...... hence.... makking back money. (but don't tell anyone though!!!!)

Trendkill

Ruthy23

Just be careful with globalmediapro.com, they are not always amazing in their service, in fact we had quite a horrible experience with them where the owner (some russian guy) was ridiculously threatening. it's a long story, yes they are cheaper to buy from, but they don't take anything back and they won't even entertain the idea of sending stuff back, even in order to get a replacement. statutory laws in NZ are different to here, but their attitude if you ever need to contact them with a question is rude and abrasive. be careful, they do also sell NTSC cameras and the owner was laughing about the fact that people bought NTSC cameras by accident before and he didn't have to refund or help them whatsoever. Tread carefully with them. and google them-cos I'm not the only one who's had strange dealings with them!!

trendkill

If anyone knows any little about cameras, they'd know the difference betwwen Pal and NTSC. I also have a degree in International Business and Trade Law from WIT. If there is a problem where the Customer was in the right, (i.e , purchased the Correct Item) but received the wrong, the Business is Liable to uphold their end of the contract. Hence replacing the wrong item, it also stands for faulty goods e.t.c. Every business has happy customers, and on the other end of the scale, the unhappy customers. Its down to whether, people have beenw wary. The majority of globalmediapro's cameras are PAL, so, its just something to make sure of. Whenever buying a camera....

Ruthy23

Yeah well that just sums up what I've said, be wary. But do google them also cos they have been written about extremely badly on many forums. Having said that I'm sure they have happy customers also, like you. But their attitude leaves a LOT to be desired so hopefully if you buy from them, you'll be happy and won't have any further queries with them!

trendkill

Hey,

What was your problem with them, that is if you don't mind me asking, when i got the camera from them, i searched them through Google, there wasn't any bad press, just only a few forums wherre people were asking if it was fake, that their prices seem low, and asking if anyone had purchased anything from them, i saw two replies from people that had ordered stuff from them, and had been rang by UPS to let them know there were packages on their way to them and Import Fees to pay. I could have had a lucky escape...... could have turned out a bit nasty

Ruthy23

Basically we ordered 2 HDV cameras from them. We paid into their rabobank account and then discovered that we had overpaid slightly, and we had also discovered that we would've preferred XM2s for teaching purposes. We contacted them immediately so that they wouldn't dispatch the cameras before we spoke to them. Despite calling NZ in the middle of the night during times that suit them, no-one got back to us on the matter, we emailed them loads and no response. The following day we tried again, we got an answer machine. The day after that we heard from UPS that they were on the way, which was sickening cos we had spent loadsa money calling them and emailing to cancel and they had dispatched the camera nonetheless. :mad:

Anyway the cameras arrived and are fine (not what we wanted really though, they were teensy teensy things and unsuitable for teaching a camera class with), but we figured we would send them back and swap them for Xm2s and incur the cost of UPS postage ourselves. So we rang them again to try to organise this and we said 'we have overpaid for the HDV cameras and we did try to cancel them before dispatch, but we don't want a refund, we just want an exchange which we will pay for ourselves and pay for all the shipping etc'. The guy on the phone went ballistic. he didn't even just say that is not possible. he started screaming at us that 'what kind of idiot do we think i am? he never got a message to cancel the order before dispatch, we are lying, we are lying just to annoy him. he wont touch the cameras if we send them back, he only deals with professionals, what kind of idiot were we to try and change our minds, if he took the cameras back-he would only sell them at 50% off cos they had been handled." we told him that we only took one camera out to look at and the other box was still fully sealed and we had it as proof. He just kept on muttering 'f**k that, you're such liars' and he hung up on us! we rang back but no-one answered the phone!! so we rang the ministry of consumer affairs in New Zealand (looking forward to getting my phone bill now I tell ya!!) and they said yes he wasn't required to take the cameras back as we didn't record our initial phone message to him or get a witness to approve the emails, so it was our word against his that we cancelled the order straight off. They suggested we report his threatening behaviour however. Anyway the long and not so short of it is-yes the cameras are in working order but we changed our minds almost instantly and BEFORE the cameras were dispatched but we still hadn't a foot to stand on, and the thing that annoyed us most was this guys attitude with us...I'd hate to have anything go wrong with the camera now cos dealing with the honcho who runs that place is seriously scary! YES it is cheaper but hopefully no-one ever has to deal with the guy running the place. :mad:

I know we are to blame for being so hasty in placing the order, but god i think we are used to much better customer service here in Ireland!! they do have good prices though, i agree!! :rolleyes: ah well!!

trendkill

Jeeeesus..... he seems like too much hassle.... If you knew anyone in NewZealand, the best thing would have been to send them around, pay a little visit..i checked out the address on Google Earth before i purchased and address is real....

Ruthy23

Yeah totally! he sounded like some russian mafioso dude. I can just imagine him screaming at his minions to package up all the cameras non stop. Anyways sure there's always E-bay after we're done with these cameras!
oh and when we said we thought the cameras were too small for teaching purposes he was like 'what you talking bout you crazy woman, i was in Vegas last week and those cameras were used to shoot a feature with george clooney.' I'm sure they were!