DESPERATE HELP NEEDED - What camera to buy?

louie12ie

Hi all,

I dont know much abut cameras at all but I am trying to get into it but the problem is I dont know which one to buy or even where to start off? The whole purpose of getting a camera is to record live gigs enviornments so need a camera that has good sound quality and a good mic for playback via pc. Also the enviornments I would be in would be quite dim so need some sort of camera with good lighting. I am also a student so cant really afford expensive cameras so anyone can recommend a good cheap camera suitable for shooting gigs would be perfect. Thanks all.

Miguel_Sanchez

If you're shooting live gigs the best bet for you sound-wise would be to get a feed off the mixing deck, don't rely on an on-board mic because your levels will go mental.

louie12ie

Yea thats what I was thinking. Is there anything that could work without the direct lead into the decks maybe an external mic or do they even exist? Or what type of camera would you recommend for that type of enviornment? Thanks

Tactical

Unfortunately you're not going to have great success using an on-board mic. You're going to have to be a certain distance from the stage / performance area depending on the lens you are using. So you're going to pick up all the ambient noise as well as the wanted sound. This becomes more of an issue if you're shooting from dynamic locations rather than one static location.

A feed from the sound desk is definately the preferred method. You can feed into a wireless microphone transmitter and plug the receiver into your camera.

Find a camera with XLR inputs if you're looking to undertake serious work. This will allow you to connect an type of external audio input you want, be it external microphone or wireless receiver.

You also asked about lighting, well any on-board light is not really going to be adequate for the senario you've outlined. Lighting really should be considered seperately, you'll be more usefully employed looking at sensor noise at low light levels. A band at a gig will generally have stage lighting and anything you'll add from an on-board light source isn't going to have much of an impact and may even end up annoying / distracting the band performing.

You'll find a good few SD cameras for sale at reasonable price, review sensor noise performance when making a decision and you'll even find a number of 720p HD cameras available too. Look out for head and fan hours when making a decision. Anything with either a Canon L-series lens or a Fujinon lens is going to offer good optical performance, its down to sensor noise after that really...

Any more information you can provide may be useful in obtaining additional advice.

face1990

You could look into getting an audio recorder (maybe something like a Zoom H4N) and record your video and audio seperately. Depends on your budget I suppose, but a handy little audio recorder is something worth investing in IMHO.