What kind of camera...?

13spanner

Firstly, sorry if this is in the wrong place, bit of a newb to the Film Production forum

The video in my signature is my first proper one filming and editing, and I'm proud of it as my first one

What I'd like to improve on for next year is:
- Proper 16:9 video, of a decent enough quality.
- A microphone that will allow me to capture sound without wind (this was the main reason my first video was backed completely with a song )

What camera and gear would you recommend?
Any thoughts or views appreciated, I'll take it all on board

face1990

Not sure which kind of camera would be best, but for outdoor sound you'd want to have a shotgun mic & windscreen (something like this: http://www.thomann.de/ie/rode_ntg2_dead_cat_bundle.htm). You can get decent mics & windscreens that will clip straight onto a DSLR camera, but those are obviously less versatile.

You should also considering getting a boom pole to put the mic onto.

Finally, depending on the camera you use, you may need a separate audio recorder (I use a Zoom H4 myself. It's an older version of the Zoom H4N). Zoom are good little recorders, which you can plug a boom mic straight into & record high quality audio.

Hope thats of some help!

Memnoch

All depends on your budget. You'll probably want a separate sound recorder such as the H4N + a mic. However, you can probably rent this kind of equipment fairly cheap for a shoot rather than buying it outright.

As for camera, again it depends on your budget but you should do some research and reading. A few sites you should check out are cinema5d, eoshd, phillipbloom.net and www.dvxuser.com also nofilmschool.net has a free 'cinematography' guide with some good basic info on equipment.

Personally if I was buying I would go for the GH2/GH3 I think they are best value for money in the DSLR range. a GH brand new with kit lens can be had in dublin for around 650 euro. GH3 is due for release anytime now and is 1200-1300 pounds. GH2 second hand can be got for around 400 pounds on ebay but without glass at that price range.

The cannon 5D MKII & III are the most popular DSLRs but twice the price of the panasonic ones.

Also... it's not just about the camera. Lenses cost too. And you can spend almost as much, if not more, on the lenses starting out as on the camera body.

If you're just going to make one or maybe even two short films a year, you might be better hiring equipment from filmbase.ie or other such places or finding people to work with who will bring their own equipment.

Best of luck!

RichyX

I've been shooting with a Pana GH1 for almost 2 years now and have been extremely happy with the results.
It's compact and good value and the GH2 is said to be even better in some regards.
Found the Canon models to comparatively be a pain to work with due to the more limited range of manual lenses, battery life and general awkward handling.