Muzman on 12/10/2010 at 04:03
Quote Posted by Vernon
Okay, without a hell of a lot of research into this, I am looking at something like the Canon 550D or the Nikon 3100, for taking general pictures about the place and videos of some friends playing music.
The things I guess I need to know are firstly, how you record large amounts of 1080p footage. Do you hook up an external hard drive? 16 gig memory cards is a huge price per gigabyte. Secondly, is it possible to hook up a condenser microphone to these things? I have a phantom power unit and I imagine it would just work as per usual, but does anyone have any experience miking with these things?
They are kinda annoying for event work in that respect. From what I gather the 4gig per clip limit is to do with the file system (some of the Nikons only allow 2gig. Dunno about the 3100 right this minute). So a data out may not help you even if you could hook one up (not that Ive tried it).
Also worth noting that you need the very fastest, or near to, memory cards (the one I see most is the Sandisk
EXTREEEME! \m/:mad:\m/ range) or you get buffer overruns when recording for "long" periods.
People get around this sort of thing (and have been doing so with tape as well for some time) with HDMI capture devices (
http://www.matrox.com/video/en/products/mac/mxo2_family/mxo2_mini/) like (
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/h264prorecorder/) these (
http://www.aja.com/products/kipro/ki-pro-mini/ki-pro-mini-description.php) things.
Which would probably do exactly what you want, but add somewhat to the budget and kit size *cough*.
I've never tried it from an audio stickler's perspective but the audio on the 550d seems fine, even surprisingly good just from the internal mic. They all have external mic ins these days, and while not the world's sturdiest connections, do the job. And you can get shoe mounts for most mics o' course. The headphone jacks are as variable as you might expect. But there's guys like Magic Lantern making firmwares with live level monitoring on the viewscreen, in Canons, so that sort of thing might added officially one day.
Fafhrd on 12/10/2010 at 05:25
The Nikons tend to go for recording time as opposed to file size (I've heard that this is because in some countries allowing video recording above a certain length classifies it as a camcorder instead of a camera, which incurs some additional sales tax or something). The D3100 has a ten minute maximum for video recording. It also doesn't have any sort of external mic input, so you're stuck with the internal mono-mic, and if you're using the continuous autofocus, that mic
will pick up the drive noise from the lens.
I haven't been able to figure out if there's any sort of HDMI live-view while recording video on the new Nikons either (Chase Jarvis is, I believe, the only person who's had any significant hands on time with the D7000 (which shares a lot of specs with the D3100) and shot a (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbBKukJzBk) short film with it, but on his blog he said he didn't have any sort of live view rig while they were shooting), so I couldn't say if Muz's external HDMI capture things would work with it (the Nikon spec sheets list 'Advanced Video Cording' in the movie specs, but I have no idea what that actually means [edit]I think this is actually a typo on Nikon's part, and they just mean it does MPEG4 AVC).
If the choice is between the 550D and D3100 and the video/audio capabilities are really important to you, I'd go with the 550D.
Vernon on 13/10/2010 at 00:50
Thanks guys, that's some really helpful information. I'm going to head into town so I can feel the heft of these things. I might have some more questions later. Thanks again!
Muzman on 15/10/2010 at 14:55
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
(Chase Jarvis is, I believe, the only person who's had any significant hands on time with the D7000 (which shares a lot of specs with the D3100) and shot a (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMbBKukJzBk) short film with it
Cute. Like the RC helicopter 'crane' (there's a spot for continuous auto focus). Oh these fancier models and their night shooting (like (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GD9w29zD5E) this stuff too). *sigh* I can't see myself stretching to it though. I'll just sigh and lament instead.
Fafhrd on 15/10/2010 at 20:52
Quote Posted by Muzman
Oh these fancier models and their night shooting (like (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GD9w29zD5E) this stuff too). *sigh* I can't see myself stretching to it though. I'll just sigh and lament instead.
Yeah, I have a friend who belly dances, so the prospect of being able to shoot high-res video of her performances even in dimly lit venues is a
huge draw for me. Hopefully I'll be able to afford one in January.
Muzman on 8/11/2010 at 06:54
Decisions decisions. I'm just going to expound a little on how annoying it is picking one of these things.
I'm looking pretty hard at a Canon 60D. It's been dropping in price nice and fast since it came out, thanks to other releases past and imminent. It's not ideal in a number of ways. It's pretty good though, by the looks. It's a bit better than the 550d and apparently not so prone to overheating. It seems nearly as good as the 7d but a lot cheaper (body robustness and things like auto shot speed apparently make the difference there). But there's a lot of other manufacturers to consider.
The Nikon D3100 looks perfectly fine, actually. A bargain even. But I wouldn't mind the external screen as it's chiefly for video. The 60D also has a few other video-ee functions like an internal level indicator and a fully manual white balance, adjustable in 100 kelvin increments.
The Sony Alpha 55 has a lot of these sorts of things, including a swivel screen, but the reviews of its video aren't very good. The bigger guns like the D7000 and 5DII are holding their price nicely at nearly twice as much just for the body. I tend to feel that if I want to be that hard core and make it worthwhile I have to really get lenses to match, which means even more money on top (as much again for a high quality multi purpose zoom).
The dark horse is the Panasonic GH2, coming out in about a month. It'll land just in my price ballpark, according to estimates (maybe even right on the dot, if they copy Nikon's approach of throwing cats among the pidgeons, price wise). The GH1 turned a lot of heads once its firmware was hacked to allow nearly miraculous bitrates, its relatively teeny sensor not proving an obstacle to picture quality at all it seems. Everyone will be falling all over themselves to do even more with this one (although there's talk Panasonic will take steps to make this hard as it'll turn the thing into a competitor their video cameras don't need. Meaning there's be at least a good delay until someone gets anything extra out of it).
There's a few strikes against it. One is it uses a squidgy touchscreen interface for just about everything. Keeping a monitor clean is hard enough as it is without being required to touch it. This however violates my 'video quality above all else, including inconvenience' metric. The other thing is Fourthirds format lenses are neither common or cheap around here. Also it's not out yet. But even so shouldn't I wait until it comes out and see what it does to the prices of others? But it's soo loooong to wait *gngngng* I wannit nowwwww -flaps arms-
60d is still winning. But its kinda a sad sort of limping victory, since I get the impression the whole game is going to change suddenly and very soon (I love (
http://www.google.com.au/images?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&tbs=isch:1&&sa=X&ei=6pXXTJimNIHvcMjqyfcL&ved=0CCIQBSgA&q=sony+nex+5&spell=1&biw=1295&bih=1237) these things for instance. They aren't that great compared to proper SLRs at the moment but they look so cool). It's that old problem though isn't it: waiting and seeing is always worthwhile with tech but in the meantime you haven't got the thing you want/need/are lying to yourself that you need. Reading the sites doesn't help as they seem to be populated largely with grumpy commenters who buy one or two cameras a year (and often they don't seem to be pros of any stripe either. Just gadget crazy nerds who somehow have amazing amounts of money. I suppose I should be grateful they're there to buy everything and tell me it sucks). And you're constantly reminded that you are not they.
Anyway, the kit I'm looking at comes with two lenses. An 18-55 and a 55-250. They've both got image stabilisers, which is nice, but reviews (and the price of sticking them both in the box) indicate that they're at the bottom end of Canon's range. I'm not too sure I need to be all that worried. They each apparently have their strong points along their lengths, getting variously dodgy inbetween as you'd expect. I'll probably throw a nice fast 50mm prime just for fun as well (the basic canon one is just fine and cheap). The next stop up the ladder would be a 15-85mm jobbie that gets stellar reviews, but is about twice the price of those other three lenses put together. Another *sigh*. I'm not hardcore. I can borrow more hardcore stuff if I really need to, really. But I don't know (I can bait and switch myself better than any salesman sometimes). Probably the cheapies are enough for me.
New credit period just ticked over. I'll give it a day or two and see if any new reviews or what not change my mind on the whole thing.
Fafhrd on 9/11/2010 at 00:19
I actually got robbed (left the front door unlocked when I went to the post office for 30 minutes, came home to find the door wide open and my TV mysteriously in the living room instead of my bedroom) a few weeks back and they nabbed all my camera stuff (except my tripods), my Wii, and a handful of games. Today I found out how much the insurance is paying out and it's way more than I was expecting (just shy of $2000 after the deductible). With some careful shopping I think I should be able to replace the stolen lenses, the finder scope, the Wii and the games, and have enough left over to get the D7000 (probably with a couple hundred out of pocket)..
I'm still kind of annoyed, because my plan had been to get the D7k with any chrimbo money I might have gotten, and still have the D50 for a backup.
I still want to actually get my hands on one before deciding, though. One local camera store has it and the guy behind the counter was all 'Yeah, it's a great camera, and the kit's a good deal.' and I was all 'Can I see it?' and he was all 'No.' So I'm probably not going to shop at that camera store ever.
Mingan on 9/11/2010 at 04:47
Just this once?
Fafhrd on 25/12/2010 at 02:54
D7000 GET! The number of buttons and settings on this thing is kind of intimidating, especially coming from the D50, so I haven't taken many pictures or much video with it yet (and I need to get a couple of decent SD cards. Right now I'm using a 1 gig MicroSD that I happened to have laying about). The internal mic, while decent quality, picks up absolutely everything that the lens is doing while recording video. I was adjusting the zoom and manual focusing and when I played it back it was all 'scriitch. Click. bump. scrape scrape. scriiiitch.' So I think I'm going to have to get myself one of them external stereo mics with a hotshoe connector if I'm going to do much video (recommendations welcome. Most places seem to favour the Sennheiser MKE 400).
Will post links to picture and video once I've got them.
Renzatic on 25/12/2010 at 21:54
Quote Posted by Fafhrd
D7000 GET!
Merry Christmas! My jealousy makes me hate you. :mad:
