Camcorder suggestions
- Thread starter AHarvey
- Start date
I've got a Canon HF200.
It's very crisp and excellent quality in good light conditions, but, like most in this range, can suffer with noise in low-light situations.
The single sensor, and the AVCHD codec used on most, both contribute to this.
Also, rather annoyingly, is that over here we have the PAL version, which is 50 fps interlaced, or 25 fps progressive. Elsewhere you get 60i or 30p options - which will be better for uploading to the web or viewing on the PC (as most monitors are 60hz refresh rate) - though displaying on a 50hz HDTV will be OK
Most of my footage is for the web, so that's annoying for me! I'm looking into whether I can do anything with it to get the 60i/30p options on my PAL unit (and whether it will actually make a decent difference)
It's very crisp and excellent quality in good light conditions, but, like most in this range, can suffer with noise in low-light situations.
The single sensor, and the AVCHD codec used on most, both contribute to this.
Also, rather annoyingly, is that over here we have the PAL version, which is 50 fps interlaced, or 25 fps progressive. Elsewhere you get 60i or 30p options - which will be better for uploading to the web or viewing on the PC (as most monitors are 60hz refresh rate) - though displaying on a 50hz HDTV will be OK
Most of my footage is for the web, so that's annoying for me! I'm looking into whether I can do anything with it to get the 60i/30p options on my PAL unit (and whether it will actually make a decent difference)
Soldato
- Joined
- 5 Aug 2003
- Posts
- 8,537
- Location
- Essex
ditto
Also, rather annoyingly, is that over here we have the PAL version, which is 50 fps interlaced, or 25 fps progressive. Elsewhere you get 60i or 30p options - which will be better for uploading to the web or viewing on the PC (as most monitors are 60hz refresh rate) - though displaying on a 50hz HDTV will be OK
Most of my footage is for the web, so that's annoying for me! I'm looking into whether I can do anything with it to get the 60i/30p options on my PAL unit (and whether it will actually make a decent difference)
I wouldn't really worry about this, PCs and Monitors can compensate so you won't notice any difference.
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I noticed this the other night I was taking some video at a car rally in the dark. The lights coming right at me meant you could see nothing but when you could actually make out the car once it got closer it was very grainy. Using an HV40 tape based camcorder. I was shooting in HDV25. In the daytime though the quality is class.
Soldato
- Joined
- 5 Aug 2003
- Posts
- 8,537
- Location
- Essex
Progressive mode should help with night time shooting, also using cine mode or 1/50 should help.
Night-time/dark shooting on any consumer-class handy cam is going to result in grainy video purely because the CMOS sensor is tiny.
And no, current efforts with 3xCCDs aren't any better (because they sit in other camcorders that don't have the same processing as Canons) - I've had both.
An interesting alternative is the Sony NEX series, but they won't handle like a handy cam...
And no, current efforts with 3xCCDs aren't any better (because they sit in other camcorders that don't have the same processing as Canons) - I've had both.
An interesting alternative is the Sony NEX series, but they won't handle like a handy cam...