Reviews of Video Equipment
From Izzy Video Wiki
Contents |
Cameras
Canon GL2
I've owned the Canon GL2 for more than 2 years, and it has been an excellent video camera. The imagery it produces with its 3 CCD sensors is top-notch. The camera has what Canon calls "Frame Mode" which means that it can capture in a progressive format. This gives the captured imagery more of a "film look" because film captures one complete image at a time, too. Finally, the manual controls, over focus, aperture, sensitivity, and shutter speed, make the camera an excellent one for more sophisticated videographers.
I have had one problem with it. About two years into owning it, it started to eat tapes, but that wasn't too big of an issue for me, because I simply sent it to a service center. A couple days and fifty dollars later, it returned to me via the mail, and it worked flawlessly again.
Overall, I've been very happy with this camera.
Panasonic SD1
The SD1 has been in my possession for about 3 months now. I saw that it was incredibly small, 3CCD, HD, nearly completely solid state ('cept the lens cap and focus which are both motorized), and has a very fast workflow--so I just had to buy it.
One of the original difficulties was that AVCHD wasn't widely supported. It's now fully supported in FCP and many Windows editors. The workflow is fantastic. Just copy the files over and import into FCP. The conversion is faster than real-time tape xfer and feels more natural to a computer geek like me since you're working with files instead of tape.
The 5.1 recording is kinda neat, but I haven't really taken full advantage yet since the import process reduces it to stereo in FCP. The internal mic is good for minor stuff, but for recording subjects more than 15 feet away a shotgun mic is a good idea. There's no accessory shoe so you'll need a flash mount or similar to add a shoe. It looks kinda odd since the camera is so small, and the mic is bigger than the camera, but works nicely.
The color is pretty good, but it's a little less than I was expecting from a 3CCD camera. Bright colors seem to pop a little more than they should and medium tones are just slightly flat. Some of this may be fixable with a little better white balance, but I haven't tried that yet. I've posted an example with strong colors and my son for skin tones. Again, very good color representation, but off just a tiny bit. Worse Case Video As you can see from this second clip if you stay away from fluorescents the color is what you would expect from a 3CCD camera. Normal Video
Update: Manually setting the white balance was a huge help and normalized the tones out perfectly. Just what you would expect from a 3CCD camera. It is, however, unfortunate that the auto white balance isn't any smarter than it is. Perhaps that's to be expected from a con/pro-sumer camera leaning heavily on the side of con. Setting the white balance is a normal part of my prep now, along with capturing ambient noise per Izzy's suggestion. Indoors with white balance set. Notice how the colors look so much more natural.
So very happy with this camera.
Overall a ton of features and a ton of quality for $749 street price.
Microphones
Sennheiser ME66
This is the best shotgun microphone for the money. The audio that comes from it is an amazingly high, broadcast quality. It's durable and reliable. If you're considering a shotgun microphone, go with this one.
Azden SMX-10
This is an inexpensive shotgun mic that has relatively good quality. You do get what you pay for, and for $79 street, the quality is just _good_. That's all I needed since I'm usually just recording speeches at podiums from across the room. If you're not too picky, on a budget, and want something fairly small, go with this one. This video was recorded using this Mic: Ron Paul President of Dekalb County
