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Author
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Topic: Modern Video Cameras
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Claus Harding
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1149
From: Washington DC
Registered: Oct 2006
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posted August 27, 2011 06:58 PM
Graham,
I would think because most are designed by committee, none of whom actually have to use these things.
You design a small "convenient" camcorder without the proper weight to hand-hold it comfortably. Then you add a load of features (which is the stuff you would want to use, like manual exposure and whatnot) and bury it in menus no-one will ever go through.
Next you get Zeiss (poor Zeiss....) to whore out their name again by saying the optics are "by them" for anyone who still cares, or even knows.
In the end, you have the same result: people walking around, single-hand holding these things, shooting at random in Full Auto mode.
I have shot professionally for 25 years in broadcast, and I have yet to buy a "compact" pro camera for those very same reasons.
Give me a 10-year-old Sony Betacam beast (25lbs) with manual switches for everything, a good lens with real focus and f-stop rings and real meters for monitoring audio....now that works, especially if you are in a hurry to set things. You simply cannot do that quickly on even the pro-grade compacts, because everything is "in menus."
Re: the screens. They don't get that much better as you move up. I work with $20,000 Panasonics and their cute color screens do not allow for the fast, snappy focus a good, high-contrast B/W display will.
Ah, progress..... ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
Claus.
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"Why are there shots of deserts in a scene that's supposed to take place in Belgium during the winter?" (Review of 'Battle of the Bulge'.)
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted August 27, 2011 09:51 PM
Well, my 6 year old Sony DVD camera takes great looking still shots as well as movies, and it weighs a couple of pounds and is big enough to hold steady. It's a nice camera and does a good job. But, as Graham says, all the new video cameras look like little toys and are a bit of a joke. If standard 8mm Kodachrome was still available, I would go back to my Bolex C8 with manual focussing, manual aperture setting, and a light meter, at the drop of a hat. The movies I got that way are the best quality I have ever taken.
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The best of all worlds- 8mm, super 8mm, 9.5mm, and HD Digital Projection,
Elmo GS1200 f1.0 2-blade
Eumig S938 Stereo f1.0 Ektar
Panasonic PT-AE4000U digital pj
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![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
...now, I am not exactly blind as a bat, but why do they make them so small? I have seen dinky toys bigger. Years ago the past owner of the cinema where I work, a self made millionare by the way, came into the projection room and had to put his glasses on "in his 40s" to answer his cell phone. We had a chat about how as you get older the "aging" thing for many of us does affect us in how we see and hear. I also mentioned to him that his hearing will be next ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
. By the time we had finished our wee chat I had made the guy depressed, to cheer him up I let him thread one of his projectors only to tell him that his threading was terrible, the worst I had ever seen. I am good like that, anyway in truth we got on really well ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Now where was I 
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