Cameras
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Cameras Guide funny quotes
Please add your own comments about the user friendliness or frustrations. It is not a complete list so please also do add new cameras that aren't included here or change things which might be out of date.
Glossary of Terms
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For those less technically minded
CCD - Charge coupled device: Electronic memory that records shades of light to capture images, including video. An analog-to-digital converter translates the light information into pixels, with more pixels offering higher resolution. Listed actual pixel count is more than the effective pixel count.funny jokes
Super 8mm
Tech Spec
- 1.36:1 Aspect Ratio.
- 8mm wide, actual space used is smaller than that because of the sprocket holes. It’s Super 8 be-cause they made the sprocket holes smaller to give more area over to the image than was man-aged for standard 8.
- With the film size being effectively the same sort of size as MiniDV camera chips, the picture quality could be thought of as similar to those cameras. It probably won’t look quite as sharp though due to the digital cameras ‘enhancing’ their picture’s sharpness.
- Traditionally super8mm runs at 18fps but the more advanced cameras have options to change the frame rate – bear in mind that using a faster frame rate will use weight loss pills the cartridge up faster.
Pros
- Film Grain. Lots and lots of lovely film grain
- On some cameras (including the Pro8mm which you can hire or purchase new) you can use C-Mount film lenses, meaning more possibilities with different lens lengths and also the possibil-ity of improving the quality of the picture with better quality lenses
- On some cameras you can do slow-motion
- Easy to load super8mm cartridges which you can post off to get processed
- Usually small, fairly easy to operate, fun funny facebook statuses cameras
Cons
- Resolution isn’t always the best, depending upon lenses and how much you have to crop into the image to get your correct aspect ratio
- To get best resolution you need higher cost camera with interchangeable lenses
- Running time on cartridge not much more than three minutes
- Not many places to get professional processing or transfer to tape.
- Old cameras can be loud causing problems for sound
Costs
You can buy second hand cameras from £10-£50 and they go into the thousands. Stock starts at about £11 for a cartridge (running for approx 3mins). Processing starts at about £15 per cartridge, telecine to miniDV about the same. If you need it quicker it’ll cost more.
MiniDV
Such as the Canon XL1, XL1s, XL2, Panasonic DVX100
Tech Spec
- 4:3 or 16:9 (1.33:1 or 1.77:1) Aspect Ratios.
- 3x 1/3” CCDs** (measured diagonally).
- 720x576 pixels.
- 8-BIT
- 5:1 Compression.
- 4:2:0 Colour Space
- 25Mbps Data Rate
Pros
- Availability and ease of use. It’s easy to get cameras and tapes (which are dead cheap), every home editing system supports the format using firewire, most cameras are easy to pick up and shoot with, and they are compact and therefore easy to transport dental implants
- Possibility of using better-quality lenses on Canon XL range
- Smaller cameras are camcorders and are treated as such by the public, who can be less of a pain than with larger cameras, also subjects can feel a lot more at ease with a smaller camera pointing at them, and the usual LCD screen makes it easier to look at your subject whilst continuing to shoot
- Canon XL2 and Panasonic HVX100 can both shoot progressive. XL2 is 16:9 native too
Cons
- Except when using optional manual lenses for Canon cameras, can be a bit of a bugger finding focus (servo rings not helped by usually fairly poor viewfinders and LCD screens)
- Always look soft under bright red lighting (a lack of green and blue really affects the sharp-ness).
- Can add nasty detail (increased contrast on the edges of objects in focus designed to add sharp-ness), which is very noticeable on a big screen, putting halos round the subject. This option can usually be turned down in user menus
- Poor compression and colour space means it’s not great for doing greenscreen.
- Most of the cameras are 4:3 native
- Worries over how long before tapes begin to degrade (not a good archiving format!)
- Looks good on the big screen with close-ups, but you notice the lack of resolution on wide shots
Costs
You can buy these cameras second hand for between £500-£2500. Rental of a full camera kit is approx £50-70 a day. Stock can be bought for as little as £2 for a 63minute tape. You can usually use the camera as a deck.
DVCam
Such as Sony PD150, PD170, Sony DSR-450, 500, Ikegami HL-DV7
Tech Spec
- 4:3 or 16:9 (1.33:1 or 1.77:1) Aspect Ratios.
- 1/3” CCDs for the smaller cameras, 2/3” chips for the larger ones…
- 720x576 pixels.
- 8-BIT
- 5:1 Compression.
- 4:2:0 Colour Space
- For the professional version of MiniDV, the tape runs a third faster and therefore more information is written to tape, meaning it’s that bit more stable than MiniDV. It doesn’t improve the picture or the sound quality on it’s own though, it simply means a lot less likelihood of dropout or timecode problems.
Pros
- Much the same format as MiniDV, will work easily with all home-editing systems using firewire
- Can use MiniDV tapes if you get stuck without DVCAM stock
- With the 450, 500, HL-DV7 you’re in the world of using proper manual lenses and de-cent viewfinders and the effect is startling. Suddenly it’s easy to get things in focus!
- Progressive frame rate with the 450, means it captures only 25 solid frames per sec-ond rather than “interlaced” (50 half-frames per second which are interwoven to make up a full picture)
Cons
- Pretty much the same downsides as MiniDV
- It’s a lot more cumbersome to be working with the larger cameras. They’re heavy, meant for the shoulder rather than in front of you. *Tripods, steadicams, everything has to be larger. Batteries are bigger, tapes are bigger, and it all means more thought needs to go into the logistics of everything you do – (usually a good thing, actually). One-man-banding this is a pain in the arse, you need helping hands
- Looks good on the big screen with close-ups, but you can notice the lack of resolution on wide shots
Costs
You can buy the smaller cameras second hand for between £1000-£2500. Rental of a full camera kit is approx £200-250 a day for the larger cameras, £50-£100 for the smaller ones. DVCAM stock starts at about £12 for a large 64min tape or £8 for a small 40min. You can usually use the camera as a deck.
HDV 1080i (interlace)
Such as Sony Z1, A1 or V1 or Canon XL H1
Tech Spec
- 16:9 (1.77:1) Aspect Ratio.
- 1/3” CCDs.
- 1440x1080 pixels
- 8-BIT
- 40:1 Inter-Frame Compression.
- 4:2:0 Colour Space
- 25Mbps Data Rate
Pros
- You can pretend you’re shooting High Definition!
- In reality you’re looking at a sort of “half HD” – these cameras can’t compare to the larger professional cameras, but then when you think of the difference in price they get really rather closer than you’d expect
- All the benefits of having a small camera
- Uses cheap as chips miniDV tapes, although you can buy higher grade ones if you’d rather
- Most home editing systems can now handle the format
- 16:9 native funny jokes
- Supposedly a more stable format than DV as there is a larger danger if you get drop-out because of the inter-frame compression, so it’s been designed with more safety measures in place. That said if you do get dropout it will affect a much larger amount of frames than on other formats
- XLH1 has HD-SDI output so you can bypass the HDV compression for greater quality (means you need a deck or a capture system onset though)
- HVR-V1 can do 1080p resolution! This should mean it can compete with the 720p cameras at the same level
Cons
- Have a look at that compression rate! There’s been a serious amount of jiggery-pokery to get such a bigger picture out of exactly the same tapes and data rate as MiniDV
- Interlace cameras with pseudo-progressive modes which lose resolution
- Same problems with colour as the DV formats, making greenscreen harder
- The LCD viewfinders and pull-out screens still make it hard to get focus, although the XLH1 has a fairly decent viewfinder
- Audio is compressed, down to 384kbps
- In the early days people were having trouble editing the format because of the inter-frame compression and indeed some broadcasters are wary of the format for that same reason.
- Can look good on the big screen but feels a little soft compared to HD, S16 or 35mm
Costs
New, these cameras cost upwards of £3000. Rental of a full camera kit is approx £80-150 a day. HDV stock starts at about £7 for a 63min tape. You can usually use the camera as a deck.
HDV 720p progressive
Such as JVC GY-HD100U
Tech Spec
- 16:9 (1.77:1) Aspect Ratio.
- 1/3” CCDs.
- 1280x720 pixels
- 8-BIT
- 40:1 Inter-Frame Compression.
- 4:2:0 Colour Space
- 19.5Mbps Data Rate
Pros
- Chance to use different lenses and a proper manual focus
- 16:9 native. Progressive pictures
- Doing well in tests, compares well to the other pro-consumer HD cameras on the market
Cons
- Same thing with compression (video and audio) and green screen as the other HDV cameras
- Not as much pixel acreage as the interlace cameras
- Can look good on the big screen but feels a little soft compared to HD, S16 or 35mm
Costs
New, upwards of £3000. Rental of a full camera kit is approx £120-200 a day. HDV stock is approx £7 for a 63min tape.
P2
Such as Panasonic HVX200
Tech Spec
- 16:9 (1.77:1) Aspect Ratio.
- 1/3” CCDs
- 960x720 pixels
- 8-BIT
- 7:1 Compression
- 4:2:2 Colour Space
- 100Mbps
- This could be part of a new digital revolution. There’s still a tape deck but much more importantly, there’s the chance of putting it to P2 solid-state memory cards, or hard drive, for the best quality pictures, meaning it’s recording at exactly the same quality as the fully-grown Varicam. Obviously it’s not as good; it uses smaller chips and lesser-quality lenses. But it’s not far off.
Pros
- You can do Slow Motion and using P2 you can watch it back straight away! On the Varicam you need a whole extra box to do that
- 16:9 native, progressive
- Using P2 cards or a hard drive you can get full-quality DVCPRO HD pictures (which is now becoming supported by home editing systems), whilst still backing up to a lesser format on tape
- Still a small camera so has all of those benefits
- Better colour space means it should be better for greenscreen than HDV or miniDV
- Final Cut Pro up-resses it to 1280x720 pixels
- No audio compression like in HDV,nor inter-frame compression so less worry with post
Cons
- Only records miniDV to tape and the P2 cards are very expensive. That said, given time they may get cheaper and there are small portable hard drives you can connect via firewire to record in top quality DVCPRO HD
- Using P2 in post may still be a little painful, given time it’ll all be ironed out
- Compression is still pretty high and can cause problems in grading when you try and push the image
- Not as much pixel acreage as the interlace cameras and look good on the big screen but feels a little soft compared to HD, S16 or 35mm
Costs
New, these cameras cost upwards of £4000. Rental of a full camera kit is approx £120-200 a day. P2 cards are reusable but rather expensive - £800 for 8GB (8mins of DVCProHD). Hard Drives start at £1600 for 100GB. You can use the camera as a deck but bear in mind you may have to spend time on the shoot capturing so you can shoot some more.
Digibeta
Such as Sony DVW970, DVW790, DVW700
Tech Spec
- 4:3 or 16:9 (1.33:1 or 1.77:1) Aspect Ratios.
- 2/3” CCDs
- 720x576 pixels
- 10-BIT
- 3:1 Compression
- 4:2:2 Colour Space
- 90Mbps
- The true TV industry workhorse, Digibeta is still the choice of most producers making TV and is pretty much always the tape format you’ll be required to deliver for tv and a lot of digital cinema screenings. The 970 is a progressive frame update to the 790, now discontinued because it doesn’t meet new European regulations.
Pros
- Ok we’re now into the proper world of the professionals and all these cameras have mounted lenses so you can use anything in front of the camera – using HD lenses WILL give you better quality pictures
- Better compression rates and colour space means this is a better choice for green-screen.
- A solid format, very little worries about dropout
Cons
- Bigger, heavier, more expensive, you want people who have used this stuff before to be operating and carrying it around
- All said and told, it’s still only standard definition. Pictures are the best you can get in SD, but on a big screen they will look softer than HD, S16mm or 35mm
- Higher bit rate and no firewire connection means you’re looking at editing in a post house and then you’re getting into a world of offline/online which takes a little while to get used to if you’ve always edited at full resolution at home. Alternatively you can get the tapes dubbed down or get someone to put all your rushes onto hard drive
Costs
Rental of a full camera kit is approx £250-350 a day. Digibeta stock is approx £14 for a 40min tape. Most post houses will have Digi decks but there’ll be a cost if you’re trying to get it onto hard drive for editing at home.
DVCProHD
Such as Panasonic AJHDC27 (Varicam)
Tech Spec
- 16:9 (1.77:1) Aspect Ratio.
- 2/3” CCDs
- 960x720 pixels
- 8-BIT
- 7:1 Compression
- 4:2:2 Colour Space
- 100Mbps
- The Varicam works in mysterious ways. It ALWAYS records 60 frames a second to tape (or 59.94 frames if you’re using American formats) no matter what frame rate you record at. It simply doubles or triples up frames and ‘flags’ them so that your edit system will recognise this and take them out, leaving only the frames that should be there.
Pros
- Slow Motion! This can’t be over-emphasised. Video has always fallen down compared to film due to the lack of this function and it really adds something special to your footage to be able to mess around with frame rates
- You can edit at home! Using Final Cut Pro and a firewire cable you can edit everything at home in full resolution (although you really do need a recent-decent spec Mac to contemplate it.
- Progressive frame rate
- Ok for greenscreen but higher compression and lower bit rate mean it’s not necessarily better than Digibeta
- Good looking pictures. If it’s for TV, in some ways it’s comparative lack of resolution means that it can look more ‘film-like’ than the sharper HDCAM
Cons
- Ah the pain of variable frame rate. Unlike film, which simply speeds up the amount of film going through the gate to get slow-motion (why it’s called ‘high speed’), videotape always runs at the same pace. The Varicam jumps through hoops which the P2 (no tape) HVX200 doesn’t have to. It’s a shame there is no P2/hard drive option with the camera. This can cause problems in the edit and it’s probably wisest to use Panasonic’s frame rate converter as well as their deck to capture your footage at the correct rate – there is a frame rate converter within Final Cut Pro, but it’s sometimes erratic.
- The camera doesn’t have a firewire port so you have to hire a deck for post. This is obviously how it’s supposed to be - the camera is for capturing stuff not playback - but it’s still that bit harder
- Looks good on the big screen but feels a little soft compared to HD, S16 or 35mm
Costs
Rental of a full camera kit is approx £450-550 a day. DVCProHD stock is approx £16 for a ‘126’ tape which’ll last for a quarter of that time due to the faster speed of the Varicam tape mechanism. You will most likely have to hire a deck to capture footage, and the Panasonic Variable Frame Rate Converter will help if you’ve shot at different frame rates too – these are approx £150-250 and £150-300 a day respectively.
16mm / Super 16mm
Such as Arri SRI, SRII, SRIII Aaton Xtera, Minima
Tech Spec
- 1.34:1 or 1.67:1 Aspect Ratios (16 or S16).
- The Film is 16mm wide. Standard 16 has space on one side of the film for sound. This is mainly useful in projection rather than capture though, which is where Super 16 comes in, using that space for picture instead to get more resolution, with the knowledge that it will be used only for telecine to video or blow-up to 35mm.
- To get widescreen aspect ratios you have to crop the image or use anamorphic lenses.
Pros
- Film grain. It looks good
- Better latitude for lighting than video, can be pushed further in post
- Much better handling of highlights than video, there’ll be a lot more information there which makes it easier to grade
- Slow Motion
- Cost of stock forces you to be a little bit more considered
- Super 16mm could be thought of as about the same as HDCAM.
- A wide choice of high quality lenses
- TRUE Prime lenses (those for video are fixed-focal length with a lot more glass in them than Film Primes, meaning a better quality image with Film Primes)
- Aaton make small cameras
Cons
- All the paraphernalia that comes with film will make things slower
- Changing film is tricky and scary and requires someone who really knows what they are doing
- No full-quality monitors, only flickery stuff, means focus pullers want to take more time to get it right (which is also a plus point, means your film will look as good as it can do)
- Quite a bit of kit usually means quite a bit of crew
- That said, it’s entirely possible for things to be simpler, just make sure you have someone who really knows what they’re doing when it comes to loading the camera, sorting out focus and metering light to get the correct f-stop
Costs
Rental of a full camera kit is approx £150-300 a day cash advance loans. 16mm stock is approx £50--90 for a 400ft can (runs for approx 11mins). Kodak do good discounts for short films. Processing is usually approx 8-15p per foot (£32-60 per can) and not something you can get for free. Telecine depends a lot upon what process you choose to use – 2K, to tape, with an operator, one light (usually done at the time of processing and costing approx the same again), and at one extreme it’s possible to get thrown in with the cost of the grade (which we managed on Death of the Revolution) or could be as much as £400 per hour.
35mm
Such as Panavision Millenium XL, XL2, Panaflex, etc. Arricam, Arriflex 435 etc. Aaton 35 III
Tech Specs
- 1.33 Aspect Ratio (4:3)
- The film is 35mm wide with sprocket holes on both sides. The image is between those but with a space for optical stereo sound down one side. Usually for 1.85 aspect ratio, the image is cropped and Super 35mm uses the space for sound to record a 2.35:1 ratio image.
- Anamorphic Lenses can be used (Panavision, Cinemascope, ‘Scope’) to achieve a 2.35 aspect ratio. This squashes the image in much the same way you see 16:9 being squashed into a 4:3 aspect ratio; it uses more of the height of the film and makes for a better resolution. You notice when things are shot in scope by the funny way things move when there’s a focus pull crazy tattoos.
Pros
- Better latitude for lighting than video, and can be pushed further in post
- Much better handling of highlights than video, there’ll be a lot more information there which makes it easier to grade
- Slow Motion
- Cost of everything forces you to be very considered
- Best choice of high quality lenses
- TRUE Prime lenses (those for video are fixed-focal length with a lot more glass in them than Film Primes, meaning a better quality image with Film Primes)
- Unlike digital, there’s no compression at capture so you’ve got the best quality original to mess about with in post
Cons
- Not as good in capturing information in the blacks.
- COST!
Costs
Rental of a full camera kit is approx £1000-1500 a day – but that is a full-on kit of eve-rything including primes, zooms, dolly and track, not included with the previous cam-eras. 35mm stock is approx £90-150 for a 400ft can (runs for approx 4 and a bit minutes). Kodak do good discounts for short films. Processing is usually approx 15-30p per foot (£60-120 per can) and not something you can get for free. Telecine depends a lot upon what process you choose to use – 2K, 4K, to tape, with an operator, one light (usually done at the time of processing and costing approx the same again).