I need a name of a video camera that will work well with an Apple, can be used with a tripod, and produces a high quality picture.
Also need a stand-alone microphone.
Suggestions?
Tech Advice
by John Cole| 59 Comments
This post is in: Science & Technology
gbear
Tunch is making demands? No more silent grainy web cam shots?
Laura W
I suggest you prepare yourself for a thread full of porn jokes.
jayackroyd
i am happy with the 99 dollar Snoball mic. No camera advice.
Mnemosyne
Don’t forget the first rule of vblogging — don’t drink until after you’ve finished taping or you’ll end up like Ann Althouse.
John Cole
@Laura W: Shit. I didn’t think of that.
The Grand Panjandrum
How much you want to spend?
Go to B & H Photo website and look around. They have good pricing and an excellent selection. I’ve been doing business with them for years.
UPDATE: Do you need a camera with external mic capablility? If so then you are going to spend a lot of money. If not, and you need a separate mic for voice over then I recommend the Shure 58.
The Other Steve
WOO HOO! John Cole is branching out to youtube!
srv
DougJ is going to make BJ podcasts with a sock puppet?
AhabTRuler
@The Grand Panjandrum: I’ll second B&H.
Joe Max
I think Audio Technica offers the best value for the money in mics for video recorders. For the well-under $100 range, get the ATR-55. It is switchable to use as a close-up mic, or as a distance “shotgun” mic.
At Buy.com here.
I’m assuming you want the stand alone mic to use with the video camera?
The Grand Panjandrum
@AhabTRuler: Yea, their store on 34th Street in NYC is the greatest electronic store on Earth and worth a visit.
mgordon
I remember when I made my first porno. Make sure it has good zoom.
Face
I smell an American Idol audition tape!
jrg
I’ve got a Zoom H2 that records to an SD drive, and I’m happy with it. Do you need a mic to attach to the video camera? Do you want the mic to record to a separate track on the computer, or on the camera’s drive?
There are thousands of different kinds of mics. You might want a lapel mic, if you’re interested in making videos. I’d go to a camera store and/or a music store, like Sam Ash.
gwangung
I use the Samson USB mikes, but, really, any of them are nearly overkill for most work (I do audio work for theatre and video). It’s more important to have a quiet, sound deadening place to record in.
I have a DVMx0100A, with XLR inputs; that’s fancy…again, could be overkill for you.
Jon H
Firewire aka 1394 might be a good idea.
I eagerly await the TunchCam.
Joe Max
If you’re looking for a good stand-alone podcast mic, I recommend getting a a USB microphone, unless you plan on getting a stand-alone pre-amp to go with it (you would need a pre-amp to use the Shure SM-58 with a computer). The Sampson C01U Mic is a good value for the money (around $100) and sounds pretty good.
A really cheap mic will make your voice sound, well, really cheap. What MP3 encoding does to vocal sound is already bad enough!
Or if you want to go the mic-preamp route, get the Shure SM58 along with an ART Tube MP preamp (about $35.) But the Shure is close to $200, so it’s an investment.
Stimpy
I just bought a new video camera for the house. My daughter wanted to imitate her YouTube friends and start posting vlogs. The wife and I were just looking for something simple.
I ended up with the
Canon FS11. I like it.
Pros:
48x optical zoom, flash memory (no moving parts FTW) Nice and lightweight. It is small enough to easily fit in my hand and takes good indoor video.
It interfaces just fine with my MacBook Pro (iMovie works just fine with it), and it can shoot forever with an extra memory card.
Cons:
Not HD. But I don’t have a blueray player or several spare terabyte drives hanging around so that is not an issue.
jrg
@Joe Max
I doubt he’ll want an SM-58 unless he’s singing live (best mic in the world for that).
Evinfuilt
Really need to help us here, help you.
Location: Will this be used indoors, outdoors, both? which one more often. Will lighting be prepared or random. Realize the lighting you use will make a bigger difference than the camera you choose (most of the time.)
Acoustics of the location(s), or are you going to redub in a home studio?
What type of video, are you recording talking heads or car racing from an airplane while hanging upside down.
Rheinhard
I’ve had the old Sony DV camcorder (the DCR-TRV 103) for years and it works fine. The source footage for my Molly Ivins video was recorded with it (and edited in iMovie). I also use it as an iSight, hooking it up via Firewire (with no tape inside! this is important!) and setting it to camera mode to do video iChat.
Of course these days, Digital8 is probably a dead format, but considering the amount of video work I do (not much), I see little need to spend the money for something new when what I have works and I can still obtain blank Hi8 tape.
Spartacvs
John Cole anchorman
Oh noes.
Robertdsc-iphone
TunchCam FTW!
John Cole
@Evinfuilt: Indoors and Outdoors, but I would guess more indoors. Lighting will be random.
Acoustics will vary.
Mainly this will be for interviewing people.
Irony Abounds
@John Cole: Of course you didn’t think of that John. Uh-huh.
TenguPhule
Oh so now the Hubble Space Telescope isn’t good enough anymore?
TenguPhule
You have very twisted tastes in porn it seems.
Jade Jordan
John, please tell us that you are not going to take nude pictures of Ms. America and let her sing too!
Faisal
Get a sense of your needs and what matches them, then go to the Apple Store and see what they’re hawking. If you find one, go look on Amazon and B&H to see if they’re selling it for less.
Martin
Anything that works with a PC will work fine with a Mac, so don’t worry about that distinction. There are effectively no webcams that have tripod mounts – the last that I know of was the iSight.
You’re then looking at DV cams, almost all of which should have tripod mounts. I don’t remember if your Mac has Firewire, but more and more Macs don’t, so I’d steer toward a camera with USB, just to be sure it can work with your next machine. Also make sure the camera captures 16 bit and not 12 bit audio, but my guess is that’ll get sorted out with the external mike jack.
I get the sense that a consensus toward Tunch porn is developing. I’m more curious than ever who the new front pager is going to be, but I’m sticking with BOB. Cat porn and BOB somehow seem like a natural fit.
Das Internetkommissariat
I’ve got a Sony HDR-SR11, that one is identical to the SR12 but with a 60GB HDD instead of 120GB. 60GB is more than enough, even with HD.
It works perfectly with my Mac and iMovie.
Here’s what the wired.com-guys say about it:
http://www.wired.com/reviews/product/sony_hdr_sr12
(price has dropped massively in the meantime, you can get the sr11 for $650)
arguingwithsignposts
the flip camera works pretty well. also the canon vixia HF-100 – it’s hard-drive, and with an external mic input. but you need final cut express.
slag
@TenguPhule:
Not since Tunch has been downgraded to planetoid.
greynoldsct00
I’m sure Tunch has a lot he’d like to share with us…!
Jon H
@Martin: “You’re then looking at DV cams, almost all of which should have tripod mounts. I don’t remember if your Mac has Firewire, but more and more Macs don’t”
This is not exactly correct. The MacBook and MacBook Air lack firewire. The MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Pro all have firewire. On machines with firewire, they’ve dropped firewire 400 in favor of all firewire 800, which has a different connector, but can be easily converted with a 400-800 adapter cable.
Jon H
@John Cole:
“So what made you interested in appearing in ‘Kinky Cougars Of West Virginia 3’?”
binzinerator
@John Cole:
Crikey can’t believe you set yourself up like that. I mean c’mon this is the B-J commentariat fer chrissakes.
Oh well it’s all on your head now…
Uh huh. Never crossed your mind.
Ya sure. Hey whatever you want to call it John, I’m OK with it.
Anyhoo, rumor has it that razor burn, needle tracks, stretch marks, and herpes lesions show up all too well in those kinds of interviews when done in HD. You might want to consider if that feature is worth it in a camera, viz a viz the cost of finding, um, interviewees with more photogenic, er, assets.
[/obligatory porno comment]
No advice on a camera, but a key part in any camera work is the lighting. The quality of the lighting, IMHO, is more important than the quality of the camera.
terry chay
@John Cole: Interviewing on the spot? If so then get something small and easy to use like a Mino Flip or a Sanyo Xacti. One obscure one is using the video feature of a pocket digicam. The Panasonic ZS3 even does HD video in AVCHD.
The “tripod” stuff you mentioned up top seem to make me think that you’re more along the lines of a Canon (which seems to occupy the most popular consumer HD cameras out there).
The big problems with video is 1) lighting, and 2) sound. These are both disasters in small cameras. I don’t see this often but if you have an LED lighting array or take the time to position someone, lighting can be fine. (If the camera has a larger lens, 3CCD, etc, that can help too.) 2) can be overcome if you buy a good microphone(s), esp. wireless versions and a nice camera that can accept the audio input of the type your microphone is in.
tammanycall
A few camera options:
— Sony PD-100 (many film schools start students off with the 150 in their first semester)
— Panasonic AG DVX 100B
— Panasonic AG HVX 200
— Canon HX A1
These are prosumer recommendations, (the first one is cheaper than the rest, but maybe not cheap enough? I’m not sure what your budget is.) and they will be pricey.
The camera everyone’s obsessed with now is the Sony Red Cam. Don’t get talked into buying that. You don’t need it.
Mics:
RODE NTG-2 Shotgun mic (large quiet rooms, outdoors): http://www.dvcreators.net/rode-ntg-2/
RODE NT3 mic (smaller echo-y rooms w/ wood floors, offices, any room w/ lots of vertical planes that sound can bounce off of):
http://www.dvcreators.net/rode-nt3-condensor-mic/
Sennheiser Evolution G2 Wireless Lavalier System (wireless): http://www.dvcreators.net/sennheiser-mics/
Where to buy:
B&H (NYC)
Adorama (NYC)
Samy’s Camera (Los Angeles)
Amazon? (both B&H and Adorama sell through Amazon, so you can compare their prices before buying.)
The Raven
Depends what you want it for. Family photos? Podcasting? Are you producing material for distribution?
Jon H
The newish Panasonic GH1 SLR, with 10x zoom, can record 1080p HD video as well (60 minutes on 8GB) , and you can connect an external mic.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/technology/personaltech/30pogue.html?pagewanted=all
On the downside, it’s $1500.
Joe Max
I mentioned it because another commenter had brought it up.
Actually, I’d pick the Beyer M88 as the best hand-held vocal singing mic in the world, though some would say it’s the Neumann KMS 105.
The SM-58 does have the advantage of being able to withstand being dropped on it’s head many times and still working.
(Disclosure: I’m an audio engineer by profession.)
dobrojutro
An old Realistic PZM plate mic is a great all-purpose, durable mic. It is AA battery-powered and gives enough output to record direct to a laptop/media device. Often used for recording conferences/meetings.
Joe Max
Then I stick by my first suggestion of the Audio Technica ATR-55. You can mount it on the camera or on a stand nearby (you can get a boom mic stand and use the pro’s method of hanging the mic over the subject, just out of camera range.)
The ATR-55 works well with close-up sound sources, but can be switched for long distance – and it won’t break your bank account. I know two people who have them for video work and they like them fine.
cfaller96
Example 1: Yeah, could you sign for this package I’m supposed to deliver?
Example 2: Did you order a sausage pizza to be delivered?
Etc.
I think the recession is hitting John pretty hard if he’s resorting to porno movies. Just make sure you have a soft focus lens, John- there’s a reason the porn industry hasn’t shifted to HD.
Nash
I’m not good with cameras, but I know mics . . .
If you want a mic for handheld interview type stuff, you want the Electrovoice RE50. It’s got built in pop screening and shock absorbtion . . . essentially, you can wave the thing around, bump it with your hand, have wind blowing all around you, and you’ll still get very high quality, high clarity sound out of it.
Now, if you want it for an indoor studio shoot, you’re looking at something like a cardioid capacitor mic; they’re the type you’ll see in every TV show about radio. Good sound quality, but they require phantom power to operate; you’ll need to get a phantom power unit or a mixer with phantom power installed. I use the Audio Technica AT2035, which is a really nice, study model.
Only problem with that model is, it’ll show up on camera. If you’re trying to avoid that, you’ll need a good boom shotgun mic. Since I don’t use those, I can’t recommend a good one, but check around the web and I’m sure you’ll find someone with a review site for microphones.
I know most of these units seem pricey, but the upside is, they damn near last forever. That means a used model will do just fine without issues. eBay is completely your friend on this one; do an eBay search for the model you’re looking for, and you’ll easily snag one for 1/2 or even 1/3 of the cost.
laxel
Canon HV 20/30/40 are nifty cameras.
Great video out of the box, and if you’re into modding things, there are several resources for building out on them.
For instance, here’s my HV30 (around $600 or $700 for the camera) fitted out with a Letus Depth of Field adapter, Nikon slr lens, on a set of rails I made. Win a decent hold-em tournament and I leak money like a Russian sub.
Of course, you may not need the extra’s, but it’s nice to know you can get em if you want. Plenty of favorable reviews all around, and I’d recommend it for consumer grade HD cam. Check out some of the footage at vimeo by searching hv30 user group.
laxel
I dont know about the ATR-55, I own one and am not convinced that it is much better than most on-board mics. I can agree with the previous poster about the little Zoom H2, captures really good sound, fits in a shirt pocket, pretty inexpensive (though you may have to tweak its speed when you’re syncing sound in post for long clips), the Rode videomic is also a decent choice for one that plugs into a typical consumer cam. If you want much on the higher end, you’ll probably need to buy a Beachtek adapter…
Here is a non-comprehensive, somewhat dated comparison between shotgun mics.
I use the Rode and the Zoom, like them both for the price.
laxel
Oops, this is the mic comparison I was looking for. Pricey stuff. Stepping away from the thread now.
Spot
Camera: Canon HV-20
Mic to mount on camera: Sennheiser MKE-350 or 400
mobtown999
I think for interviews your best bet for the subject is a lavalier mic – the little clip on ones they use in TV shows. YOu can get good ones cheap. If you want something for other situations then you might want to go with a more versatile type, and I definitely suggest looking B&H – still drooling over the catalog I got a few days ago.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Overheard Chez Cole:
“Before I take off my shirt, do you promise you know Quentin Tarantino?”
Spot
A brief defense of Spot’s choices:
When recording on DV tape, you don’t have to offload everything onto a ginormous hard drive or multiple DVDs. Your tapes are you backup.
HV-20/30 has a needle-sharp lens. It has a separate mic input, so you can use a camera-mounted shotgun mic or a handheld.
You can turn off the automatic gain control for the mic, and you can adjust the audio gain via listening on headphones and/or a visual indicator in the display – very handy.
Spot has a Sennheiser MKE-350, and it suppresses wind very well and has a directional pattern that helps isolate your subject in a noisy environment. It’s bigger than the 400 and only has a mono jack, so it only records on one track of the stereo tape. The 400 is smaller and has a stereo jack, so it feeds the mono audio to both tracks on the tape. However, in terms of audio quality in a potentially noisy interview environment, Spot bets the 350 is better.
You can always get a mixer like the Beachtek DXA-2S to take the mono signal and lay it down on both tracks on the tape.
psycholinguist
I support the idea of DV tape. IF you want really high quality video, this is pretty much your best choice – dealing with the product is more time consuming, and the little buggers are expensive and record only 60 min. before you need to switch tapes, but for video and audio quality they are the standard. If you look at the semipro camera’s 90% of them will be tape, and virtually all the pro cameras are tape. Hard disk cameras are getting better, but the compression issues are still there, and they tend to be more finicky when it comes to going across computers and platforms. Make sure the camera has firewire, an external mike plug (careful with Sony, the hotshoe may be proprietary) and I would encourage you to go HDV.
glynor
You don’t need a separate pre-amp (mixer, usually) anymore to use good pro-quality mics like a Shure SM58 with a computer anymore. Shure now makes a fantastic little device called the X2u. It’s a USB preamp, that plugs directly into an XLR cable or into the XLR jack on a nice mic.
They sell it alone or in a bundle with a SM58.
If you need a mic for podcasting or anything else, you really can’t go wrong with one of these. If you ever need or want to upgrade to a really nice microphone (though the SM58 would probably be all you need for a long, long time), then you can easily use the X2u with any other XLR mic (it even provides phantom power for condenser mics).
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/WiredMicrophones/us_pro_SM58-X2u_content
If you need a place to buy one, you can’t go wrong with B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/
Tom Levenson
I’ve got the Canon HV 30. It’s excellent in terms of video quality and controls. I have a Bogen/Manfrotto 501 tripod – it’s a better than entry level tripod with a fluid head and (invaluable for me) a levelling bubble to consult. There are plenty of good tripods around, including some cheaper thant the 501 in the Bogen line.
(BH has this model for $412 with a carrying bag. You can get fluid head tripods for half that. Two criteria to consider: how much weight you need to support (the 501 will hold up 13 lbs, which is more than my current needs, but not more than past uses nor future plans. If you are sure you’re going to stick with a consumer size camera, you can save money here, but don’t scrimp on the tripod and buy the cheapest piece of s. out there. You will curse the unspent extra 50-100 every time you wrestle with balky extenders or a cranky pan and tilt handle for as long as you own the thing.)
Microphones: for interviews you want a wireless lav. I’ve rented them mostly, so I don’t have a particular brand to recommend. VHF systems are much cheaper (at the bottom end) than UHF, but I always depend on local expert advice. B and H VHF systems start at about 150; the cheapest UHF is in the threes.
A shotgun or less severe cardiod mike for the camera and optional boom use is not a bad idea either, depending on how serious you want to be. Others in this thread clearly know more about these so listen to them not me.
(more in next comment.)
Tom Levenson
Onto more: something else about cameras. The HV20-30-40 is a great series of cameras. Excellent lenses, and the best consumer codec for HD shooting (HDV). I bought my 30 (for $600 a couple of months ago, and it is extraordinary; I did so on the recommendation of Steve McCarthy, who works on top national and international (BBC, Nat Geo, PBS, etc.) documentary and drama/docs. He has used it as a second camera to take wide cover shots while he uses some variant of the Panasonic Varicam line — cameras that cost from 20 odd thousand to over fifty, and the footage cuts just fine (if you light well and don’t ask the little camera to do things it can’t). I did the same two weeks ago in a shoot with a Sony EX 3 8,000 dollar HD camera. These are great little boxes (and you don’t need to buy the HV40 unless you care about the cinema look of true 24 frame per second shooting.
But, but, but — these are tape cameras. That EX 3 shoot was my first experience working with a pro-grade chip camera (i.e. one that records to solid state memory, rather than a tape), and I found that doing so really changes ways you approach video work flow. The consumer codec for HD recording to chips or hard disks is something called AVCHD, and it is a lower-information density standard than the tape based HDV standard. The picture isn’t quite as good. But the convenience of being able to pop an SD chip out of the camera and into a chip reader plugged into a USB port is astounding. If you do choose to go this route, pay enough to get one of the better ones; the dividing line between the ones the manufacturers pay close attention to and those they stamp out is whether or not they accept external mic inputs, which you need anyway for the job you want to do. Those cost more than the soon-to-be phased out tape cameras, but the extra might be worth it.
That said: beware of the archiving and backing up problem. Tape has this virtue: it’s a physical object you stick in a box, so if the hard disk you’ve digitized your stuff to blows up, you still have pictures.
Last: the B and H folks are incredibly helpful over the phone. You’ll get someone who actually knows the gear and will talk to you till you understand what you need. That’s my two cents.
Tom Levenson
Really last two cents:
If you get truly frisky, two good accessories after you’ve spent the money for a good tripod are (a) a Century Precision/Schneider optics wide angle adaptor (About $160 for most of the little cameras) and an XLR audio dual – input adaptor for your camcorder. This is a little box, from $160-300 depending on stuff like phantom power, that allows you to plug a pair of professional mikes (like a lav + a shotgun combo) into your little tiny camera. Very useful stuff.
Li
Olympus LS-10 linear PCM recorder. It has excellent sound off the build in stereo mic, and it has line in and mic in. It works with phantom power too. Tight, and compact, it has an aluminum frame to eliminate creaking in your recordings if it is used handheld. I very much like mine.
Have you considered a hybrid camera/camcorder BTW? The Lumix line produces excellent 720p video in a small light form factor. The AVCHD video works nicely on the mac with iMovie or Final Cut Express (haven’t tried pro) and you can just copy the whole folder over to your hard drive and the movie app recognises it as a complete camera backup. It’s good to have a way to keep the ‘negatives’. Look at the TS1 and the ZS3; the former is water/shock proof and compact, the latter has a great zoom and stereo mic.
The TS1 is a remarkable product given it’s size.
This is a video test I made. There are others up on youtube. http://vimeo.com/4366768
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1081836@N21/ This is a group devoted to pictures taken with the TS1