Camera Madness!

Seeing all the posts floating around here about XL1s and such, I just thought I would post a more reasonable solution to new filmers.

I recently purchased a Panasonic DVC-10 with all the accessories and a case, 20 MiniDV tapes, for $1000 (refurbished). It has all the manual controls to play with, including white balance, zoom, shutter speed, iris, etc ... and it's got 3CCDs.

It's not the top of the line, but I've been very happy with it- and think it's a great first camera- a good bang for your buck ...

[image=http://www.sciz.com/temp/camera.jpg]

EDIT: No, it's not as sexy as the XL1s ... but hey

 

I've read some great reviews on the DVC-10. Its the least expensive 3-chip camera out there and they say its a great buy.

Congrats on the new camera! You'll be shooting great 3-chip video while others are still dreaming about their XL1's...hehe.

 

i have really been looking into getting this but i can't find any examples of it in work, if possible could you post either a few full res stills or a short full res video? I really want to get an idea of the quality to see if i should get it.

 

Yeah, I did a lot of research- and this is one of the best deals I've seen. The quality is quite nice, and you don't see such a plethora of manual options in this price range much.

And no offense to those wanting XL1s- I still do ... but I talked myself out of the financial devestation I could have wreaked on myself by thinking "I should really get out there, do some filming, learn my way around the camera- then see if I'm still interested a few years down the road."

Then maybe I'll get an XL3.

fourfools- Sure thing ... if I remember, I'll go film some sample stuff tommorow and get it posted for you to look at.

 

thanks, and what, if anything you dislike, wish it had, etc.

 

Here's a quick pic for you fourfools (or anyone else who's interested). I just shot this like 30 seconds ago ... manual focus- the focus on the bird's head is a bit off (my oversight), but the body gives nice definition and color. Lighting is not too great either, but that's just the room. I exported this picture from the raw DV footage in Premiere, then compressed it into a *.jpg ... there is a little noticeable quality degradation from this, but not much. If you'd like the raw DV footage, I'll put a few seconds up for you too download.

Picture (100k or so)

EDIT: Here's another picture I just posted for Pixel ... not that great of a shot IMO (one of my early attempts with the camera, left it with the manual settings from another filming ...), but it's something else to see.

Bluescreen

 

ooo, i like. a little color correction and that shot would be extremely good.

 

I had the same tought. The picture look great.

Just what kind of color correction you had in time. Id like to know.

 

The bird picture came from completely untouched footage ... still non-interlaced. I'm not that great at color correction yet, been too busy getting the basics down. Although I'd like to see if someone could make it look better!

I edited another test shot into my previous reply.

 

I'm actually a bit disappointed by those stills. It doesn't come close to the quality of the XL-1s. Still though, it's lightyears ahead of my miniDV camera. I'd like to see the raw footage, maybe it will look a lot better.

 

But the price isn't anywhere near that of the XL1 either. Just trying to present what I see as a very viable middleground.

Lighting also makes a big difference in the sharpness and color in a shot, and it seems this camera in partiulary has an unholy love for lots of light ... I just whipped it out and filmed our parrot with minimal lighting in the living room.

 

Like I said it's lightyears ahead of my camera. I thought maybe because it was a 3 ccd camera though it would be not as good as XL-1s but almost comparable quality. I know i'll need a new camera in the future so i'd like to know more about this one. Show me some raw footage.

 

Fox -

I don't think you can compare the quality of that shot with that of the XL1 unless it was side by side with a picture taken by the XL1 under identical conditions.

 

Good point Exfilms, just basing off the two pictures though including the one outside against the bluescreen in a ton of light.

 

I would be interested to see the results of a close comparison. I have no doubt the XL1 yields a better picture in the end (it's gotta be 300% more expensive for a reason) ...

However, I haven't learned all the ins and out of my camera still- and the first thing I did when I got it was filmed that bluescreen shot, didn't manually adjust white balance and focus (or use the special sunlight AE mode) as I would today. Not sure how much of that factors into the clarity of an image - I'm no expert (yet).

So *shrug* ... hard to say how huge of a difference there is without two cameras filming the same shot. But I won't venture to argue it's an XL1. =)

 

It might be a bit much, but I gave it a try.

[image=http://www.pe.net/~shoemake/matt/images/birdcc.jpg]

 

Ooohhh ... I like it. Normally that drastic of correction would be a little extravagent ... but it's good for the shot!

 

Good camera for the price (I check to see how much it can cost in Europe!)

Also nice color correction Darth_Gehenna! How did you do that?

 

For small time use, these cameras are great (we have a couple of them at the studio) but I probably wouldn't recommend them for fan film.. they are too... well... "dinky", in my opinion, but if it's all you can get for the $$ you have, then they are pretty inexpensive for 3CCDs.

 

Well, a lot of people making their own short films and/or fanfilms are just hobbyists who don't have several thousand dollars on hand for a camera, or a studio. =)

I think it's a little harsh to reccomend that any camera not be used for a fanfilm, even it's the old family VHS ...

 

I did a little correcting with the bird picture. It's not much, but anyway......

clickie

 

not such a bad correction

 

I like it Homer ... the image is much more vivid with your correction. A little high on the blue, but that's under very careful scrutiny.

 

I figured I'd try it too. http://nerdius.tripod.com/birdc.jpg