Matt Watkinson
July 4th, 2005, 01:01 PM
Hi there.
I'm about to head out to Tokyo to start work there, which happens to coincide with some documentary makers I know needing somebody to shoot a couple of brief interviews in the very same city. They asked me to do it and trained me in how they'd like it shot, so no concerns there. They even said that they'd half pay for a new camera (which is great, as I was intending to get one anyway). However, I forgot to confirm one thing, and the people I'm helping wil be out of contact somewhere in S. America until I leave the country (and I'd like to get the camera before I do this, ideally).
So anyway, what I forgot to check has to do with getting a camera that can provide images of sufficient quality. I'm not asking for recommendations - browsing the forums and other sites there's ample info on that kind of thing - but rather how to determine whether a certain camera has a certain feature. I was told that the camera I get needs to be able to produce images of broadcast quality, which was defined as either 4:4:2 (I think) or 4:2:2 (could have been this as well...) output. I took the time to read some technical article and am aware of what this means, but what I don't know is how to determine which cameras can do this. It doesn't appear in any of the spec sheets that I've read. If anyone can tell me how to find out whether a camera can produce this output I'd be extremely grateful!
I suppose it might be a good idea to ask, while I'm at it, if there's any likelihood of a camera with said output overlapping with the type of camera that I was looking to buy myself (probably a mid-range consumer cam, price would be about $600-800, certainly nothing leaning towards the cool end like the Canon XL2 or whatever). I'm sorry if these questions have glaringly obvious answers, but as I noted in the title, I really am a novice, and what's worse, a novice who failed to ask the right questions when he had the people with knowledge around!
I'm about to head out to Tokyo to start work there, which happens to coincide with some documentary makers I know needing somebody to shoot a couple of brief interviews in the very same city. They asked me to do it and trained me in how they'd like it shot, so no concerns there. They even said that they'd half pay for a new camera (which is great, as I was intending to get one anyway). However, I forgot to confirm one thing, and the people I'm helping wil be out of contact somewhere in S. America until I leave the country (and I'd like to get the camera before I do this, ideally).
So anyway, what I forgot to check has to do with getting a camera that can provide images of sufficient quality. I'm not asking for recommendations - browsing the forums and other sites there's ample info on that kind of thing - but rather how to determine whether a certain camera has a certain feature. I was told that the camera I get needs to be able to produce images of broadcast quality, which was defined as either 4:4:2 (I think) or 4:2:2 (could have been this as well...) output. I took the time to read some technical article and am aware of what this means, but what I don't know is how to determine which cameras can do this. It doesn't appear in any of the spec sheets that I've read. If anyone can tell me how to find out whether a camera can produce this output I'd be extremely grateful!
I suppose it might be a good idea to ask, while I'm at it, if there's any likelihood of a camera with said output overlapping with the type of camera that I was looking to buy myself (probably a mid-range consumer cam, price would be about $600-800, certainly nothing leaning towards the cool end like the Canon XL2 or whatever). I'm sorry if these questions have glaringly obvious answers, but as I noted in the title, I really am a novice, and what's worse, a novice who failed to ask the right questions when he had the people with knowledge around!