Private Investigator Needs Lowlight Help

[Adam Gold]

Again, I'd go back to the PD 150 or 170. Unmatched in low light and readily available, cheap. And solves your date/time issue.

B&H has one of each as well as a couple of 2100s. Of that list the 150 looks to be the best value.

Used Pro & Prosumer Camcorders

Sorry your last purchase didn't work out but you could look at this as an opportunity to get the perfect cam for you at a pretty good price from the most reliable vendor out there.

[Allen Campbell]

I'm most likely going to take your advise. I have to get the funds back into my hands first.
Adorama keeps taking holidays. Geesh! They need some folks of another faith to hold the fort while they honor their faith.
I'm no atheist but before I make another purchase from Adorama or B&H I'll have to look at the dates to see if they interfere with my shipping or return policy term.
Since I have made the purchase they have had two holidays that have inconvenienced me a great deal. This and some bum batteries has me a tad bitter.
To top it off I have had assignments that I needed the camcorder on. Oh Well. I'll live.

[Allen Campbell]

Originally Posted by Adam Gold

Again, I'd go back to the PD 150 or 170. Unmatched in low light and readily available, cheap. And solves your date/time issue.

B&H has one of each as well as a couple of 2100s. Of that list the 150 looks to be the best value.

Used Pro & Prosumer Camcorders

Sorry your last purchase didn't work out but you could look at this as an opportunity to get the perfect cam for you at a pretty good price from the most reliable vendor out there.

The 150 is more money than either of the 2100's. what do you like the 150 better? Thanks.

[Adam Gold]

It's only $100 more for a tool you will use for your business for a long time, and solves your date/time issue. If the 170 were only $100 more than that I'd recommend that, as it's newer, but it includes a WA adapter you don't need and costs too much.

If this was just a hobby and you were doing three-minute YouTube skateboard videos I'd say go with the VX, but this is your livelihood.

This time of year is particularly bad for all the holidays. All I can say is you gotta work around them. At least B&H always has a huge banner when you go to any page so you can't possibly miss it.

[Allen Campbell]

Thanks, Just to make sure I am reading you right. How does the 150 solve my time stamp issue.

[Adam Gold]

We covered this in posts 18 through 23 of this very thread. The 150/170 has a feature called DATE REC that the VXes don't which permanently burns the date and time visually into your picture, no matter how or where it is played back. It's why most PIs and Lawyers use this cam. The date and time cannot be erased or changed so courts love them.

[Allen Campbell]

WoW! I totally missed that. THANKS

[Helen Oster]

Originally Posted by Allen Campbell

........
Adorama keeps taking holidays. Geesh! They need some folks of another faith to hold the fort while they honor their faith.
I'm no atheist but before I make another purchase from Adorama or B&H I'll have to look at the dates to see if they interfere with my shipping or return policy term.
Since I have made the purchase they have had two holidays that have inconvenienced me a great deal. This and some bum batteries has me a tad bitter.
To top it off I have had assignments that I needed the camcorder on. Oh Well. I'll live.

At Adorama we do appreciate that our closing times can be inconvenient to some of our potential customers.
Adorama's owner is an observant orthodox Jewish gentleman, whose beliefs prohibit him - his family and his business - from operating on the Sabbath and on many of the religious holidays (which all begin an hour prior to sunset the evening before the day of the holiday, which is why we close early on Fridays).

We can't employ non-Jews here during those days, because to do so would involve the company conducting business - which is forbidden in Jewish Law.

Most holidays are actually only one or two days; two are week-long holidays. We do try to minimize inconvenience to our customers, by publicizing our closing dates well in advance.
After the holiday(s) end(s), we do reopen our sales and shipping departments as soon as possible in order to deal with the inevitable backlog of orders.
We would also take on add additional staff in the customer service, sales and shipping departments if necessary to help reduce backlogs and speed up the service to our customers.

In this era of 24-hour commerce, I guess it's unusual to find that there really are still people who consider their spiritual duty to be more important than squeezing money out of our customers at every opportunity. I receive frequent emails from customers who state that in this day and age it is comforting to know there are people around who do not place money before all else.

Many businesses in the US and elsewhere in the world force employees to work on holidays when the time is better spent with their friends and families - or just relaxing by themselves.

We are grateful for the understanding of our customers that this is an important element of our owner's value system. Perhaps the following links to articles in the Washington Post & the New York Times will help to make some sense of our closure policies:


Ruling Guides Orthodox Sites' Sabbath Sales - WSJ.com


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/09/te...=1&oref=slogin


BTW I'm only an email away for advice and / or after-sales support with any order from Adorama Camera.

[Chris Soucy]

Congratulations on such a cogent response, tho' I do hope you guys really don't spend too much time "squeezing money out of our customers" (the long shadow of the "Merchant of Venice" hangs a bit heavy over that phrase) that would never do at all.

Let's stick with "making an honest buck", sounds infinately better.

More power to your elbow for that and for sticking to your beliefs, heck, not too many today believe in anything.

My belief in wine, women, cigarettes and the wife is unshakeable, tho' of late the wife has been looking a tad dubious at times (probably mutual) and the "women" have seemingly gone extinct (must have been an asteroid impact) but still, it's a belief system.

Good luck with yours, er, theirs, er, whatever, not half as much fun as mine, but each to their own.


CS

[Bob Hart]

I too commend your boss for taking the stand.

If only a few more in executive position committed to the moral high ground versus the bottom line, much of our current social malaise might be alleviated.

The argument that we must flog the workforce to compete with offshore labor conditions is flawed and longterm creates an unbalanced economy in which increasingly more people cannot have a place.

Even if we so strip away work conditions that our workers also have little time off, make camp in the carpark because there is no longer time to commute and have to piss in cans at the workstations so that productivity won't be lost, the offshore countries will find ways to drive their own workforce even harder.

Once the spring on the dancing bear has wound down and our own economies have collapsed because everyone is fair average backside hanging out working poor or unemployed, then the our own big players and offshore companies will have no furthur use for us and our own society and values will have been sacrificed - for what?

Free enterpise will not change the rules. Competition decrees that it cannot afford to. It is up to governments to set the benchmarks and for people of real moral worth, conscience and committment to get involved.

I would hope that your boss or such as him of similar moral conviction would become such persons eventually even if prejudice against his particular faith might unfortunately prevail. We certainly do not need people who lie, mislead, play smart games and steal valour to manufacture their political cachet to drive our economy and our moral worth by flawed leadership into the ground.

If this involves the reinstatement of protective tariffs to preserve an essential core of skills and intellectual property and punish those offshore economies who take commercial advantage of our own work laws by abusing those of their own people, then so be it.



Sorry about the political rant. (Button pushed and red mist has risen.)

[Helen Oster]

Thanks for your understanding; in a society that these days seems to take for granted that we all sleep with our i-phones under our pillows and work a relentless 60 or 70 hours a week, this really is a special time for us to be with family and friends.

[Allen Campbell]

OK, OK, I just vented my frustration over all the breaks in the action I get from you and other vendors of the same faith. No disrespect for the faith but gosh! When trying to do something in a timely manner and a vendor keeps tossing in delays for WHATEVER reason, its still a major pain on my end.

The holidays aside, you guys have been great!!!
I will continue to consider you but will ask on the phone of the holiday schedule before ordering and see how it comes into play with my schedule.
Perhaps you can post a calendar? Or did I miss that too?

Thanks

[Helen Oster]

Jewish holidays 2000?2050 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rosh HaShanah 2 days
Yom Kippur 1 day
Sukkot 4 days
Pesach 4 days
Shavuot 2 days

However, if any of the holy days fall on a Saturday, this would be included in the above - not tagged onto the end.

[Mark Williams]

Allen,
Since you are still shopping I would take a look, as previously mentioned, at the Panasonic AG DVC30. You can still purchase them used. I had one for 3 years and used it in low light conditions with good results. It is small, built like a tank (metal exterior) and has excellent optics with a 16x lens. It also has "time stamp" which is what you need. I always felt it was designed for covert work. You can read about it here http://www.panasonic.com/business/pr.../AG-DVC30M.pdf
and very long discussion here http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/panasoni...us-topics.html
Should be able to get one under $1,000 with less than 200 hours on it. Also K&M Electronics http://www.kmelectronics.com/index2.htm over in Loganville, GA works on them and you might want to give them a call.

[Allen Campbell]

Sorry for the delay here as I don't like leaving my posts hanging. You may have found in other threads I have a PD170 now and am Very pleased.

Thanks Guys