GL2 or Sony's 2100????
 

I have been looking at the sony 2100 and the GL2 and was wondering what some of the biggest differences were, and how they would help or hinder my future of wedding and event videography?

thanks.
Craig

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my 2 cents:

vx2100, hands down.

i no longer shoot weddings with my xl1, but i keep it around for when i'm not shooting a 'live' event. the vx is better in the dark, and i love the clarity of the image that comes out of it. the canon gives warmer colors with a bit of a softer image, which is a good thing. however, it's useless in low light conditions.

Gl2
 

While I've never used that particular sony camera, I have used a sony and I prefer my gl2. I think it does a great job in low light situations.

See also:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=47230
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=45531

I'm with A.J.

Vx2100 or VX2000 or PD150 or PD170 hands down, absolutely no contest. For what its worth, we had a complete Canon setup XL1s and GL2 and after trying the PD150 we switched to the PD170 and VX2k1 and I could not shoot my videos the same without them, not a chance.

Another vote for the VX2100.
I had a GL2, sold it for a PD170 and don't regret it for a second, just recently acquired a VX2000, and it does a great job as well.
Kicks the crap out of the GL2 in lower light.

VX or PD - for low light performance. But...

...the microphone that comes with the PD-170 is aweful in my opinion. Very narrow fequency range that will not even pickup much bass frequency. If you are doing receptions the music will almost sound like you ran a low pass filter on it because there is so little bass. It is the audio equivallent of "tin can" sound and mono to boot.

I guess my point is that if you're not interested in buying a decent microphone along with that PD-170 then I would opt for the VX-2100.

vx2100
 

Everyone talks about the low light capability of the vx2100. How low can the light be before the video looks "too dark".

I found that my VX-2000 can see lots of things that I can't with the naked eye when shooting a very dark performance!

I'll just say that after what I saw at WEVA Expo this week, I'm more convinced than ever that SD cameras will soon be effectively obsolete for wedding videography purposes. Not that you can't make fine videos with SD cameras and make money selling those videos to customers, but the high-end wedding video market is going to rapidly switch to HD/HDV once mainstream HD players start shipping. There's still some debate about how effective current HDV cameras are in dim lighting, but we saw real-world footage this week which I'd say largely put those fears to rest. My own experience with a Sony FX1 is that it works fine in most conditions, and you just need to be prepared to use a little extra lighting at receptions if you want clean footage in poor light. If you prefer to work without extra light than maybe you'll want to wait for more sensitive HDV cameras, but I wouldn't spend any money on SD gear right now.

Well I have a VX-2000, a PDX-10 and a HVR-Z1. I don't shoot weddings, and there's another long thread which addresses the FX-1 vs VX-2100 issue already.

But I would agree that the FX1 and Z1 are much, much nicer cameras than the VX-2100 in terms of picture control, physical manual controls and of course resolution. I shot a little performance footage of a VERY dark opera with my Z1 and was really impressed with how clean it looked. If you are working in SD mode with the Sony HDV cameras you can pick up an extra f-stop by lowering the shutter speed to 1/30 as well. Camera's like the VX-2100 lose resolution at 1/30 because it's accomplished by field doubling. But the HDV cameras have such high res CCD's that they can do the same thing while keeping full SD resolution.

But of course the topic of this thread was the GL2 vs VX2100, so we digress... :-)

"But of course the topic of this thread was the GL2 vs VX2100, so we digress... "

No, Boyd, IMHO I don't think we are. I akin this "transition" period, from SD>HD, as the desperate attempts to "grasp" at the last few grains of sand that are trickling out of the timer for SD. Me too!

Deckchairs and the Titanic come to mind. I don't have HD - yet - do I want it? You bet! I think it was the comment above that this decision should be about whether to buy HD and NOT another SD camera should be raised.

Come on Canon! Get off the fence - NOW! I want an HD native 16:9 XM3 with XLRs and manual zoom for under $2500. Got it? Good! - Monday would be fine . . . .

Grazie

Canon was conspicously absent from WEVA this year. If they have any plan at all in regards to HDV, perhaps they're waiting to see whether 1080i or 720p is going to be more popular with camera buyers. Based on what I saw at WEVA, I'd say to go with 1080i in a modified GL2 body with a 1/3" sensor, and a modified XL2 with a 1/2" or 2/3" sensor. And they'd better have these shipping by January 2006 if they want to stay in the "prosumer" camcorder market next year...

Hi Kevin!

Totally agree . . . If they WERE to ditch the prosumer HD thing, when would they be doing it? When would the news hacks get wind of it? I guess if they WERE we would have heard about it by now?

I wonder if they see the XL2 as being their "first" entry model to Pro camera work now? Do you think the XM/GL series is being shelved? - Then there WOULD be a BIG gap from their budget end to XL2?

I'm really thinking another supplier for HD prosumer if canon doesn't "suggest" something. Yeah, like they are really worried! HUH! - However, there has to be many many Canon "fans" out there . . . just gagging for it.

C'mon! If anybody can CANON can!? - Yeah . . . well let's see the beef then!

Grazie

I figure Canon will simply modify their existing DV cameras to HDV because that's the easiest thing to do, but I have no idea when they're planning to do so. If they don't announce something by next year's NAB they may as well forget about making HD video cameras altogether, but they need to start dropping some hints before then. The way I see it, Sony has already locked up the market for affordable HD camcorders, and no one else has proposed anything which is likely to challenge that status.