Bill Lapson
June 26th, 2004, 10:06 PM
For several weeks I have been teetering on buying a camcorder. My applications will always be amateur so I don't want to put more than $1K into the camera although I could push that limit if I could see what it buys me with some confidence.
I've looked at videos taken with high-end consumer cameras costing around $1k. The video is not very good with very high contrast and lines, such as edges and powerlines, that pixellate during pans or zooms. The autofocus doesn't work too well either. Compared to commercial TV, the pictures are blurred. Compared to still photography, the video image quality is horrible... but I can compromise because of the benefits of motion.
So, what kind of camera takes sharp (non-blurry) video, has good color without excessive contrast, does not pixellate on edges... in summary, is a close approximation, if not the real thing, to a professional camcorder? Is it neccessary to have three CCDs and if so, what is the minimum size of these CCDs?
Thanks for your comments.
I've looked at videos taken with high-end consumer cameras costing around $1k. The video is not very good with very high contrast and lines, such as edges and powerlines, that pixellate during pans or zooms. The autofocus doesn't work too well either. Compared to commercial TV, the pictures are blurred. Compared to still photography, the video image quality is horrible... but I can compromise because of the benefits of motion.
So, what kind of camera takes sharp (non-blurry) video, has good color without excessive contrast, does not pixellate on edges... in summary, is a close approximation, if not the real thing, to a professional camcorder? Is it neccessary to have three CCDs and if so, what is the minimum size of these CCDs?
Thanks for your comments.