We want to shoot on HD, outside (think adventure in the mountains), onto a hard drive, with a powerful G5 back at HQ for dailies/rough edit etc, with the image as 'beautiful' as possible, lots of wide angle lenses. Maneuverabilty and flexibilty essential, really experimenting with angles and loads of takes.

I'd love to hear any opinion on which cameras might be best suited to the task.

Many thanks

james

If you shooting strictly outdoors the sony z1 shoots great outdoor footage.

As does the Canon, JVC and Panasonic!

What can you effort/what's your budget? Both the Xl-H1 and the JVC HD100 have interchangeable lenses which means real wide angle options, no screw-ons. The others (Pana and Sony's) are more flexible since they are small, on the other hand, the XL-H1 and the JVC HD100 are shoulder cams, which practically means your more stable with it.. Bladiebladiebla.. So I can give you a hundred pro's and con's 'bout one camera or the other and then I'm not even started talking about the different opinions about the image quality..

On to HDD? What is your plan for backing up? I would not even attempt a feature without redundant back-ups of my daily footage.


ash =o)

I know Low budget like I know myself... I have no money.

So if you want some pretty, beautifull, and jaw dropping outdoor footage for cheap, then the FX1 is a no brainer. It has the same optics and mechanics as the Z1 minus some pro controls, but they are only usefull if you really need them.

Despite the lack of XLR, buying an adaptor is still a cheaper option.