Bill - thank you for your repsonse. I have just in fact gone for
the XL1S. I will be in a position to obtain another shortly
so with your words I feel confident. I was only considering
a different second camera like the Sony for super low light
one shot needs and possibly being able to mix the two in
some situations. Clearly your example of the speaker is
definitely one I wouldn't even attempt. Thanks for your time
--- again..

About low light...when people say one camera is not as good in low light as another, that doesn't mean one is crappy and the other great. All the 1/3" chip cameras are fairly good in low light, although the Sony ones seem to be just a little bit better, especially the new versions. However, I doubt there is a full stop difference between any of them. I came to DV from the Betacam SP world with an aging BVW300, which was about like shooting ASA25 film. By my standards, anything with 1/3" chips or bigger is great in low light.

I would never shoot with just one camera. I always keep one camera in a semi-wide and use the other camera for two shots and close-ups.

You may need to match your cameras for one primary reason, one camera should always be on a wide, the other one should be on a medium or close-up, and if the colors don't match up it could be quite noticeable.

Canon XL's scare me. They are not very good in low light and from what I have been told by owners of XL's once the camera gets below 5.6 the autofocus falls apart.


Although I still use two ENG style of cameras, I have a Digital 8 one-chip camcorder with exposure control and I wouldn't hesitate to use it as a second camera as a wide shot if I had to.

That's interesting, it's funny I was looking at those Hi 8's
last night. I know they are good in low light.
Any models to suggest?
It may be worth trying it for the fun of it.

The good news is the choice is now the Digital 8 quite limited so you won't spend days comparing the pro's and cons of all the different camera models out there.

The bad news is the choice is now quite limited.

Sony had three models available. The price structure was $399, $499(TRV-350), $599. (the $599 dollar model had a bigger LCD screen)

The $499 & $599 model had a mike input.

The newest generation of Digital 8 camcorders will not have a mike input and the price will drop to $350.00 for the most expensive model, and there will only be two models available.

However, I was still able to buy the TRV-350 (with the mike input) even though it is considered last years model. I have not actually used the camera for my two camera shoots, but I think it would do OK. The one caveat would be if there is a lot of colored lights or colored backlights, I wonder if that might throw off the auto white balance feature. Also, when in the wide mode, would the auto focus feature be fooled by the audience being in the foreground?

The camera loads the video on the bottom, a feature which I hate. However, it looks like if one made a special tripod plate adapter the camera could be opened without taking it off the tripod.

The picture quality looks quite good.