A Little Advice
 

Hey guys, I'm looking for some advice on a few things:

I've just purchased a Sony HVR Z1e and I'm looking to get into the wedding business. I had a Canon XL1s for about 5 months, and felt HDV was a necessary upgrade.

I'm looking to get a B camera that has a similar picture. I'd like to spend around £600-£800 on this camera (second hand is fine).

Also, my tripod has become rather unstable. I've looked around the forum and found a few that would do fine, but I may as well ask in here also.

Last of all, what accessories would typically be used with the Z1? Shoulder mounts, rain covers, the HVR-MRC1K card unit, and other things of this nature?
I'm looking to get everything I need for the Z1, get some experience under my belt, and perhaps grab a Z5, and use the Z1 as a B camera in the late future.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Re: A Little Advice
 

For the B camera, the Fx1 is the less expensive brother of the Z1

The main accessories for weddings are:

portable light system and a quality wireless lav mic setup

Re: A Little Advice
 

If you look on ebay and similar web sites, you can find some good deals on HDV cameras. A lot of people are selling them because they are upgrading to DSLR and other HD cameras.

Re: A Little Advice
 

And in that spirit... for a "B" cam you should consider one of Sony's (or perhaps Canon or Panasonic, if you don't mind tweaking to match color) small, high end consumer cams - you'll find lots of people using them with good results. I'd suggest something like the XR500 or CX500/520 might fall within your price range used. You'll need to eventually upgrade your computer to handle editing AVCHD, so perhaps the HDV option is worth looking at, but when "upgrading", you don't want to reach too far back into the technology stack, as you'll just be updating that much faster.

Here's the "rub"... the image from the newer small cameras will probably be "better" than the Z1 in quite a few respects... but you'll be ready for that Z5 upgrade!