Any problems with the Z1U/Charge
 

Hey, I am very young and wanting to start a cinematography business.
Would a Z1U be a "go for it," or something to drop and buy something else for the same price. I currently have a couple thousand dollars together now and am still saving.

Also, those with an HVR-Z1U, how much do you charge for a wedding, high-school sports game, etc.

Joseph

Joseph, golly that's a simple question with complex answers. The Z1 is a great camera. So are others. Every encouragement to make a go of the business. But you haven't provided much information and the crucial thing is experience commensurate with the jobs and responsibilities you'd be taking on. Have you done a lot of video and are you confident of your abilities for producing a good product? I'm guessing your answer is "yes"; just as I would have said (with reasonable justification) at 16 for things like school sporting events. Weddings are a different matter. They're a one-off most important event in people's lives. Lots of scope for things to go wrong and for generating dissatisfied clients. So what you charge is influenced by the degree to which you can guarantee a wonderful movie of the day. I think you might need to provide more details before I can say much more.

EDIT: you might get some useful ideas out of: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/...ssageID=506048

also: http://mag.weddingcentral.com.au/video/video.htm

and more generally:
http://www.videouniversity.com/wedenter.html

Thanks for input!!!!
 

I am 16 and I bought a MacBook Pro 17 in. the first of Jan. '07, along with Logic Pro 7.2 in February. My church bought me Final Cut Studio in April. I have done a couple Graduations and made a total of $175 for 7 DVD's with a $250 camera.

But I was wondering what camera I should get. For $4399 at 16 years old I need to know for sure this is what I need. I figured if people saw in the phone-book that I could shoot HD DVD's that would draw a good chunk of clients.

I realize if I do that I need an HD DVD or Blue-Ray Disc Burner later on.

I have a paper-route with $2000 saved and another $2000 to go.

Our church is supposed to send me to training for Final Cut Studio in the NEAR future.

Again THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR INPUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joseph

The Z1 is a fine camera that will do everything that you need. You do get most of it's facilities in the FX at a much cheaper price, but there are differences that you must understand in making your choice. In general the Z1 has extra facilities that a professional wants, but both produce the same image quality and both can do professional work. One source for identifying the differences is http://www.vasst2.com/?v=HDV/hdvportalnew.htm

In terms of market, how deeply has HD penetrated your client area? This has been a topic of debate among professionals servicing your type of market. Many have said that most clients don't have HD sets and are interested only in SD 4:3, so they don't believe that offering HD is a selling point. Others assert that shooting SD is a poor decision because to shoot in HDV (even if the product delivered in SD) "future-proofs" the work. In some countries HD is making a lot of headway, and the impact is seen in the number of low end HDV cameras being sold.

One important issue is that material shot and post-produced in HDV looks superior to SD even when downressed onto DVD. And, of course, you have the option to downres in camera when capturing. This brings up the topic of editing HDV, which is very computing intensive. I'm not a Mac person, so don't know if your MacBook can handle it. Some NLEs, such as Sony Vegas 7, can edit HDV m2t files directly and preview them in realtime. Some others really bog down or fall over completely. Recently I edited a 90 minute corporate video for a friend who found his older Mac system couldn't cope with his newly acquired Z1 (even with the HD add ons to FCP); so make sure about that. A way around the problem is to edit proxies (SD copies) which the NLE swaps for the m2t clips before rendering (the Vegas plugin "gearshift" enables this --- see http://www.vasst2.com/product.aspx?i...d-aa4954c324a3 and I think FCP might enable this also). Higher quality and better computer performance is achieved by converting the 4:2:0 m2t clips to an avi digital intermediate in 4:2:2 (see: http://www.cineform.com/), but your clients probably won't see the difference if you're doing fairly simple cutting.

You're contemplating a big investment (from available funds) so remember that you need more than a camera. Things like tripod, microphones, dead-cat, audio recorders, filters, and so on. You might consider whether a consumer level camera would meet your immediate needs (such as a Canon HV20 until the money starts to roll in) and I know many would be suggesting getting something like a used Canon GL2.

Hope this might be of some help.

We bought the cameras!
 

Our church bought a couple of Z1U's and they are AWESOME!!!!

I am so glad we bought the elite of the Sony HDV Camcorders.

I have already put 30 plus hours on the operation run and 20 hr on the drum run.

I have REALLY enjoyed it!!!

Joseph