Best small camera?
 

hi all.

i'm looking for a small video camera preferably 3CCD/3CMOS, in the tradition of the trv-900. which would be the best option?

the HV20 seems a crowd favorite but I'm wary of the 1 chip/lowlight performance.

thanks!

Jason, I would say HV20/HV30 is still the best small camcorder, though I havent try others=D

Are you going to use the small cam with a DOF adapter or not? HV20/HV30 itself performs very good in low light condition (eg indoors). It's the CMOS rolling shutter that I'm complaining.

Hi Jason,

Yes, the lowlight on the HV20 isn't the greatest. I use one along with two XH-A1's. I use it now almost all the time with a DOF adapter. Outdoor shots, great! Indoor shots, not so great. That said, I'm still getting to grips with the HV20/DOF combo and locking off the exposure, so a good bit of it is down to me.

You will see what I mean on this clip.

http://www.vimeo.com/866175

Best I can find of it in lowish light is this and it's only a shortish lower quality clip. It's the shot of the owl bringing the rings in.

http://www.abrown.info/New%20HCW/Paul-David.htm

JMag:

We are using the new HV 30 and love the performance so far. Great cam to hide.

-John

hahaha! We're planning to get the HV30 actually. Pretty much convinced on what we see with other videographers who are using the cam.

Although we're still doing a little research for other options so i guess this thread will prove helpful also for us. ^_^

I have a HV30 and bought another HV30.. But I'm using it along with my DVX100 so neither is very good in low light! :(

Other than the Z7u and the EX1, I don't know if there is any HD camera of any size that is as good in low light as our old DV stuff. Is anyone currently making a 3 chip camera the size of the HV20?

I'd say just pick up a HV30 on the cheap and test it out for yourself. They're pretty popular and should sell well if it doesn't meet your needs. I bought one and was using it mainly as a deck and backup camera before I got a Letus to strap it to.

In this league I confess to hardly feeling like raising my hand - as though I don't even belong...but I'm using Panasonic GS500s and a GS400 and find them great...and I haven't had to fork out an arm and a couple of legs to get them.

For $us3900 I have got three brand new cameras, and one that is to all intents and purposes brand new.

Well, I'd be very happy to buy from you guys, when you dont need them anymore. At good price, of course =D =D

HV30 Baby!
 

JMag,

I bought one HV30 just last week. Did couple of shoots with it and pretty impressed with its performance so far. Here is a short clip on my blog which was shot excessively with HV30 (1080 24P):

http://www.butterflysquad.com/?p=39

Hope that helps.

Jason,

I know you guys generally get away with using a fair amount of light for your ceremonies and preps. With that being said, if you can figure out any workflow issues with shooting with the HV 20/30 in 24P at 1/24th I think you would be very happy with its performance. You, like I, do a lot of grading, so you can also get quite a bit out of the footage. When Canon used our footage for a commercial and we all sat together and watched a rough draft, nobody in the room believed that a couple of the shots mixed in were from the HV20. I also had the FX1, which I think your still using, and was very unhappy with its lowlight performance, so that says something too.

Patrick

I'm using the JVC Everio HD-7. Three 1/5" CCD. And yes, it doesn't win any medals for low light, but it is better than I would have thought. I get more comfortable with it the more i use it. Manual focus ring really feels like a manual focus ring. Manual over rides really work. Focus assist is an excellent feature (press the button, the viewfinder goes monochrome, and anything you focus upon gets outlined in either red, blue, or green. I prefer green). The 60G HD allow for something like 4+ hours of recording 1080i. Takes an external mic. Has hot shoe mount. Gotta make your own headphone monitor, though. No manual audio, but the AGC is surprisingly gentle in attack/release. Overall color is too saturated. Have to reduce saturation in post. It took a while to get the .tod file import figured out.

I understand the HD7 has already been replaced by the HD 6, which had a lot of the really useful features removed.

There is a forum topic dedicated to this camera here at dvinfo.

Hey Ram, nice clip. Which stabilizer did you use with the HV30 for those flying shots?

thanks for all your help. considering all suggestions and doing more research. :)

Yang,

The HV30 was on a merlin. I used to have my GL1 on it. That was the first shoot I put on a small camera like HV30 on it. It was a windy day. Had a little hard time in the beginning to balance the camera considering its light weight. But as time goes, I think I got a hang of it.

JMeg,

Are Nokia phones with video cameras also in your list of consideration? ;-)

Hv20/hv30
 

Hi Jason

Was going to post earlier but it seems that everyone already has.

HV20/30 has pretty much the best low light performance in the 1/3" CMOS cam category. It is head and shoulders above the original 1/3" Cmos sony hc1 and is just as good as if not better then the newer sony hc7 with ClearVid Cmos sensors.

With that said it is definately no FX1 nor can it compare with any 3 chip ccd 1/3 cam but you can't expect it to be. From watching your control of colour correction & grading I'm quite sure you can definately get quite a bit of the this little cam.

Dunno if you require 24/30p but from what I recall it is the only little cam in this class with this feature.

For it to fullfill your needs; I would say that it would mostly depend on what you will be using the camera for. For extremely dark situations it will definately drive you crazy, but that would go for pretty much any camera.

Nice to see one of my old Merlin's being put to great use!

Definately looking forward to seeing what you can push out of that little setup Ramesh; as I will surely miss shooting with that setup.

Also keep in mind that in the 24P mode, the HV30 can shoot in 1/24 shutter speed, which allows you to capture just a bit more light.. it makes the video a bit more smeary but for static scenes, it works well.

Don't know if tapeless is on the menu for consideration, but the new SR11/12 with similar tech to the EX1 (bionz/exmor) is putting out some good video so far for me. AVCHD of course, but worth a look.

Slightly better image quality than 7 series sensor, but limited manual control compared to HC7/9. So far face recognition feature looks to make up for it. Hunts when zoomed in low light, but seems OK in wide end, even in poor light conditions. Manual focus knob is actually quite usable, shot some zoo footage and auto kept locking on the cages (brighter and foreground, actually quite intelligent for "normal" shooting), so had to manually focus on dark animals in dark recesses... tough conditions for any camera.

Image quality is very impressive, see discussions in the AVCHD section. Good lattitude, incredible detail, and very smooth (no stepping in gradients!) natural color overall.

And the 10Mpixel still camera is not bad at all <wink>.

i have a trv900 w/ a scratched lens that i'll sell you. best deal in town. :P