[Mike Tyson]

Now then folks.

I'm buying the Mrs a digital camcorder for crimbo. We want it to record the little one's upbringing etc.

I will also be borrowing it for days out climbing. I've been looking around and I would really like one with about a 20gb memory, I am guessing its better to get one with a hard drive than tapes but I have no expertise in this department at all.

Anyone recommend one to me or what to look for? I'm looking to spend around the £200 to £300 mark.

Cheers in advance.

[Monolith]

Ebuyer usually have some good offers on camcorders around this time of year. (ebuyer.com)

A useful search facility for buying pretty much anything is Kelkoo (Kelkoo.co.uk). It's a price comparison site, so you can search either by a specific model or manufacturer, or you can just type in camcorder and set the price limit to 300 big ones.

The odd decent deal sometimes does come up on ebay, although my success with the site has been in buying super 8 cameras and accessories.

As for a specific model, perhaps phone Jessops and see what they can recommend. Then plug in your findings into Kelkoo to see who's got it the cheapest.

[Mike Tyson]

Cheers for that.

I was hoping to get a hard drive one but I'm not sure I can with my budget.

Pardon my lack of knowledge but what is a super 8 camera?

[Monolith]

Yeah sadly I don't think you will get a HD camcorder for around 300. I could be mistaken, but at this point in time, it's more likely that you'll be having to double (if not more) that figure to get one.

Super 8 cameras are the cameras your parents are likely to have knocking around in the attic. They use 8 mm film and give very much a surreal, blurry, dimly contrasted picture. They tend to get used mostly by die-hard fans nowadays, but in the 60s and 70s were common as pie. You'll notice a lot of skate/surf/snow films are shot either entirely or in parts in Super 8. It lends itself very well to such mediums and really ought to be used in climbing! I can't think back, but parts of the Real Thing may have been shot in it.

You can have Super 8 film transferred to DVD by some companies so that you can then digitally edit your content, but you'll have to shop around for prices on this.

Just the other month:

"The Kodak lab in Lausanne, Switzerland has announced that it will end processing of Super 8 Kodachrome in September 2006. The lab must receive film for processing by September 25, 2006.
Our valued and valient friends at Dwayne's have pledged to keep processing 16mm, 8mm and Super 8 Kodachrome movie film as long as Kodak makes the film in 16mm." (from littlefilm.org)

So there are still places that will continue to process the film.

Most of all, Super 8 film is expensive. I have been quoted prices in the past ranging from 8 pounds to 26 pounds for 4 and a half minutes of film. Sadly, you can no longer buy Super 8 sound film, other than from second hand traders.

Despite the complexities, get into it. It's such a beautiful art and one which renders an actual sense of emotion back to film in the over-digitised era. I've certainly never looked back.

[squeek]

I'm of the thinking that a camcorder should record the images without distortion, whether that is digitally or on reels.  Any emotion should be obtained from what you're filming, not by how the media captures the images.  But I'm not very nostalgic.

Digital camcorder 20GB for £300

There's a sony one with 30GB for £346 too.

I don't know if these are good or poor.  I suspect as hard drive camcorders are quite new to the market place you might get a better quality camcorder if you spent your money on a MiniDV one.  you should probably read a few review websites for the cameras to get a good overall picture of what they offer and how good they are.

I quite fancy a camcorder, but it will have to wait a while.  Hopefully by then the HD ones will hold a lot of space and be as cheap as miniDV.

[Monolith]

I'm of the thinking that a camcorder should record the images without distortion, whether that is digitally or on reels.  Any emotion should be obtained from what you're filming, not by how the media captures the images. 

It's very frustrating when people use 'super 8 effect' in their digital editing software. It's not convincing at all! Super 8 distortion is beautiful, although one wouldn't want to use it for surveillance camera purposes though eh?

I find the whole world of buying a decent camcorder hard work. There seems to be such an overwhelming number of options with such mixed reviews. Perhaps an email to the staff at What Camcorder (or whatever it will be called) might lend some suggestions at your price Golt?

[Dave Flanagan]

Super 8 cameras are the cameras your parents are likely to have knocking around in the attic. They use 8 mm film and give very much a surreal, blurry, dimly contrasted picture. They tend to get used mostly by die-hard fans nowadays, but in the 60s and 70s were common as pie. You'll notice a lot of skate/surf/snow films are shot either entirely or in parts in Super 8. It lends itself very well to such mediums and really ought to be used in climbing! I can't think back, but parts of the Real Thing may have been shot in it.

You can have Super 8 film transferred to DVD by some companies so that you can then digitally edit your content, but you'll have to shop around for prices on this.

Most of all, Super 8 film is expensive. I have been quoted prices in the past ranging from 8 pounds to 26 pounds for 4 and a half minutes of film. Sadly, you can no longer buy Super 8 sound film, other than from second hand traders.

Despite the complexities, get into it. It's such a beautiful art and one which renders an actual sense of emotion back to film in the over-digitised era. I've certainly never looked back.

Last year I shot 10 rolls of super8 of various bits of bouldering in ireland, got them transferred to DVD by a telecine machine. A lot of the footage was a bit blurred and under/over exposed (I should of bought a better camera) but it was a worthwhile exercise, all I have to do is edit it now. I got my film on 7dayshop which is as cheap as it gets I think.
I though the real thing used 16?

[Monolith]

Aye, that's why I mentioned that perhaps parts of it were shot in Super 8. It might be non at all, but I don't have the film to hand to draw from.

I'd love to see the footage you have Dave. Good work on shooting in the medium, and keep us posted with developments.

Forgot to mention: I've been told before by a friend I went to uni with, that you can often buy Super 8 film cheap from Eastern Europe. Apparently a trader at Leeds City Market was selling it in 2004 at very competitive prices. I don't know much about it's quality, but it won't be Kodachrome. To be honest, you would have to do a lot of research on the net to find any such supplier, but who knows of the fruits this hard work might yield.

[Dave Flanagan]

I'd love to see the footage you have Dave.

This is small snippet that was crudely captured http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~moroneyk/dave/loughbray.asf

[Monolith]

That's a great sample Dave cheers for that. And for the record, that piece of music is sublime! Who I be listening to?

It just shows how it's not always neccessary to hear grunting and bellowing on a climbing film! And interestingly, no hip-hop or electronica was used.

Keep up the good work mate.

[fatdoc]

christ!!

i'm really tempted by the one squeek has found.........

is it pants???

sems to do exactly want i want - i'm not a film maker type of thing like you guys but with it cant I:

-edit and cut movies and change sound etc.. on my mac.. then make  a DVD

- piss about making climbing / mtb movies

- take some film of the kids beore they grow up, render me penniless and sod off.

advice from anyone would be way cool

[Fj]

I'd get a mini dv as there is no compression on footage, however it does mean mini dv is much larger so will take longer to transfer and take up more of your computers hard drive space. As mentioned you get more for your money at the moment with minidv, as the hard drive camcorders are the new media.
You also have the tapes as a back up incase your computer dies.
I got mine from Jessops seconds website which sold off anything returned or in used condition. The sites not about anymore but apparently they still run the service in store, so might be worth a call. Depending on the asthetic condition they reduce the price and they dont resell anything mechanically unsound or with bad optics.

[squeek]

Assuming you mean the JVC on amazon:
http://www.camcorderinfo.com/content/JVC-GZ-MG37-Camcorder-Review.htm

This is for the MG37, but it sounds as if that's just a 30GB model with most things the same.  I'm not an expert, but would say that for most people who want to point and shoot a video most new cameras around £300 would be fine.  If you want one at this price point with a HD then this one might be a good one.

Basically the reviews of HD based camcorders say you get better quality spending the same money on a miniDV one at the minute.  Whether you'd notice the slight <insert camcorder distortion> on the screen when you were looking at your kids birthday, you flying down the hill on a MTB, or sending that latest V20d+, is the question really.  Or more like, would you rather sacrifice a bit of quality for convenience?

We took a pretty cheap camera snowboarding with us last year, like £200, and I edited a small DVD for us with it, and was more than happy with the quality because it's just for us, and it's more about the memories than the visual quality.  If you were going to release it in some way then I'd be wanting a better one.

Re: tape being a backup of footage, I don't think that's too much of a worry really.  You'd have to have certain tapes for backup, which means you need to have quite a few tapes lying about.  With a HardDrive you can backup to DVD or another portable hard drive once you've copied it to your computer.

Another idea might be to find a Jessops, Dixons, etc that has a HD camcorder and see if they can film some footage and show it you, so you can see if the quality is good enough for you.

[Obi-Wan is lost...]

Just a small point, HD can confusing refer to both High Definition and Hard Disk Camcorders. Until recently you could easily tell the difference with a simple test, if you can afford it, it wasn't HighDef. Confusingly (but brilliantly!) HighDef cameras are almost within reach of the consumer. And before you say 'whose going to benefit from shooting HighDef?' Well, anyone who watches footage on a computer for a start. (or even better, has access to a digital projector) Even more confusingly there are already HighDef, Hard Disk(or Solid State to be exact) camcorders out there such as this http://www.jessops.com/Store/s36217/0/Camcorders/Sanyo/Xacti-VPC-HD1A-High-Definition-Camcorder/details.aspx?&IsSearch=y&pageindex=2&CatId=171&comp=y

Not sure about all this old school Super8 malarky. Tried that years ago, infact still have a slightly damaged (but working) Super8 camera if anyone wants to make me an offer. I'll stick to iMovie, (you can achieve the same affect with applying a grainy video effect, then throwing some money away)

Meanwhile, if I can just get the boss to agree to get one of these beauties...we'll be having a HighDef widescreen winter...

[Paul B]

I use a sony mini-dv and its been great (onto the second one now as a some theiving c!£t stole it last christmas, including all my dws footage!), got the replacement for just under £200 on ebay with long life battery and some extra stuff. Putting the footage on the computer is really hassle free, link it up with a firewire and just set the sony stuff to capture it all, it does take up a lot of space on your hard drive but arent most hard drives massive anyway nowadays?

Not sure about this super 8 stuff either, the effects you can get on most editing programs will replicate that easily and you can have sharp pictures as well 
(For editing i've got sony vegas and its really good and easy to use)

[fatdoc]

thanks,

depanedant on the conditions I'll mainly be trying to blag some interest free credit at jessops today....

 

[Monolith]

Not sure about this super 8 stuff either, the effects you can get on most editing programs will replicate that easily and you can have sharp pictures as well 

Aye, there is editing software which can apply such effects, but I have never seen a convincing 'super 8 effect'. Also, I'm not so sure that an entire film (such as Dave Flanagan's) with such a filter applied to it would look convincing.

[r-man]

This is small snippet that was crudely captured http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~moroneyk/dave/loughbray.asf

Nice. Sadly file is corrupted and the end won't show, but what was the music? I liked it.

And was that Gaskins? Don't think I've ever seen footage of him outside Stickit. What's he on?

[Paul B]

Yeah fair enough, I just slapped a 'low color quality' effect on this:


it would need some tweeking and the base colour to be more yellow but i'm sure if you play around with the settings you could get it looking almost perfect (some of the snippets look ok, others look utter shite and the music doesnt fit with the effects either), i'd never film anything in super 8 as you can only have it looking like that, at least with the effects you can use sharp images when you want and effects where appropriate? In then end though I think it pretty much comes down to whatever floats your boat. 

[Paul B]

Watched them both again, maybe an Edit to: An incredible amount of tweaking  is appropriate

[fatdoc]

from a *god one day please - though grossly unlikely- i wanna do this problem point of view*

i really liked it!!

[Monolith]

I think Super 8 is so hard to replicate, as I understand that tiny halide crystals that refract the light on the super 8 film. Unfortunately, I really don't know enough about the science of it all to be able to offer a comprehensive explanation as to why the digital emulation of the super 8 effect could never be anything like the real thing.

All I do know, is that the super 8 camera is an incredibly satisfying device to use, and no pissing about with white balance and such like is neccessary. Go get yourself a cheap one off ebay Paul and have a play. I'm sure you'll become hooked!

Weirdly enough, the first item I found in the stockroom in work today was a book about transferring old video/sound footage to DVD for archiving and digital editing. Quite strange, and a decent book!

[Paul B]

you should watch the video without the effects its better imo (if indeed it was the brad pit video you were on about):


you should get on it, james thought it was going to take a long time to get it done but he did it in about 30 mins, then again a few days later for the camera! you never know until you try.

Monolith: I don't know if I can be arsed, I lost all my intrest in filming stuff when my last cam and footage all got stolen, loads of tapes and lots of effort just wasted, however I do want to get some quality pre-trip footage and then, trip footage and then I can sort it out as I go with a laptop, camcorder and firewire (on the move: will give the person who isnt driving something to do as we move along at snails pace). You can play around with the crystal size and stuff on vegas to try and achieve super 8, i may play a bit more as it does look cool for some things (skate video's mainly I think, but maybe good for gritty training footage?), its a pretty good peice of software. At the minute im debating about whether or not I want to get a wide angled lens...

[Monolith]

Aye lad, that's fair enough. It's a question of time and inclination as you say. And Super 8 film-making isn't the most portable of options available to you. Perhaps it's just that I've been doing it for a while that leads me to spot a fraudulent S8 effect.
And for me, it's definitely the process that provides just as much enjoyment as the end product.

All this said, I haven't really done anything since leaving university. To be honest, I haven't actually wanted to film anything at this point in time! Would love to see anything you come up with Paul, best of luck with your work mate.

[Mike Tyson]

Seen as though t'was me who started this topic, thought I'd better pitch in a response.

I've been bidding and been outbid on most HD camcorders on ebay, there going for too much. So I think Mini DV is the way, so the next question posed is any recomendations for which on? There is obviously a heck of a lot out there and as before, I have no knowledge in this area at all.

Sorry for the pathetic cries for help on this and cheers for all the help and responses to my original question!