Video Camera for shooting wildlife & hunting

Demonical

Demonical

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What video camera(s) would you recommend for video taping wildlife?

I want something that shoots in HD, with a 10x or bigger zoom lens.

A couple of cameras that I have looked at are the Sony HDRSR11. That camera has a 60GB hard drive, plus it will take the Sony memory sticks.
They make one that has a bigger hard drive the HDRSR12.
Those two cameras are in the $1000-$1500 price range.

The camera I am leaning towards is the Sony HDR-FX7. It has a Carl Zeiss 20x zoom lens. Cheapest price I can find is $2300.

Another camera that I am considering is the Panasonic AG-DVX100B. It's around $2200.


I would appreciate feedback from anyone that has played with recording wildlife or hunts and what type of camera they would recommend.
 
I bought a sony dcr-sr45 about an hour ago........30g HD and memory stick.

I think it will plenty to film wildlife and hunts........and it is small too
 
10x zoom is no where enough for hunting or wildlife. I'd consider 16x a minimum and 20x is better. I just bought a new Cannon XHA1 and can't believe the value. It's got all the features of the XL for about 1/2 the price. It may be a little more than you are looking for but regardless of what you decide upon, I'd look at Mini DV over hard drive storage.

60 gigs may seem like a lot but it's not especially when shooting in HD plus you have the issues of archiving and filing. Tapes are very simple to deal with a easy to log. You have drawback of having to capture footage when you want to work with it on tape but if you are like me and have hundreds of tapes in a library, there is no easy way to deal with hard drive storage.

Look for a 3CCCD camera as well. A bit more money but the extra chips are well worth the cost for the quality you get. Also, with everything moving toward HD these days....no sense buying old technology.
 
SH the Canon XH-A1 is one of the cameras that I checked out. It's the highest rated video camera on CNET.

I don't understand the 3CCD thing, the Sony HDR-FX1 has that, but in their newer camera (the HDR-FX7) they switched to something called CMOS technology.

I agree that it makes no sense to buy old tech. I want HD. Most of the "prosumer" cameras use the mini-DV format.

What do you do to protect the camera in wet weather?
 
Wrong Way said:
Why is hardriove storage/organization a problem? External hardrives are dirt cheap now, and everything can be organized into files, sub compartmentalized, dated, moved, edited, copied and burned in no time. Is there something I'm missing?
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I guess it all comes down to how much footage you shoot WW.......I quite literally have hundreds of tapes so it would mean a large number of hard drives, plus on remote shoots, dumping to a remote hard drive is not always an option. The fact that each time you start and stop recording saves as a new file is a bit of a pain when editing as well. With tapes I can just capture what I need and not fill up my hard drive with useless footage.

For those that don't shoot alot or archive a lot, it makes sense but for someone shooting volume it just doesn't.
 
What do you do to protect the camera in wet weather?
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I just made up a camera condom from GoreTex but if any camera gets too damp, it will shut down. It can be a real hassle in humid conditions.
 
sheephunter said:
I guess it all comes down to how much footage you shoot WW.......I quite literally have hundreds of tapes so it would mean a large number of hard drives, plus on remote shoots, dumping to a remote hard drive is not always an option. The fact that each time you start and stop recording saves as a new file is a bit of a pain when editing as well. With tapes I can just capture what I need and not fill up my hard drive with useless footage.

For those that don't shoot alot or archive a lot, it makes sense but for someone shooting volume it just doesn't.
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What is the capacity of each tape? You can get +1.0 TB hard drives for $300 or so, can't you?
I can see your point on the other stuff though.
 
1899 said:
What is the capacity of each tape? You can get +1.0 TB hard drives for $300 or so, can't you?
I can see your point on the other stuff though.
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Each tape likely represents 20-30 gigs of footage...they are real-time tapes so it's an hour of footage. Unfortunately, cheapo drives do not play well with professional video editing systems. The drives I use are about $1/gig. Considering that each file would need to be backed up on two drives (one for safety) it can get very expensive. And for the other reasons I cited, most people that shoot volume are still using tape. You can find prosumer cameras with hard drives but they are not common and the ones you do see are more designed for studio use than in the field applications.
 
I did a lot of research reading opinions and reviews in as many places as I could, plus I shopped every site I could find and today I finally bought a camera! :)


I went back and forth between the Canon XH-A1, rated an 8.9 on CNET; the Panasonic AG-DVX100B, rated 8.4 on CNET and the Sony HDR-FX7, which was rated 8.0.

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Canon XH-A1

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Panasonic AG-DVX100B

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Sony HDR-FX7




In the end I bought the Panasonic. It has two strikes against it; number one it is the old SDV or Standard Definition Video format. I really wanted HDV:High Def but in the end I couldn't justify the price.
The other issue is it only has a 10x zoom, so I will have to buy an add-on 1.5x or 2.0x lens.

In spite of those two concerns, what finally sold me on the Panasonic was two reviews that I read today (and now I cannot find).

One was a story about a guy that won a Documentary Feature award about the ongoing Iraqi conflict, at the Cannes film festival using the same Panasonic camera that I bought. Apparently this guy shot video in sand storms, 110F heat and even went into some kind of war zone, where the temperature, where he was shooting was so high, it made the strap on his backpack catch fire, yet the camera never faltered.

The other was a Blog site I found for a Video Camera magazine and online forum and the "expert" on that site said that too many people get sucked into buying technology hype, when the way the camera is used is more important then the technical specs, and that guy only recommended 3 cameras, one of which was the Panasonic AG-DVX-100B. He did not recommend either of the others that I was considering.

Also if you read the review from CNET, you will see some stuff about the toughness of the camera, that appealed to me.

Any of these cameras are available on Ebay and usually a helluva lot cheaper then you will find in any local camera store. If you are thinking maybe you would buy one, then do the research, decide what you need and then really check the prices.

I don't think you can beat Ebay, but it is BUYER BEWARE!

I bought mine off Ebay. :sniper:







A couple of links.

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-pro-semipro-camcorders/

http://www.testfreaks.com/digital-camcorders/panasonic-ag-dvx100b/
 
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Apparently this guy shot video in sand storms, 110F heat and even went into some kind of war zone, where the temperature, where he was shooting was so high, it made the strap on his backpack catch fire, yet the camera never faltered.
Click to expand...

I've never yet had a camera fail because of heat but I've sure seen a lot problems with some models because of cold.

I just got back from 8 days in Costa Rica and ran another 12 hours of tape through my XH, (Marlin fight for a very long time!) it performed flawlessly again for me.

Watch out for light loss when looking at telephoto adapters. Some rob so much light that the camera is useless long before the end of the day. In the end a good doubler could very well cost you the difference between the cameras.
 
I have a helluva learning curve to use the camera properly but that's part of the deal, eh? There are a few videos on www.YouTube.com that demonstrate some basic camera functions, that I will take as a starting point.

I had some facts wrong and just for accuracy sake, the guy won an award at the Sundance Film Festival.



Here's that link.
http://www.dv.com/news/news_item.php?category=News+Archive&articleId=193700390


Link Re: Camera is recommendations.
http://www.dv.com/columns/columns_item.php?articleId=196603486
 
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