Help me pick a tripod for a camcorder

[steppinthrax]

I want somthing nice at least in the 2 hundrend dollar range. I was looking at Bogens (manfrotto). I don't know much about tripods just that I imagine there will be a small screw hole in the bottom of the camcorder. Anybody have any good names, ideas etc..... This will be used to make training videos I want the motion smooth.

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moderaotr allisolm

 

[gsellis]

How heavy is your camera? A Bogen 501 head is one of the better low-ends of the fluidhead/semi-fluidhead market. It will support up to about 10-15lbs, but is a bit of overkill on a 1lb camera (but still works, the heavier camera's inertia helps movement). The 503 is even better. There are others, but my budget has never been up for Miller time (cheapest system is $1k).

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: gsellis
How heavy is your camera? A Bogen 501 head is one of the better low-ends of the fluidhead/semi-fluidhead market. It will support up to about 10-15lbs, but is a bit of overkill on a 1lb camera (but still works, the heavier camera's inertia helps movement). The 503 is even better. There are others, but my budget has never been up for Miller time (cheapest system is $1k).

We are so far looking at getting a small HDD camcorder. Non-HD. Something small.

JVC GZMG155 - 3 lb shipping weight

Sony DCR-SR82 - 3 lb again.

I'm ignorant when it comes to tripods. I have one of those cheap wal-mart tripods. What is the head. You have to buy the portion that hooks onto the camera sepearte????? So your buying two things???

 

[gsellis]

With real tripods, you get the head and the legs either seperately or as a combo.

Look at my other reply to your camcorder thread. You did not specify what kind of training that I remember, but if classroom or on site, you really want to go with something like the PD170 (miniDV style).

 

[steppinthrax]

Originally posted by: gsellis
With real tripods, you get the head and the legs either seperately or as a combo.

Look at my other reply to your camcorder thread. You did not specify what kind of training that I remember, but if classroom or on site, you really want to go with something like the PD170 (miniDV style).

I looked at that camcorder. It's just the thing what is the big difference between that one and the others I mentioned. It looks like a very high end professional camcorder.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: steppinthrax

Originally posted by: gsellis
With real tripods, you get the head and the legs either seperately or as a combo.

Look at my other reply to your camcorder thread. You did not specify what kind of training that I remember, but if classroom or on site, you really want to go with something like the PD170 (miniDV style).

I looked at that camcorder. It's just the thing what is the big difference between that one and the others I mentioned. It looks like a very high end professional camcorder.

It is actually considered prosumer and is lower-end of that now. The difference is professional audio with video quality to match. It can be set to handle many situations that would be impossible to shoot with the cameras you are looking at in both color and light reproduction. It's ability to take audio from multiple feeds instead of a built in mic make it a must because you are probably going to want to only capture a speaker/lecturer's voice clearly without the room in it. You catch that on one track and any AV added from a AV system on another. Otherwise, it will sound like a person in a garbage can talking and it will be muddy visually.

But, I don't know what your target is for your training videos or your source.