Upgrading my Canon HV20...

[swbsam]

I'm getting back into the "visual arts" a bit, mostly as a hobby at first (but I went to school for film and am a certified video editor, so I'd like to eventually monetize the hobby) and am thinking of eventually upgrading my hv20.

I love the video quality but would like something with more manual settings and perhaps a focus ring. I'd also like something with more of a professional heft to it, as pretentious as that sounds (I've had situations where I walked into a situation back when I freelanced with a totally adequate hand cam that paying clients scoffed at me for using, so I upgraded to a Canon GL2 back there, primarily for the look. as dumb as that sounds).


At this phase, I'd like to spend only $1,000. Is there anything out there that fits the bill, or should I save up my pennies for a higher end canon (xl1h, or whatever it's called now)?

 

[sswingle]

I don't think you are going to get what you want at that price range. I just got a Sony FX7 for $1,850 and I love it.

 

[theblackbox]

you'd have to move up pretty big to get something with what you want that is better then the hv20. you could always throw a dof 35mm adapter and a xlr box and have a fancy looking hv20 that does what it does and looks more professional...

at 1000 bucks, the best you would do is the canon hf s100 or maybe the panasonic hdc tm-300. both are still consumer cameras, but their features are in line with cameras at the 2000$ range. for a good pro canon, you are looking 3000+

i just picked up the hf s10 and besides the fact it looks like a consumer camera, it is a very capable camera. especially if you like 24p and 30p video. (with a little work) add a dof adapter and it all of a sudden looks and acts more like very expensive cameras...

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: theblackbox
you'd have to move up pretty big to get something with what you want that is better then the hv20. you could always throw a dof 35mm adapter and a xlr box and have a fancy looking hv20 that does what it does and looks more professional...

That's exactly what I was going to recommend...you're simply not going to get anything more professional in the sub-$1200 range than an HV20. With a 35mm adapter, you can make it look as nasty as you want:

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/8179/cam2mf0.jpg

Lean mean video machine right there If you're gonna spend the dough - go with the best: Cinevate's Brevis35 adapter. The non-flipped model is right in your price range - $995.40:

http://www.cinevate.com/catalo...f9c4c64c24a38e5e48e50a

Future upgrades can be the flip module, rails, and all the other crazy-awesome stuff that Cinevate sells. For starters, after a 35mm adapter, you can pick up an external video preview monitor - Coby has a nice 7" monitor with a built-in battery for $85 on Amazon: (it's only composite input iirc, but for $85 with a battery it's an amazing deal!)

http://www.amazon.com/Coby-TFD...-Tablet/dp/B0014KROZO/

So you can hide your tiny beast of a camera inside a monster rails setup and no one would be the wiser

 

[theblackbox]

oh, and secondly, i've never been scoffed at for whipping out a smaller camera. i find most people are more interested in the results, not the size of your camera. needing a bigger camera sounds like a masculinity thing to me.

Put your money into the Brevis35 (nice of nice) and a 35mm lens, and enjoy your footage.

I'm kind of stuck which way i want to go with my new hf s10, if i want to get a nice adapter, try to make one myself, or buy a cheaper one.

By the way, i am very happy with the performance and the quality of the new canon. i'll have some stuff on vimeo shortly, i've been enjoying all the snow we have been getting the last week.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: theblackbox
oh, and secondly, i've never been scoffed at for whipping out a smaller camera. i find most people are more interested in the results, not the size of your camera. needing a bigger camera sounds like a masculinity thing to me.

Well, it's all relative - my cousin whipped out her XL2 at a wedding and got a lot more attention than my cam did (in fact, mine got NONE lol), but my footage was HD, and since mine was more portable, I got a lot more shots than she did because it was cake to setup ASAP anywhere

 

[theblackbox]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: theblackbox
oh, and secondly, i've never been scoffed at for whipping out a smaller camera. i find most people are more interested in the results, not the size of your camera. needing a bigger camera sounds like a masculinity thing to me.

Well, it's all relative - my cousin whipped out her XL2 at a wedding and got a lot more attention than my cam did (in fact, mine got NONE lol), but my footage was HD, and since mine was more portable, I got a lot more shots than she did because it was cake to setup ASAP anywhere

i don't know. nothing cracks me up more then seeing someone pull out a pro or prosumer camera at their kids recital, handhold it with no light from the back of the room.

i prefer the smaller camera, much easier to work with and you don't stand out.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: theblackbox

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: theblackbox
oh, and secondly, i've never been scoffed at for whipping out a smaller camera. i find most people are more interested in the results, not the size of your camera. needing a bigger camera sounds like a masculinity thing to me.

Well, it's all relative - my cousin whipped out her XL2 at a wedding and got a lot more attention than my cam did (in fact, mine got NONE lol), but my footage was HD, and since mine was more portable, I got a lot more shots than she did because it was cake to setup ASAP anywhere

i don't know. nothing cracks me up more then seeing someone pull out a pro or prosumer camera at their kids recital, handhold it with no light from the back of the room.

i prefer the smaller camera, much easier to work with and you don't stand out.

Yah, I don't go anywhere without at LEAST my Gorillapod! The nice thing about my HV20 not getting any attention was that I could smuggle it into better areas without having peo;ple crowd around it

 

[swbsam]

Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: swbsam
Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

Brevis35 is THE BEST 35mm adapter to go with, period. If you want to save some green, get a Redrock or Letus (Letus adapters are pretty popular right now), but Cinevate really has the best system on the market (the Brevis35).

I'm really torn between doing a Brevis or saving for a Scarlet, hehe.

 

[theblackbox]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: swbsam
Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

Brevis35 is THE BEST 35mm adapter to go with, period. If you want to save some green, get a Redrock or Letus (Letus adapters are pretty popular right now), but Cinevate really has the best system on the market (the Brevis35).

I'm really torn between doing a Brevis or saving for a Scarlet, hehe.

might as well get the brevis, i doubt the scarlet will be out anytime soon, or anytime down the road. red has some great ideas, and some good expensive cameras like the one, but i'm beginning to think they learned the concept of vaporware from the pc industry.

 

[swbsam]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: swbsam
Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

Brevis35 is THE BEST 35mm adapter to go with, period. If you want to save some green, get a Redrock or Letus (Letus adapters are pretty popular right now), but Cinevate really has the best system on the market (the Brevis35).

I'm really torn between doing a Brevis or saving for a Scarlet, hehe.

Is there a more.. economical.. option? By the time I factor this and an xlr adapter plus other accessories, I'm at the price of a prosumer canon or the new panasonic.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: theblackbox
might as well get the brevis, i doubt the scarlet will be out anytime soon, or anytime down the road. red has some great ideas, and some good expensive cameras like the one, but i'm beginning to think they learned the concept of vaporware from the pc industry.

Nah, I don't think they're vaporware - we'll look at the timeline in a minute, but they actually have RED cameras, which says they're really making cameras, and they released those on time, so they have a good track record. iirc the release date for the Scarlet is "late 2009" (just a timeframe, no specifics yet), so they've still got 9 months to delivery this baby if that's true They've given themselves permission to upgrade the specs by saying "everything will change...count on it", which is great for hobbyists like myself but terrible for professionals who need reliable dates and specs (which doesn't really matter, because first-gen stuff ALWAYS has bugs, so...haha).

I do think they have two major issues - first, they announced this stuff right before the "recession", so I'm sure they're getting nailed financially on this project, and second, they announced themselves too early. That worked for the RED because nothing else like it existed before, but now that they've proposed specifics on the Scarlet system, the other camera makers are going to town - both Canon and Panasonic have announced high-end all-digital HD systems, dSLR's are all getting LiveView and HD Video treatment, etc., and boy are those attractive options because (1) they're available and (2) they're cheaper the upcoming Scarlet, which makes them a good option for consumers and prosumers.

So now the RED company is getting a lot of heat from competitor's products, they're probably having financial difficulties due to the economy, and they've over-promised (at least as far as their release schedule goes), so while I really hope they come through on-time, I think we'll probably see another extension.

imo, what they should have done is kept their mouths shut until they had finished the prototypes and were getting setup for product, ~6 months before release. That would have been sufficient to generate interest, but at the same time not given competitor's time to mobilize on new products. So as far as a timeline goes:

RED Company - founded 2005
RED Digital Camera announced - April 2006 @ NAB, 11.4mp @ 60fps for $17.5k
Mini-RED mentioned - April 2007 @ NAB
RED Digital Camera released - late 2007
Scarlet & Epic Cameras announced - November 13, 2008

So really it's only been 6 months since the Scarlet was announced. Base on their timeline, we know that:

1. They do deliver products
2. They've delivered on specificied times (so far)
3. They've set a timeframe, but not specific date for the Scarlet & Epic
4. They released the original RED about 1.5 years after annoucement

We also know that the dSLR industry added HD Video capabilities and shook things up a bit for RED, so they probably had to go back to the drawing board. So...I have faith in RED - they have a good track record, they simply haven't announced a specific release date yet. More time for me to save up/beg my wife

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: swbsam

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: swbsam
Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

Brevis35 is THE BEST 35mm adapter to go with, period. If you want to save some green, get a Redrock or Letus (Letus adapters are pretty popular right now), but Cinevate really has the best system on the market (the Brevis35).

I'm really torn between doing a Brevis or saving for a Scarlet, hehe.

Is there a more.. economical.. option? By the time I factor this and an xlr adapter plus other accessories, I'm at the price of a prosumer canon or the new panasonic.

There are cheaper 35mm adapters, but there aren't better 35mm adapters The nice thing about getting a Brevis35 is that you can still "unplug" the HV20 and use it anywhere, if you don't want to tote a big rig around, and it's only a few hundred to replace if it breaks, instead of a few thousand. Plus you can piecemeal things - start out with an inexpensive 50mm f1/8, then add an XLR adapter, a zoom lens, a rails system, a follow focus, etc.

Then again, you could just keep saving and get a better camera. But the HV20 is so much FUN

 

[swbsam]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: swbsam

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: swbsam
Thanks for all of the advice - as far as a 35mm DOF adapter - do you recommend any (other than building one myself, because I'm not handy)?

I think I'll save my pennys and eventually get a camera in the 2 to 3k range, but like the idea to accessorize my HV20 until then.

Thanks!

P.S. I Know the talk about the cameras looks was pretentious - I just got a lot of smack from people while shooting with a hand cam back in the days, perhaps perceptions have changed

Brevis35 is THE BEST 35mm adapter to go with, period. If you want to save some green, get a Redrock or Letus (Letus adapters are pretty popular right now), but Cinevate really has the best system on the market (the Brevis35).

I'm really torn between doing a Brevis or saving for a Scarlet, hehe.

Is there a more.. economical.. option? By the time I factor this and an xlr adapter plus other accessories, I'm at the price of a prosumer canon or the new panasonic.

There are cheaper 35mm adapters, but there aren't better 35mm adapters The nice thing about getting a Brevis35 is that you can still "unplug" the HV20 and use it anywhere, if you don't want to tote a big rig around, and it's only a few hundred to replace if it breaks, instead of a few thousand. Plus you can piecemeal things - start out with an inexpensive 50mm f1/8, then add an XLR adapter, a zoom lens, a rails system, a follow focus, etc.

Then again, you could just keep saving and get a better camera. But the HV20 is so much FUN

Do you have any video you shot online? I know the camera's a wonderful little ah heck, but investing in a whole ecosystem around a camera than can be had for $300 refurbed is a bit hard to swallow, but you sound like you know what you're talking about so I'm not exactly doubting your advice.. I'd just like to see what picemealing things will get me, vs. buying an xha1

 

[theblackbox]

check out hv20.com, and you can find a lot of links to vimeo footage shot on the consumer canons with dof adapters and the such. they do an amazing bit of work with the camera. it shows that you don't need to spend 3 grand to get results. but then again, it's not as much the camera as the person behind it and how they use it.
you can take any footage post production and make it awesome.
personally, i wouldn't spend 3000 bucks for an hdv cam. i made the move to avc and i am very happy with the performance, the ability to pick and choose when logging instead of capturing, and the workflow.
plus, being able to capture 1920x1080 native without hdmi is nice, and having a silent camera is really nice.

the only thing that getting the xha1 will get you is the wow factor when people see it. footage is footage. oh, and maybe better low light performance and some extra switches and plugs.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: swbsam
Do you have any video you shot online? I know the camera's a wonderful little ah heck, but investing in a whole ecosystem around a camera than can be had for $300 refurbed is a bit hard to swallow, but you sound like you know what you're talking about so I'm not exactly doubting your advice.. I'd just like to see what picemealing things will get me, vs. buying an xha1

I don't have a Brevis35, I'm still piecemealing it myself :laugh: Don't just take my advice - you need to choose what's best for your situation. For your $1,000 budget with an existing camera, a 35mm is a pretty good solution. The Canon XH-A1 is super nice, but it's also selling for $3700 at B&H right now, which is nearly 4 times what you want to spend. Let's see what $3700 can get you for your HV20:

Beachtek Dual XLR Adapter ($180)
Cinevate Brevis35mm Adapter with Flip Module ($1500)
Cinevate Proteus 60mm Rail System ($390)
Cinevate Proteus Shoulder Mount ($230)
Cinevate Durus Follow Focus System ($920)
Cinevate Adjustable Mattebox ($550)

So for roughly the same price as the Canon XH-A1 camcorder, you get a dual-XLR adapter, a 35mm system with flip (the image goes upside down with a 35mm adapter; a flip module fixes that), a Follow Focus system, a Mattebox, a Rail System, and a Shoulder Mount system. Versus a new camera with, hmm, a built-in handle? Imagine having a shoulder mount to tote around your very own 35mm system with a mattebox and a follow focus on top of rails!

That's not to say there aren't drawbacks to an HV20, nor many wonderful advantages to having an XH-A1. The Canon XH-A1 is great out of the box - better than the HV20, obviously. You'd still need a 35mm adapter if you want the 35mm "look", but I don't know if that matters to you or not. 35mm is pretty neat, especially if you're a visual arts guy! But it's just one aspect of a great hobby/career in videography for your camera.

So it comes down to, what do you really want to do with your camera?

 

[theblackbox]

i've even seen good results from some of the cheaper 35mm adapters, like jags, so if you don't want the best for under 400 bucks, or 200 you can get an adapter that works.

or you can make one yourself, i've seen them made out of cardboard tubes, flashlight parts, compact disc recorders and rubber bands. you really want people to mock you.....

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: theblackbox
i've even seen good results from some of the cheaper 35mm adapters, like jags, so if you don't want the best for under 400 bucks, or 200 you can get an adapter that works.

or you can make one yourself, i've seen them made out of cardboard tubes, flashlight parts, compact disc recorders and rubber bands. you really want people to mock you.....

Toilet Paper roll + black spray paint = looks professional, right?

...right?

 

[theblackbox]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: theblackbox
i've even seen good results from some of the cheaper 35mm adapters, like jags, so if you don't want the best for under 400 bucks, or 200 you can get an adapter that works.

or you can make one yourself, i've seen them made out of cardboard tubes, flashlight parts, compact disc recorders and rubber bands. you really want people to mock you.....

Toilet Paper roll + black spray paint = looks professional, right?

...right?

you know, sometimes it's the result that counts and not the looks. hey, if no one is looking, and it works....why not.