Andrew Gormley

In most circles I travel in I’m the “video guy”, so I often get asked the following question by friends or family:

“Is this a good video camera?”

Unfortunately, it’s pretty difficult to keep up with every single video camera that a company releases. Canon alone has 27 consumer camcorders and 9 professional/prosumer camcorders, so you can imagine how difficult it is for the layperson to differentiate between which features they really need and what is just icing on the cake. So, without further ado, I introduce the Andrew Gormley Video Camera Buying Guide Extravaganza.

I’m not going to recommend specific brands or even models here.  Instead I’m going to focus mainly on new features that are helpful for both shooting and any post-production work you may want to do. Please note that this advice is coming from an indie film maker, so some things I recommend to achieve that “film look” might be completely optional for you.

Prosumer Camcorder, Upgraded

Features That Are Necessary

High Definition – It’s pretty much understood that Standard Definition has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.  As of this writing, 79 out of 100 of Amazon’s Best Selling Camcorders have HD capabilities, so it’s pretty difficult to buy a camera these days that doesn’t shoot in HD, but you also shouldn’t pass one up just to save a few hundred dollars.  Aim for a resolution of 1280×720, which is also known as 720p. If you can get the “Full HD” experience at 1920×1080, then that’s even better.  Make sure to also look for the word Progressive or settings labeled “24p” or “30p”.  This will ensure that your video looks it’s best.

There are a lot of proprietary codecs for handling this HD footage, but they’re all pretty easy to use and import into your editing software of choice, whether it’s something simple like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker all the way up to Final Cut Pro or Avid editing suites.

Solid State Memory - It doesn’t matter if it’s flash memory, an on-board hard drive (also advertised as HDD), P2 cards, etc – This is required.  My old cameras used Mini-DV tapes and I couldn’t believe how much time was lost just importing footage, not to mention the fact that FireWire ports are harder to come by these days (even on new Macs).  Solid state camcorders also allow you to quickly review or delete footage you just shot, so nothing is wasted. Furthermore, importing footage is as easy as plugging your camcorder into a USB port and dragging the video files right to your hard drive for editing.

Note: Stay away from cameras that record directly to mini-DVDs. They often cost more and you run into a similar problem as with mini DV on how to import the footage once you’re done shooting. A post-production nightmare.

Extra Features For The Filmmaker

24p – This was mentioned briefly in the High Definition section above and usually comes coupled with a dedicated progressive mode.  This mode of shooting uses the film-standard 24 frames per second as opposed to the video-standard 30 frames per second and is the closest way to reproduce a film look using a digital camcorder.

Manual Focus – Most of the pricier camcorders have manual focus available, whether it’s a focus ring on the lens or enabled through the camera software. While it does require being a bit more familiar with the in-depth camera settings to take full advantage of, some stunning effects can be achieved through it’s use.

Further Considerations

Sensor Size – Most consumer camcorders come with one sensor inside that’s used for processing the image.  Having a larger sensor helps the camera perform better in low light, pick up a wider range of colors, and produce less noise (pixelation) on your image.  Common image sensor sizes can be found on this site.  Two things to look for that will improve the quality of your footage are: sensor size and number of actual sensors (high end cameras often have 3).

HDMI Output – This can be useful for some people to see what their actual output will look like on a television as what you see on your computer screen (within your editing suite) is not always an accurate representation.

Zoom Length (and the dreaded Digital Zoom) – If you’re going to be shooting anything that you’re not directly a part of (like a sporting event), you’re going to want a camera with a decent optical zoom, usually around 12x or better.  Digital zooms can go up as far as 400x, but quickly degrade the quality of your picture so avoid it all costs.  Optionally, an optical image stabilizer is a great way to keep your handheld shots steady while zoomed when a tripod isn’t available.