Need quick advice on camcorder, camera, and lighting package for large industrial machines.

A company that I edit video for called today and wants to equip themselves with a miniDV camcorder, digital still camera, and some lights. They are very inexperienced so I will need to give them a basic setup that they can use over and over again, simple but effective for acceptable lighting. I don't expect them to ever have great lighting, but they wish to have usable shots.

They need to get a small 3ccd camcorder and a good tripod. For lights, I am thinking two 2k lights of some sort. That way, they can use 20 amp circuits. I don't know whether to tell them to get fresnels, open face, soft boxes, or something like the Mole zip soft light. They will be lighting balers, like cardboard recycling balers. They are very rectangular pieces of equipment, and are usually going to be somewhere between 30 and 60 feet long including a conveyer, and 10 to 20 feet tall. Again, I don't expect them to get shots that would be great for beauty shots for marketing, but I do expect them to get shots that would be great for marketing when used as cover for a testimonial from a customer that has the baler in application, or for archival purposes.

The locations will be varied and they will never know what they will be getting themselves into until they are there to shoot it. However, everything I have previously seen from them has been in a large metal building or similar warehouse or factory, with flourescent, mercury vapor, or sodium vapor type lighting. I don't expect them to learn about white balance or filters, we will just have to set the camera for the type of lighting that we buy and live with the mismatch of color on the background.

I'm sorry to ask for your help to be quick, but they are going to meet in 2 days to discuss the budget. Please advise on any part of the project that you can, camcorder, camera, lights, and even lighting technique.


Thanks in advance,
Gary