Re: Best HDV camera for working in FCP?

Hi Marni,
I just posted in the XL-H1 area, so I won't be redundant with what I found was wrong with that camera. To answer your question, I've never had a problem with the XH-A1 and FCP, seems to work well, I've shot in all modes, I still use 30F most of the time.. I shoot alot of action and my intended target is DVD/Broadcast, never use that format if you want to go to film. The camera is not the greatest performer in low light, as this is sort of a relative thing, it's really hard to say if it will work at what you want to do. I recently shot in a kitchen with a single 75 watt bulb (exposed) and was running about a stop down at 0db gain. It had to be tweaked up in color correction, but looked fine. If you are talking about shooting at night, with natural light, no. I think the new sony's have 1/2 chips and would probably fare better.

Now that I've answered that, I'll tell you what I think you need to ask. As anyone will tell you, within some bounds a camera is just a tool and most will work fine with FCP, if you have people talking about excessive dropout on any camera, I suspect they have a bad camera. So I think the questions I would ask is (a) what is your level of competence with a camera? If this is your first and you want to get going, most of the auto modes should work well as you learn how to start shooting everything in manual mode (you WILL want to make that migration, for auto anything never works always right, and it limits your control of your own artistic expression which you will develop).

Are you planning on shooting dramatic creative stuff or news like documentary? Dramatic stuff having the ability to shoot in different frame rates, having the ability to change lenses, etc you will want to do sooner or later. Documentary, you will probably want to change lenses too, buy may do fine with one of the screw ons that most of the makers sell for fixed lens cameras. Who is you client or who do you think they will be? I have friends that will NEVER use tapes again, but they are pretty limited with the amount of time they can shoot with flash due to cost limitations, and/or having to lug a laptop to download on. I prefer tapes as I often shoot 4-6 hours straight and don't want any down time as I shoot alot of events non-stop for documentary. Tapes are $2 and I keep 6 hrs worth in my pocket premarked so I spend only about 30 seconds from off to on and I don't have to lug a laptop (believe me the camera itself is too heavy), especially when in a crowd or your working in a place where you are in fear of someone stealing your gear you DONT want anything you have to keep an eye on. So these are some of the questions I would ask. I love the idea of solid state if it is creative and on a set and the flexibility it gives you in a secure area where time constraints and extra help is available, you get more frame rates, etc. But for event, there are alot of limitations unless you have very deep pockets to spend THOUSANDS of dollars on flash to go for hours (and will depreciate quickly will low resale values later). So I would ask what do you want to do with it and go from there. I hope that helps...

Brian