What Camera is Best to Make a Home Video?

OK, before you do anything, you need a camera.

Now coming from a professional background I don't know much about the little handycams (except that if they are mini DV, they will give you a reasonable picture).

You can now however buy Mini DV 'professional' cameras with three ccds for between $1,500 and $2,500. three ccds give you a much better picture than one - It means that the image is forced through a prism which splits it into the three colors television images are made up of: red, green and blue and each one of these colors is processed seperately. This is the same technology used in broadcast television cameras, so it's great to see it appearing in affordable cameras.

These cameras also have optical zoom lenses which maintain image quality throughout the range of the lens. In fact they are so good that many professionals are starting to use them.

Here are some of my favourites :

The Panasonic Pro AG-DVC30 3-CCD MiniDV Camcorder with 16x Optical Zoom. At around $1,490, this is probably now the entry level Professional camera, but the picture and performance is so good many professionals have started using these cameras.

A similar camera, that is a bit more expensive is the Sony DCR-VX2100 3CCD MiniDV Handycam. At around $2,200, it's also a great little entry cam into the professional range. I have to say in the Broadcast and Professional range, Sony has always been my camera of choice. They have always performed better than the others and are very durable.

Just when you thought it was easy, they keep developing technology, raising the bar. With HDTV slowly becoming mainstreem, you'll get longer use by buying a HD Camcorder. For just $300 more at around $2,500 you can get a Sony Professional HVR-A1U CMOS HD Camcorder with a 10x Optical Zoom - An entry level HD professional camcorder, but with a single CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensor ,It's smaller, but lacks the picture uniformity and dynamic range of a CCD.

The entry level 3-CCD camera in the HDTV range is the Sony HDR-FX1 3-CCD HDV High Definition Camcorder . At around $4,000, it is a camera you could comfortably use for low-end professional work and it will make excellent home videos.

If you are willing to spend another $600, you get a more flexible better performing camera in the Sony Professional HVR-Z1U 3 CCD HD Camcorder with a 12 x Optical Zoom for $4,600. As well as a stereo microphone, it has two XLR audio input connectors for use with professional-grade microphones or external audio sources. And audio is one area that you need to focus on for a good home video.

Finally, my favourite, the Canon XL-H1 3CCD HD Camcorder with a 20x Optical Zoom. These cameras really feel like a broadcast camera. I used the predecessor to this one, the XL-1 to make several TV commercials - It was a great little camera. So good in fact, a company in the US makes adaptors to put cine lenses on it. It costs a bit more though, around $9,000 - But well and truly in the professional range.

The Age Of The Home Video

What an incredible era we live in! Technology makes it easier and easier for you and I to make sophisticated home videos every day.

I remember when I started in this business in the mid 1980's. The CCD had not been invented and cameras had tubes and they were huge! They were also not very sensitive - we used to have to carry 1000 watt and 2000 watt lights around, flood venues with light and blind people.

We shot on Betacam, then Betacam SP and you had to have an edit suite worth over a million dollars to put a simple video together. We would hire the suite out for $250/hr and it would cost us around $8,000 to put together 1/2 hour of television.

Last year I made a series of television commercials - The best quality, most sophisticated commercials I have ever made. They were 16:9 format (widescreen) and I shot them on DVCAM and edited them on my computer with Adobe Premiere Pro and a Cannopus card which cost me $1,500 with software. Total cost of the edit suite was around $4,000.

I didn't have a broadcast video deck to record the TV commercials on for the station, but I didn't need one - I wrote mpeg2 files and loaded them up on the server of a service provider who sent them to the TV stations by Satellite.

So what does that mean to you?

It means that by observing some basic rules and using a few tricks of the trade, you can make very sophisticated looking home videos. And I'm going to show you how.

Over the coming days and weeks, I'm going to reveal secrets of the trade, the most common mistakes people make and how to avoid them.

If you have any questions, please post comments on the posts or email me and I'll do my best to answer them