Need help on choosing a 'decent' dv-cam

[bum]

hi

im new to cameras and need some help choosing digital video camera,

ive been looking through ebay and found some good cams but need advice, im after a good quality camera, doesnt have to be top of the range, and not professional.

All im after is a camera that has good fps, so no choppy recording, something smooth and crisp.

what should I look out for, i'm going to be using it for cars, such as car drag racing at nights and other things, some cameras arent that good in night which i know but i just want to know what i should look out for in the specs of the cam,

ive seen cams with MPEG4 15fps and QVGA 25fps, now is this good or not? Whats a decent quality fps and whats not. what could you reccommend. i dont need it for making tv commercials etc or nothing, just to be able to record good and smooth videos thats all.

otherwise i might just by a vhs cam and use a capture device to capture all the video through to pc?

some advice please.

[Skyman]

Since you are in Australia, the cameras you will be looking at are using the Pal standard. this is always 25fps or 50 interlaced fields a second. (assuming that you are going for a mini dv camera. the 15fps mpeg stuff is the sort of thing you see on a digital still camera trying to be a video camera. in terms of drags, what is more important is getting the camera to record a at a high shutter speed (different to frames per second) so that the cars themselves are not blurry. in a low light situation this is often difficult to achieve. for best results i would use a camera that had manual aperture shutter and gain controls although this would jump the price a lot, so to that end a camera that has a fast lens (small aperture f2.8 or smaller) will help alot, as this will maximise the camera's light capturing abilities which will in turn enable it to pick a faster shutter speed.

[bum]

thanks man,

helps alot, is there a website where i can preview the quality of cameras recording or something? cant find any, it would just be good to see how there quality is before buying it.. i tried searching everywhere but no luck.

[Skyman]

not that i am aware of, full resolution video files are to large to practically compare online. but really, as long as you go with a reputable brand (sony, canon, jvc, panasonic) you can't really do to badly. ask your local camera shop to turn down or dim the lights and test the camera. if you have the money check out some of the pro video stores. videocraft (sydney and melbourne) are a good starting point.

[bum]

Thanks skyman! Very helpful.

well ive bidded for this camera on ebay, could you please tell me if it is the one for me? if its recording will be smooth like real time? im not too fussed about the zoom features. more fussed about smooth motion recording.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI....ADME:B:EF:AU:1

[Skyman]

that camera is a good one, good luck, they retail for over a grand new so second hand price wouldn;t be higher than $500

[bum]

thanks man. looks like bidders are hitting onto the cam, i hope i win it. if not il check out some other cams on ebay that are possibly as good as that.

[bum]

Hi Skyman

I went and bought the Canon MV830i today and it looks fine. http://www.canon.com.au/products/cam...eo/mv830i.html

Unforutnately, since I use the tape i can't get the camera to get detected to transfer movies from the TAPE to PC on USB, however it detects the card from USB?

How would I go about transferring the video on the tape to pc, should I use the Firewire, and what do you think of this camera? Is it good, i bought it for $750.

Since the movie quality is really poor/choppy on the CARD, do you think they will be any better like much smoother from tape??

Hope you can help.

Cheers

[MJS]

Hi there and welcome. You need to use the firewire for the video transfer. The USB is only for still photos or for streaming on the web if the camera is capable of it.

[bum]

thanks, trying it now.