-
advice on which camera needed!
hi,
i’m desperately trying to find a camera for an art installation and it seems to be impossible to find an affordable model suitable for my needs.
can anyone point me to anything?my (rather specific) requirements are:
– output of clean 720p50 over hdmi, hd-sdi or analogue yuv. 1080i50 is not perfect but would work as well (using a hardware video scaler converting that to 720p50).– wide angle: about 80-90° horizontal field of view.
– full manual controls. i need to be able to lock everything related to gain/exposure/shutter/whitebalance/focus etc.
– has to be able to get power via cable (not only batteries) and needs to keep its settings when switched off/on.
– cheap: ideally it should cost around 500 € or less.
my first idea was cctv-cameras but at least the onces i tested so far always have some auto-gain feature working in the background even if i switch everything off in the menu.
my second route was to look at sony colour block cameras eg. fcb-se600 – which comes close but only feature 60° fov when in 720p-mode.
now i’m wondering maybe just some cheap consumer camera could do the job as well?
or some other device i might net even heard of?i’m really getting desperate about this… any help would be hugely appreciated!
thanks!!!
p -
4 Replies
-
A Sony Nex 5N is a good choice, you can pick one up used on Ebay for under $400 with a good lens. I have one, and it shoots beautiful video, with full manual controls. The only major downside, is the bad internal mic, and no mic jack…but a zoom H1 is only $100 and should fit you needs well if you don’t mind syncing in post.
-
hi ben,
thank you for your input!
sound quality is not an issue, i do not need any sound at all.
i just looked up the specs which look good but if i understand correctly, the nex 5 n can’t provide a clean hdmi output without all sorts of overlays: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3100865#forum-post-39902326
or can you positively confirm that it can?
apart, these lenses would actually be quite expensive: if i did the math correctly i would need about 9mm (non-fisheye) for 80-90° horizontal fov and the lenses i found matching this are all at least another 500 €…any other ideas?
best -
I actually haven’t used the HDMI out of my camera before, but I think you are right about the overlays. The Sony NEX VG-10 has the exact same sensor and specs as the NEX 5N, except the VG-10 has clean HDMI output. It is a bit more expensive, but has a few more video options. The lens mount is the same though.
Ben -
hi ben, thanks again, good idea.
after some more research i think i will go with an industrial camera though…
https://www.theimagingsource.com/de_DE/products/cameras/gige-cmos-ccd-color/dfk23gp031/
this one seems to come with directshow drivers for windows, that should (hopefully) work with my setup.
anyway: thanks for your help!!!
p
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up