Prosumer digital video camera with Final Cut Pro

[Andrew Rendell]

“Best” is a rather subjective term when you have a limited budget, but here’s my thoughts.

At that budget I’d probably be looking at the Canon XF105 but check the other brands, as features are something of a compromise at that price point and one manufacturer might be slightly better than another for some particular thing that might be attractive to you.

Don’t neglect sound.

Timecode is great for syncing multiple cameras and separately recorded sound, so it’s a plus, but if you’re going to be mainly shooting single camera it’s not vital (I’d want it, but I might give it up if I had to sacrifice some other feature for it to stay in budget).

I wouldn’t worry about ProRes as it limits your choice too much IMO (there aren’t many camcorders which record ProRes, and you can always convert if you need to). I’d be much more interested in 4:2:2 TBH.

A choice of video outputs, such as HDMI and HD-SDI, is useful, and you’ll probably want gen lock if you’re going to use it in a studio.

[Philippe Neron]

Thanks Andrew

For the first phase, I will be shooting mostly music and TV videos and assume I would need at least 3 cameras to capture best shots.?

I use 3 now with the TV shows – cheap Canon “HG10s” with no timecode. Thus I assume I would need some sort of GenLock equip.
What would you recommend?

Thanks again for responding