Recommendations Needed: Camera & Light Kit

[Barefootsies]

I am not looking for a high end, enterprise grade, set up. I do not need that.

However, I am looking to swap out some of my gear for a better lighting kit, and HD camera. It's time for some upgrades. While I prefer DV AVI traditionally, I am open minded to look at all recommendations including fully digital.

Fire away ladies.

[Barefootsies]

I am looking for both stills, and video cameras btw. Since I shoot both.

Thank you in advance.

[Paul Markham]

How much are you looking to spend?

Without this it's hard to offer any options. Also a few other things come into play, locations, style, etc.
Hit me up on ICQ and we can chat about your options.

[SmutHammer]

for pictures I recommend Canon and Alien Bee's

[candyflip]

I have heard great things about hacked Panasonic GH2. The shit and piss guy who posts here has some nice looking stuff he shot with it. My dad bought one a few months back, but I haven't gotten my hands on it yet.

I recently got the Sony NEX FS100 and love it. But I shoot lots of tripod and doll shots, very little handheld. There are a few other here as well that have been using them too.

I also have a Canon 7D and 60D. Again, for what I need them for...they more than suffice. I have no problem recommending them to anyone.

[Jim_Gunn]

I meant to email you last week but I've been crazy busy since I got back from Vegas. Lighting is more important than the actual camera. I would recommend daylight balanced fluorescent or newer LED lights rather than old school tungsten lights which throw a lot of heat in addition to illumination. I say daylight with an approxamite color temperature of 5500K as opposed to tungsten lights more in the range of 3500K because you can then mix in windows and sky lights and I find the video to look much more pleasing than the more orangish looking tungsten lights. I use professional Kino- Flo lights (two 4-foot, 4-banks) but you can use the smaller versions called Diva Lights. Make sure you buy the daylight bulbs! There are also newer LED light panels made by various manufacturers that are small and easy to set up.

For a videocamera, I perefer all digital nowadays rather than mini-DV tape. Of course you need a redundant hard drive backup system like G-Force RAID arrays to store the data in case one hard drive crashes. There are several viable cameras from different manufacturers. I use a broadcast quality Sony videocamera with three big 1/2" chips, but if you are looking for an all digital videocamera that is small and relatively inexpensive with a codec that is easy to edit in most editing apps like Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas you may want to get a camera that uses AVCHD. I believe that both Sony & Canon have a camera like that.

[chaze]

I am not looking for a high end, enterprise grade, set up. I do not need that.

However, I am looking to swap out some of my gear for a better lighting kit, and HD camera. It's time for some upgrades. While I prefer DV AVI traditionally, I am open minded to look at all recommendations including fully digital.

Fire away ladies.

Super cheap lights on ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/160655128160 they are made for photos but work for video too.

You will need at least the three is not two more.

5 total is the most common.

[Rothstein]

HF S30 from Canon for video, around $800 on bh.

[venus]

I have used alien bee's, they are ok but are not consistant, after trying out different lights, I neded up with Profoto...you pay a little more for them, but they are awsome.

I am not looking for a high end, enterprise grade, set up. I do not need that.

However, I am looking to swap out some of my gear for a better lighting kit, and HD camera. It's time for some upgrades. While I prefer DV AVI traditionally, I am open minded to look at all recommendations including fully digital.

Fire away ladies.

[SmutHammer]

I have used alien bee's, they are ok but are not consistant, after trying out different lights, I neded up with Profoto...you pay a little more for them, but they are awsome.

what alien bee's did you have? I have b1600's no problems yet, but so far I've only shot a few times with them.

[Barefootsies]

I meant to email you last week but I've been crazy busy since I got back from Vegas.

No worries fine sire. Thanks for the tips.

[Barefootsies]

for pictures I recommend Canon and Alien Bee's

Thanks top notch.

[tony286]

Too bad you didnt live closer. Im upgrading and selling a bunch of stuff.

[venus]

I had the 800's .. shoot a bunch of images, do not change anything, and check the images to see if you have color differences

what alien bee's did you have? I have b1600's no problems yet, but so far I've only shot a few times with them.

[mikesouth]

hey man familiar with your work...Id suggest a good HD Camera that encodes as AVCHD you can get great frame grabs from it to use as stills and not break the bank...look into the sony ax2000 or similar, it will save you on lighting too....go to home depot buy some non flicker flo lights and cover em with a half blue gel...

hit me up if ya want I can suggest other solutions too.

[SmutHammer]

I had the 800's .. shoot a bunch of images, do not change anything, and check the images to see if you have color differences

will do that tomorrow

[mikesouth]

BTW you dont need raid arrays and all that shit for digital media...couple of 300 buck 3TB gigabit network drives will do ya just fine and best buy has em for 219 bucks. You can spend a lot of money and buy top quality stuff or you can do it on a budget and get the same results for a lot less....but the one place ya don't skimp is the video camera.

[Alice22]

canon xa10 as a video camera (great quality, and not to expensive, around 2k)
Or new Nikon SLR d800, this way, you will get a great photo camera and video at one body.

For lighting i use elinchrome, they are just great.