Best HD CamCorder To Shoot Video And Take Pictures? What do you use?
 

Hey guys! newbie here! Would some of the content producers out here give me some heads up please?

I always though on HD camcorders on those big black ones with preview screen and small microphone on it, but just doing some research, i'm seeing lots of cams that look more like home camcorders but that they claim to shoot in Full HD 30fps, 720p 60fps, not sure if i read also 1080p at 60fps?!? They say they also shoot pictures? etc ....

Anyway, what do you use to shoot your content? I would like to rent some cameras to see which i feel more confortable with ....

I'm focusing on doing a good pre-producing ( Good location, lighting, model, etc ) of the scene and then just REC and leave camera shooting steady/fixed .... I may use a secondary camera just to shoot some parts of the shooting i'm liking for promo content.

So, what are your recommendations, could you point me in a good direction for a TOTALLY newbie to get tips on lightning, picking a camera, doing footage shooting and pictures at the same time as i heard, etc?

Seen some threads of people saying "look at the shoots i did with my new camera", and they look dark and out of focus .... I didn't like them, I never shoot anything, even at home, but i promoted lots of different content so i can tell when something is done properly and not .... I want to avoid this .... I mean, having a good equipment but fucking it up with lightning, pre-productions details, etc.

So, leaving the obvious part that the shooter is not secondary and that will come with experience behind the cams, but lets say i do the right lightning, pre-productions, etc and just leave camera steady/fixed shooting, what would you recommend me to use? What equipment do you use?

It would be great if every producer that reads this at least can tell me what cameras do you use and for what purposes ( probably you use many ) and i will google them and see their features :P

Also would be great if someone could tell me exactly what the big companies use for shooting if you are familiar with ( By big companies i say from brazzers/bbo to twistys)

Anyway, any feedback would be appreciated :)

Where are you located? And have you ever shot anything including non porn with a video camera? Have you ever shot a porn scene with a stills or video on a porn set?camera?


Need to know where you are coming from before i dispense advice. No disrespect.

NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL ....

Newbie tips needed .... Want to build a nice set with the correct lighting and then re-use it with good equipment. Never shoot anything, even at home, i don't like taking pics!!

For now knowing what you people use for shooting could help me to start my research a lot in this looooooooong journey :)

Right now doing some research i figured out that putting as much light as i can is always better, setting the camera white balance properly after this is crucial and with a good pre-production, avoding digital zoom and using a tripod, i just need to press REC and let the talent do the rest would be enough LOL :P

I know i will hurt myself a lot when i actually try doing it! Sounds too easy to be truth, but right now, with the research i did, it looks thats the way i will go :P

Hope some here can bring some more tips? :P

And off course recommend me equipment both for taking pictures and doing HD video, someone told me there are cameras that do both at the same time, that take pics and shoot HD? If this is true what do you have to say about this type of equipment? I'm sure their pictures won't be as good as those taken with picture only cameras, but honestly, i'm not worried of getting a picture with a resolution of 2000x2000 instead of 4000x4000 ;P

LOL, i think i got the point here of how not using the Zoom, LOL: https://youtube.com/?v=1NzEIKyAgRk

Come on people, help a newbie with some tips, no one likes sharing? I'm not even asking for a tutorial or something, maybe just some good resource where to find LEGIT information, too much generic information out there :P Or just tell me the equipment you use so i can make some research on your equipment and figure out what works better for me :P

Dam! see .... Anyone of you out there shoot with equipment like this one? This is noooooot easy .... But seems fun to learn :P

http://camcorders.about.com/gi/dynam...tal-video.html

But this is not easy at all for what i thought it could be, are brazzers, twistys, etc movies shoot with this type of equipment or this is just for big screen shootings?

You are asking a very broad question, and focusing on the wrong thing. You may as well ask what kind of guitar should a person purchase if they want to play guitar good, lol. A specific class of equipment may important to achieve a certain calibre of video or photo quality or take advantage of certain codecs for video editing or for clients preferences, but it is more important that you know how to use what you have. And like guitar, that takes practice,

Why do you want to just set the camera on a tripod and leave it alone, lol? You aren't going to get good quality like that or learn much that way. Video and stills are a two step process and every shoot is really two shoots- stills and video- on my sets so that they both come out correctly. I could tell you what kind of HD videocamera, still camera bodies & lenses, what type of professional video lighting and strobe lighting equipment I like to use and what some of the other big sites have their shooters use but you're going to spend a lot of money to get all of that stuff and still not know how to use it.

True all that you say bro. I knew i was asking something like that :P

I just need some guidance to start this long journey as i said. There are lots of equipments, techniques, etc and i don;'t have a clue where to start!

Please, tell me what equipment you use for lightning and shooting HD video/stills so i can start doing research on how this equipments work, what can i take advantage of them and start renting some of them for practising :)

I'm very picky with my work, i'm about to launch a couple of paysites next week, hopefully you will like them, content is old, but you'll see the quality of tours designs, promot tools, etc.

I'm kinda obsesive with quality when it comes to terms of products, i like being proud of what i do, not just make some quick bucks out of them, thats why i would like to, even when today its very cheap purchase HQ HD content, try to make some exclusive nice shoots .... I have a lot of fresh good performing talents i can hook up which i met on an obscure part of my life ( Escorts, underground models, etc ) LOL, i know how much they can transmit erotism into camera, i just need the right equipment to get that into a decent HD footage :) I have a big house with lots of rooms to build different locations. So i just need right now a good equipment with which i can be familiarized and start doing some camera tests.

So, if you could tell me the equipment you use as you said, that would be great. Scenes would be solo girls, teasing and dancing so sound capture its not that important, i actually thought putting them a nice song to perform with and then just edit the audio layer and take the music out of it and add a new layer with the music itself ( kinda throwing away the enviroment sound, not sure if that is a right move or its something a newbie only could think of doing .... ).

So, could you give me tips on lightining equipment and good HD cameras to take steady shoots, another one to use as a secondary HD camera which i will use ( so preferable easy to use for newbies ) which i will use to shoot the same footages being shoot by the steady cam from other point of view when i see something the talent is doing i like maybe for editing or just promo content, and at last, a good equipment for doing HQ pictures ( Would be nice if you could recommend me a camera that could do both things, i mean taking pics and doing HD filming, again, i'm not a fan of doing camera, but i'm very obbsesive with my products results [ This paysites i'm launching, i had been working on them for 2 years now ... ] and i think the only way i will be satisfied with the content results is by either doing it myself ot after crashing myself lots of time to the wall by hating the results of my shoots, at least purchase decent content after having some experience doing it ... Its hard to recognize sometimes good producers when you never shoot anything in your life ;P A little bit of practice wont hurt and could be fun ).

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to answer bro, hope you could guide me on this, and i will for sure check your store and see if i can purchase some content from yours in the future for your heads up :)

Ok, someone recommend me the Sony Z1 camera, what do you guys have to say about it?

One more question, lets say i don't have a big distance from where the talen will be performing and where the camera will be located and i want her entire body to be captured, is there any type of lens or similar i can hook to the camera in order to accomplish this?

Please help guys ;)

Where are you located? Thats 1st and foremost.


I as that, because if you are in LA, then you can come by and see an actual shoot.


Gear can coast you as little as 4K for basic stuff. Stills camera, point and shoot HD camera and a few Ari lights.

But knowing how to use it is priceless.


"Some" of My gear:

Nikon D3-$5,000 Body only.

1 Nikon lens 24mm-70mm- $1,800

2 Nikon lens 70mm-200mm- $2,400

Pro photo D4 strobe power Pack- $8,000

Pro Photo Heads 4x$700- $2,800

Canon XF305 $8,000

Wide angle lens- $800

32 Gig 600x's Compact Flash cards x2-$1,000

Kino Flow four banks lights $1,300 x 4- $5,200

Mathews C-stands $200 x 4- $800


Total:-----$35,800

This is a fraction of what I own and the minimum of what i use every time i shoot a basic flatly, evenly lit Boy/Girl scene.


And i also have 6K square feet in studio space.


Having the money for gear is key, knowing how to use it is priceless.

Hope that helps a bit.



Feel free to ICQ me anytime you have questions. I will do my best to answer them.:thumbsup

Hey bro! thanks a lot for the answer, you rock man, i will now take the time to search every equipment you just mentioned to see how it works and figure out why you would use one instead of the other one and maybe then, after doing the proper research come back and ask you some other questions about it specifically. I just had been talking with a guy here that does not make video shoots, but pictures for escorts portfolios ( I know, far from the professional work you are describing, but he is an electronic engeneer, so he is very qualified when it comes to talking about technical stuff of how video encoding works and all that shit ). Right now, what i'm concerned about from all the input he gave me is the following:

1. What happens when i don't have much space from where the talent will be performing on set and where the camera will be located, lets say is steady cam, and i want to be able to capture her whole body, i was told that for example with a Sony Z1 ( I was thinking on hiring this equipment ), without any lens on it and without doing any zoom, i would have to be like 7/8 meters from the talent in order to be able to capture her whole body! I could accomplish that distance, but honestly, i already have some nice places in house where i would like to shoot but i would be having a 2/3 meters top from distance from where the model will be performing and the camera could be held steady on a tripod, So what can i do in order to make the camera capture a wider angle in width and height without loosing quality or at least not being noticed on a, lets say 50 plasma in 1080p footage? Whats the average distance you place a camera from where the talent is performing usually, is there a standard/good practice distance or it depence a lot on the equipment used?

2. The second thing that got me most worried about is that, as i first said i think, i'm doing this for fun, want to build some solid shoots, but just to have fun, i'm very picky always with my work, so thats why even when its just for fun, i'm taking all this time to make a good research and not just take the first camera i can hook up and start shooting and will hire good equipment even when i never shoot anything in my life .... ( Already found a good set, good talent, good costumes, good make up, proper lightening, etc, basically, even when its for fun, i want it to be decently planned to at least balance the lack of experience behind the camera as you say with a good preproduction. Worst case scenario, if set if properly set and talent is good, which i may say its amazing, at least the steady cam shoots with little zoom should be good ). The thing is that off course, as this is for fun and i will be doing some camera tests first to see if i feel confortable enough doing it and it really is fun or just a waste of time and money ( As today purchasing content from solid producers non exclusive in HD is cheaper than actually hiring the equipment!! ), i will be renting all the equipment ( lights, cameras, etc ), so, time is "critical" for me, and i got said that all this old school/pro/big screen cameras like the Sony Z1, actually takes real time for video footage transfer ?!?!? What can i do to avoid this? or you actually do this each time you make a shoot? I mean give it play and wait for all you shoot to play again in order to get it on your PC? Isn't there a way to quickly transfer the footage to a laptop in order to start shooting again. Isn;t there professional cameras that actually capture video in a h264 file or similar that i can easily transfer with an USB connection like if the camera was an external HD? I will be renting good equipment, so i want to make a whole day test shoots on different sets and i will need camera to quickly download footage from it to be ready to start new shoots and then with time i will look at what i did and learn for next test shoots :P So, whats the best camera i can find out that would give me a good wide angle from a close distance and would capture very good footage in 1080p and at the same time be able to transfer footage with a huge bitrate/quality via a USB port already encoded on a popular good codec ( This last one its not critical if it can be quickly copied, don't mind re-encoding it later, but i need to be able to quicklt download from the camera ).

Dam, how much did i wrote, if you take the time to read it, i promiss that if my program goes fine, i will at least hire you for an exclusive shoot some day just for taking the time of reading all the shit i wrote, i even got bored LOL!

Thanks man! really, and i live abroad, sadly i can't go there, but you seem to be a great stand up guy, thanks for being that nice, there are not much people here willing to take the time to help as they are to get help or just say ugly things from other peoples work ;) Won't forget this .... You rock bro! Thanks again, i appreciate it a lot!

Pd: I'm launching program on monday, will send you a free lifetime membership for the nice you where, i know you would probably don't use it, but well, its all i can give you right now LOL

You are welcome to ICQ me anytime.


I just like to set people strait when it comes to getting into adult production. Its way harder than it looks, it costs a lot in gear and you can loose a lot of money shooting it yourself.


I like when people know all of the facts. I generally sway everyone against investing in porn, but if you have big money and you surround yourself with solid, knowledgable people, you can make a buck.:thumbsup

Lot's of general questions but here goes.
For video we use the Sony hdr-fx1000. You can check it out at b & h photo. The link is: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...mcorder.h tml
Still photo work is taken care of with all Canon camera equipment. I like my ds mark 3 the best. you can also find that at b & h photo.
Another new option is Canon has a 5d Mark 2 camera which not only handles the stills with a quality almost as good as my mark 3 (for lots less) but shoots hd video as well.
Well you asked what I use. That's it.
I really think you have a lot of other questions to get going. I would be happy to answer them as best I can if you e-mail me at [email protected].