Camcorder/Video camera

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Daydreamer

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Not even sure of the difference.

I would quite like one for use on the boat. There are only so many stills of the lee rail you can take....

At what point (pricepoint :)) do they start to give results that I don't have to apologise for.

Too vague I suppose but some basic guidelines would be much appreciated.
 
A video camera strictly speaking has no means of recording the picture in itself. A camcorder is a video camera with a built in recorder. Old ones used tape, newer ones use one of several different media: You can get cameras that will burn directly to a mini DVD, but the results are usually dissapointing, and the camera fairly bulky. More popular until recently is a mini Hard Drive, same as the Laptop, but the latest ones now have solid state memory cards, usually SD although some makes like Sony have their own types (watch this, they can be pricey!). If picture quality needs not to be apologised for, then avoid the dirt cheap versions, which may have inferior lenses and imaging systems, and can give pretty mediocre results. Most Cameras will have sample video viewable on UTube, so you can get an idea of quality. In cheap Camcorders, the term HD, and high pixel counts do NOT necessarily mean the picture is any good! Stick to the well know makes like Sony, Panasonic, Samsung etc, though Samsung have produced cheap cameras that have real shortcomings.

There are exceptions to every rule: I picked up a credit card sized Kodak waterproof camcorder from Currys last year on special at £19.99. The results though far from perfect are, usually, surprisingly good - particularly the under water shots!

Camcorders and salt water DO NOT MIX! One dollop of spray over the side and your expensive toy is dead - usually irretrievably. Get one that is waterproof - not as expensive as you would expect, around £250 will get you one that gives reasonable picture quality. As always, the more you pay the better the quality - but not always. some cheapos stand up remarkably well against the more expensive competition lacking only in the more sophisticated facilities.

Be aware that unlike still photography, taking video is just the beginning. It all has to be uploaded to a computer, edited up to get rid of all the duff shots, then put together and stored some way you can use it. I suspect many hours of home video never get beyond this stage! Converting a video file to an ISO image for burning to a DVD is fully automatic but takes TIME. Usually time for several cups of coffee, a read of the paper, and a chat on the phone.... A modern fast computer will let you do other things while it is doing this, but older ones or less powerful lappies will slow down to a crawl, if they allow you to do anything else at all. If you have one of these, you just have to accept that you go and dig the garden or whatever while it does it s stuff! However, watching your production on the telly makes it all worth while. Usually!


Finally some tips on filming at sea: Try to hold the camera steady - there is nothing more exasperating than a video that shoots all over the place so you can not properly see what you are looking at. This can be quite difficult on a boat bouncing around in big sea. Avoid excessive use of the usually poweful zooms camcorders have. Like powerful binos a high level of zoom at sea makes them pretty unuseable. In any case, Dont bother with digital zoom on any entry level camera - always look for optical zoom which keeps the picture sharp. Digital zoom usually just magbifies the pixels, reducing the picture defintion.

Usually, but not always, it is more dramatic to keep the camera level to the horizon: that is after all how your mind compensates for the boat heeling over. Try and keep the horizon as a reference point. Big waves rarely look big on the screen, because in a boat you are too close to them for the camera to be able to 'see' the size. Filming rough water its usually better to get wider shots so that some sense of scale in the picture is acheived. Finally, shots of the sails and rigging can make a nice contrast, but a long steady shot of the sails pulling nicely is about as interestuing as paint drying! Remember that one the boat you are immersed in your surroundings. On screen, the only information the viewer has is what is on the screen. This is quite a subtle skill, to capture that 'immersive' sense of being afloat. Pehaps I could better re-phrase that, but I hope you know what I mean!

Most Camcorders have a facility for taking still shots. In the 'entry level' range, up to around £500, stills pic quality is rarely useable. You will do better with the camera in your Phone. But again there are one or two exceptions.
 
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Daydreamer said:
Not even sure of the difference.

I would quite like one for use on the boat. There are only so many stills of the lee rail you can take....

At what point (pricepoint :)) do they start to give results that I don't have to apologise for.

Too vague I suppose but some basic guidelines would be much appreciated.
Click to expand...

If you're looking for cheap but serviceable, this looks like a tonka toy but actually works pretty well. http://www.chinavasion.com/china/wh...Auto_Image_Orientation_HD_Sports_Video_Camera. You can find a review of it on youtube.

I posted some video taken from my boat with it on youtube a while back (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkkgVKSoc1g). I viewed this on a 50" TV and the picture was fine. If you watch the video (on a PC and not a mobile device as the soundtrack I put with it has copyright issues that prevent this) you'll see that the camera is waterproof too. There have been no ill effects from the spray.

Downsides are that the sound recording is rubbish and that it creates .MOV files rather than the .wmv files favoured by the (free) Windows Movie Maker that comes with the Windows operating system.

I suppose there's also a danger that you'll get charged import duty if customs take an interest. I wasn't.
 
Personally, overpriced marketing success with poor lens and lousy sound.

I prefer my Panasonic HX-WA30, excellent zoom and focus, good sound, waterproof, wifi, good software for the pc and seamless compatibility with the mac.
 
Plenty of waterproof "tough" compact cameras with decent video capabilities.
Look for a camera with a good wide angle lens. Video specific cameras tend to focus (see what I did) on long zooms, but for on-board stuff you need wide angle.

This is from my Panasonic FT3


 
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Many thanks for the very full replies.
So many choices and so many things I wouldn't have thought about until too late.

That Panasonic name does keep cropping up doesn't it.
 
Go Pro and the like are good at what they do. Action shots you wouldn't normally get in places you wouldn't risk a camera. Go Pros are used on Top Gear.

But what they don't do well is sound or low light and they encourage people to shoot long one shots.

For decent videos you need good light, good sound and an interesting subject or people will switch off.

I can recommend http://www.7dayshop.com/7dayshop-le...-dslr-video-and-camcorder-uses-64-x-led-model if you're shooting down below or at night.
 
During the last three seasons I have been using the Panasonic Lumix G2 camera both for still photos and video. It is both easier and cheaper option to have a camera that can do both of the jobs pretty well. Like most of the today's digital cameras, Panasonic G2 records HD video. However, G2 records 720p while the newer cameras probably can do 1080p. Nevertheless, I have found the video quality sufficient for YouTube use. In my opinion, the motorized zoom is pretty much the only feature, that I have been missing from the old Sony Camcorder, which I used previously. Most of the today's system cameras can probably record quality high enough for YouTube videos etc., so I agree with the previous commentator, that the major part of the video making process is done in the editing stage.

Here is link to a YouTube video, shot last summer in the Baltic Sea with Panasonic G2:
 
This season we have also been using GoPro HD2. Nice camera, but with the waterproof case on the sound becomes very damped. One can imagine, how the sound changes, when the mic is put in a totally isolated box. However, it also protects the mic from the wind. Usually when filming during sailing, the sound becomes distorted because of the wind, so therefore I usually use music on my videos or edited sound rather than original sound captured by the mic.

Here is one YouTube video shot with GoPro (also filmed in the Baltics in 2013):
 
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