Camcorder Professional
Deciding on a Pro HD Digital Camcorder
Do you want to buy a professional HD camcorder? If so, you really need to read this article. To begin with we will have a good look at the main features of a professional digital camcorder. We will then finish with a look at the main brands and their product ranges.
Features of a Pro High Definition Camcorder
- Manual Aperture: having the ability to manually control your lens’s aperture size is important. This will enable you to control the amount of light that the lens lets through into the camcorder, thus determining how light or dark the scene is.
- Manual Focus: when using auto focus, you will find there will be a tendency for the lens to lose its focus as objects come and go from the scene. With manual focus, you have full control to be able to stay focussed on your intended object.
- 3 CCDs: a CCD is a chip in the camcorder that records the image as digital information. 3 CCD chips means better quality images.
- White Balance: different scenes have a different balance of colors. For example, the light inside your house has a yellow tint, but light from the sun is more towards the blue end. With manual white balance control, you can set the color tone to your liking.
- Sound Control: it is essential that you are able to control the recording sound volume manually, as different scenes will require different recording levels.
- Headphone Jack: it is important to be able to monitor the sound via headphones, so check that the camcorder has a headphone jack.
- Filter Ring: does the camcorder have a screw ring around the lens? A filter ring is extremely useful if you want to add various filters to your lens, such as a UV to protect from scratches or a polarising filter.
- Audio Inputs: although all camcorders come with their own built-in microphones, it’s important to be able to attach additional microphones if you want to record audio from specific people or objects.
- Automatic Settings: although manual controls are an important part of any good professional camcorder, sometimes you will want to just let the automatic settings make the decisions for you, so a mixture of both automatic and manual functions is essential.
- Lens Adapters or Removable Lens: although only the top-of-the-range camcorders allow you to change lenses, some camcorders are able to use lens adaptors to change the existing lens to telephoto, wide angle, etc.
Top Pro High Def Camcorder Makes & Their Range of Products
There aren’t actually a huge number of professional camcorder brands out there, because professional camcorders are quite a specialist product.
- Panasonic: $670-$6,000. A good range of fine quality high definition digital camcorders across a big price range.
- Sony: $1,500-$5,200. As with Panasonic, a good range spread across a large spectrum of prices.
- Canon: $2,100-$10,000. A few very high quality high definition digital camcorders.
- JVC: $3,500-$5,400. A few very fine quality high definition digital camcorders.
About the Author
Still not decided which digital camcorder to buy? Check out High Definition Camcorder Reviews where you will find reviews of all the best HD digital camcorders, such as the the HDR FX1
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Canon XA10 HD 64GB 3.5″ LCD Professional Camcorder $2,267.93 |
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