A few weeks ago I found out I qualified for a grant for school. Last week I got the check in the mail. I am going to save some of it to help with next semester, but I decided it was a good excuse to finally get a decent video camera. We do have one that we bought from Best Buy last black friday which for the price has been a pretty decent camera. However, this new one has all the features I really wanted, but couldn’t afford at the time. I chose to go with the Canon HV20. The camera records in HD which will be nice once we are able to afford an HDTV. I also like that it still records to mini dv tapes. Some people do not like that fact, but I think it is still the best way to go. Most other HD cameras use hard drives or memory cards, but what do you do when you run out of hard drive space? Also, you need high capacity memory cards which can also be expensive since it is ideal to have a few of them around in case they fill up. A mini dv tape on the other hand runs about $5 and can record 60 minutes of footage. I’m sure those other options will take over tape eventually, but for me I feel like now isn’t the time yet. Once cameras come with a few hundred gigabytes then my view might change.
For anyone interested in the specs and such the product link can be viewed here.
Just an FYI it always used to bug me when people would make purchases on things that didn’t go toward schooling with their grant money, but I feel this cost is justified since I am a Digital Media student with a video emphasis. A professional camera though would cost around $3000. I decided though that this canon would be a good way for me to experiment and learn on and then once I graduate if I need the higher end camera I will purchase it when I can make some money with it.