camcorder

[5mudg3]

Hi all,

I dont know whethere you'll be able to help me at all but its worth a go. Im looking to pick up a camcorder to film an important rugby match in the next week. Would i be able to pick one up thats good enough to do this for around the £200 mark? I really hope i can.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Ashleyj]

I very much doubt that you would get anything good enough to video an important event like this for £200.

I paid over £500 for mine and it's still classed as a consumer model. Personally I very pleased with the results from it but I only use it for holiday/family/concert videos.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Ashjuk

[rbarry]

Originally Posted by 5mudg3

Hi all,

I dont know whethere you'll be able to help me at all but its worth a go. Im looking to pick up a camcorder to film an important rugby match in the next week. Would i be able to pick one up thats good enough to do this for around the £200 mark? I really hope i can.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

A few questions to try and find out what kit might suit your needs.

These are relevant questions, although you may think they sound pedantic:

How important is the rugby match?
Who is it important to?
Why is it important?

How "good" does the footage have to be?
Good enough for who?

Does the footage have to be shot by an experienced camera operator in order to produce a professional standard of quality when played back.
Does the footage have to comply with a particular format, ie: Standard DV, HD, 16:9 or 4:3, do you need the quality of a single or three chip sensor, tape or solid state recording media.

Is the footage to be edited before being presented to the client/club audience?

Filming a sports event cries out for more than one view point; two cameras would be much better, even if one of them were mounted unmanned on a tripod. Trying to do this with one camera is going to be difficult. Editing more than one piece of footage together needs experience and patience if the resulting edit is going to be watchable.

If this is a one off event it would be better to hire good kit rather than buy low end kit. It would also show you what the difference is in quality compared to common domestic equipment.

With saying that, most HD video cameras can produce pretty good results. However, as with stills photography: technique is more imortant than tech.