Modern single-chip cameras--MacDV Digest #1836

[Ted Langdell]

Danny... 

I'd argue lots with you about this paragraph...

> From: "Macintosh Digital Video List" <MacDV at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
> Date: Thu, 02 Jan 2003 12:22:48 -0800
> To: "Macintosh Digital Video List" <MacDV at lists.themacintoshguy.com>
> Subject: MacDV Digest #1836
> 
> The camera section of the camcorder is an entirely different story. With
> single chip cameras, you have a consumer camera (no different than mom's old
> VHS or Betamovie) combined with a DV tape recorder. This yields spectacular
> recording of bad image quality.

Today's single chip DV and Digital 8 camera sections are miles above "mom's
old VHS or Betamovie" camcorders from 10-20 years ago... and even what was
available five or six years ago..

Set up mom's old camera against a new one from your favorite consumer
retailer, and see.

For one thing, today's camera benefit from the advances in broadcast-level
cameras that trickle down to industrial and consumer level cameras.

I'd go so far as to offer that you can get far better pictures from a
single-chip DV camera from Sears today than quite a few of the higher end
portable three-tube ENG/EFPcameras that were the last of their kind.

The tube cameras weren't as sensitive as today's chips are, and the chips of
today are far better than the first chips that were used 15-20 years ago
when the first chip cameras came out.

I've shot stuff in bright sunlight with a single-chip Hi8mm camera that
integrated quite well with sunlight footage shot by a Sony BVW-400 Beta SP
camcorder.  The photog remarked how good it looked, and compared it
favorably with his BetaSP footage.

On the other hand... the content of the footage, and how well it's shot will
sometimes render irrelevant what the footage was shot with.

Stuff I shot in 1997 with the same Hi8 Sony at a 5,000 acre night-time fire
went to most major broadcast and cable networks.

IIRC, ABC World News Sunday used some SOT I shot with the Sheriff, lit by a
couple of low-level lights on the side of a nearby ambulance.  The minimal
amount of light balanced the fire burning over a ridge behind the Sheriff,
and complemented the story he was telling.

People still watch bad prints of old Hollywood movies on TV, which often
look worse than the technical quality of "Mom's modern single-chip"
camera... tending to confirm the idea that people watch the story being
told, and the medium it's told through is of secondary importance.

If the technical quality were foremost, HDTV would have moved along much
faster toward ubiquity than it has.

Personally, making HDTV monitors or sets without an internal HDTV tuner is
one of the stupid things that's holding up acceptance/purchases.

Ted.